Another Heartbreaking Loss

For the second consecutive night, the Portland Sea Dogs bullpen gave up two runs in the 9th inning to send the Akron Aeros to victory in the EL Championship series. All the marbles will be decided this afternoon at 1:00 p.m.

The Sea Dogs had a nice rally from a 4-0 deficit, led by two more home runs by Brandon Moss, who now has 5 HR and 10 RBI in the postseason. Moss, who turned 23 yesterday, has been a man posessed. Unfortunately, so has Aeros 2B Brandon Pinckney, who had his second consecutive four-hit game, and drove home the tying run in the top of the 9th with a single that sent leadoff hitter Trevor Crowe to third base and set up Ryan Goleski's game-winning sacrifice fly.

The late-inning collapse was disappointing, but it was equally disappointing that a few mistakes by Portland earlier in the game were equally costly. A potential rally was quashed in the second when Luis Jimenez channeled the spirit of Kevin Millar and was thrown out by about 20 feet in trying to advance on a Dusty Brown single to left field. In the third inning, Portland second baseman David Bacani dropped Crowe's popup, which resulted in a two-base error and set up an RBI single for Goleski. In the 4th, old friend Jared "the Wicket" Sandberg hit a pop fly to right that either Bacani or Jimenez might have caught had they not collided. One hit later, #9 hitter Wyatt Toregas hit a three-run blast over the left field wall for a 4-0 lead.

And while I don't want to get into the habit of second-guessing the manager, there were a couple of quirky moves that I don't necessarily agree with. First is the handling of the bullpen. For the second night in a row, Todd Claus removed a pitcher who had thrown two effective, and very economical innings to bring someone else in for the 9th. On Friday night, it was Barry Hertzler who had retired the Aeros on 16 pitches who was removed in favor of Brett Evert, who proceeded to allow hits to the first three batters he faced. Last night, Kyle Jackson threw 17 pitches to retire five batters (six outs) before Claus brought in Hertzler in the 9th. Hertzler got ahead of #8 batter Alex Ochoa, then threw four straight balls for a walk. After Ochoa advanced on a ground out, Claus ordered a walk of leadoff hitter Crowe, which served to both put the lead run on base and bring up pistol-hot Brandon Pinckney. As reported above, the move backfired.

It's too bad that the Sea Dogs lost a game that they by all rights should have won, but they have one final chance this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. I'm going to that one, too, but I've changed my luck with box seats in Section 110. Portland's luck is going to change, too. Staff ace Dervern Hansack will be on the mound for the Sea Dogs. Hope to see you there!