Sweep bid falls short

About two feet short, to be more precise. That's how close "L'il Papi" Luis Jimenez came to emulating his namesake and sending the Sea Dogs to victory on Friday night. Jimenez hit a towering fly ball on a 3-2 pitch from Akron Aeros pitcher Tony Sipp to the deepest part of Hadlock Field, only to see Aeros center fielder Trevor Crowe reel it in right in front of the 400 foot marker. Jimenez was attempting to save the day after the Sea Dogs allowed two runs in the top of the 9th and send Portland to its first-ever Eastern League championship. Following Chris Durbin's strikeout, Akron had a 6-4 victory and fans were sent to the ticket offices to buy seats to tonight's game four.

The game was hardly an thing of beauty, featuring five errors, three hit batsmen and 22 men left on base. Neither starting pitcher made it through the fifth inning, and the Akron bullpen gave away a lot of free baserunners with wild pitching to allow the Sea Dogs to crawl back to a 4-4 tie, before Brett Evert returned the favor and the lead in the 9th. However, the stands were packed (a Sea Dogs playoff record attendance of 7,195) and vocal, and a true playoff atmosphere persisted. Brandon Moss hit his third homer of the playoffs and added an RBI single to lead Portland's offense, while Akron was paced by second baseman Brandon Pinkney (4 hits, 2 runs) and DH Brian Barton (3 hits, 2 RBI, 2 stolen bases).

Game 4 is tonight at 6:00 pm. I'm off to the game shortly, otherwise I'd have a more complete post for Game 3.