PORTLAND — Coming off a three-day break for All-Star festivities, the Portland Sea Dogs managed to avoid a doubleheader sweep.
The reprieve, however, may be temporary.
Persistent rain and a wet Hadlock Field prompted suspension of the second game of an Eastern League doubleheader Thursday night with the Sea Dogs trailing the visiting Binghamton Rumble Ponies 2-0 in the middle of the fourth inning.
The Rumble Ponies won the opener 3-2 in eight innings to end a five-game home winning streak for Portland.
The teams will resume their seven-inning contest Friday afternoon at 5:30 followed by a game originally scheduled for 7 p.m. The nightcap will be shortened from nine to seven innings.
Only a few hardy souls from a crowd announced as 5,266 remained at rainy Hadlock through an hour of Game 2 Thursday night and a 35-minute delay before umpires suspended the contest.
Binghamton second baseman Gavin Cecchini, the younger brother of former Sea Dogs infielder Garin Cecchini, stroked a run-scoring double in the second game after delivering the tie-breaking single in the eighth inning of Game 1.
Brett Netzer of Portland tags out Barrett Barnes of Binghamton who was trying to stretch a hit into a double in the second inning of the opener. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
The only Portland hit in Game 2 so far is a leadoff single by Jarren Duran, who stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error with none out. Rumble Ponies starter Joseph Shaw kept him there with a pair of a strikeouts and a foul pop.
The Rumble Ponies won the opener in a game that featured impressive performances from both starting pitchers and a pair of Sea Dogs thrown out on close plays at home.
The Sea Dogs took an early 1-0 lead against Binghamton starter David Peterson, a first-round pick in 2017 out of the University of Oregon. Joey Curletta’s two-out double off the wall in left-center scored Bobby Dalbec (walk) but Luke Tendler (single) was not as fortunate.
“I don’t know if he ran out of gas or he just got a bad jump with two outs,” said Sea Dogs Manager Joe Oliver, who as third base coach waved Tendler home. “But it turned out to be a big run.”
Brett Netzer of Portland makes an impressive throw to get Binghamton’s Quinn Brodey out at first to open the third inning. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
The Ponies scratched out an unearned run in the second thanks to a throwing error. Cecchini’s wall double in the third helped make it 2-1. Portland lefty Matt Kent, a master of mixing speeds and arm slots, retired 10 of the next 11 batters.
The Sea Dogs tied it at 2 in the fifth on an infield chopper by Jeremy Rivera after consecutive singles by Brett Netzer and Jhon Nunez. Until Netzer’s opposite-field hit, Peterson had set down 10 in a row.
It remained tied through seven, thanks to Kent’s escaping trouble in the seventh with a strikeout and a fly ball, each with a runner in scoring position. He struck out five, walked two, plunked a batter and yielded only four hits, all the while remaining below 90 mph on the radar.
“He keeps finding ways to battle and give us good, quality starts,” Oliver said. “He did a good job keeping the hitters off balance, mixed his pitches really well and saved something for crunch time in the seventh inning.”
Per league rules, each team opened the extra frame with a runner at second base. Cecchini greeted reliever Adam Lau (1-3) with an RBI single to make it 3-2 for Binghamton. The Sea Dogs bunted their runner, Nunez, to third but with the infield playing in, he was cut down at the plate by a throw from shortstop Andres Gimenez.
NOTES — The four Sea Dogs who flew to Richmond for Wednesday night’s Eastern League All-Star Game ran into travel delays and didn’t return to Portland until roughly 2:30 Thursday afternoon – Dalbec, Nunez and pitchers Tanner Houck and Dedgar Jimenez. The Eastern Division All-Stars managed only two hits in a 5-0 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 9,560 at The Diamond. … Duran went 1 for 2 in Sunday’s Futures Game before a crowd of 34,386 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.
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