The calendar says there are two more weeks before autumn.
Don’t believe it.
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EASTERN LEAGUE FINALS
WHO: Binghamton Mets vs. Richmond Flying Squirrels
SERIES: Best of five
GAME 1: Tuesday at Richmond
GOING UP
Sea Dogs players who were promoted this season:
To Boston
• Mookie Betts
• Carlos Rivero
To Pawtucket
• Rusney Castillo *
• Miguel Celestino
• Keith Couch
• Derrik Gibson
• Deven Marrero
• Henry Owens
• Noe Ramirez
• Eduardo Rodriguez *
• Travis Shaw
• Matt Spring
• Blake Swihart
• Jose Valdez
* after Sunday’s game
Portland’s boys of baseball bid summer adieu Sunday afternoon at Hadlock Field, as the Sea Dogs failed for the second day in a row to advance to the Eastern League Championship Series.
The Binghamton Mets beat the Sea Dogs 8-5 before a matinee crowd of 2,813 to win the Eastern Division championship 3-2, and will face Western champion Richmond on Tuesday in Virginia in another best-of-five series.
Despite a franchise-best 88-54 record in the regular season, the Sea Dogs couldn’t find a way to put away Binghamton after taking a 2-1 series lead Friday night and needing one more victory to advance to the finals for the first time since their only league title in 2006.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” said Sea Dogs Manager Billy McMillon, “because we all expected, we all hoped that we’d be ending the season in a champagne shower. But despite the promotions, despite the injuries, there were very few games that we weren’t competitive in.”
Saturday’s game was the rare exception, an 11-4 rout in which Binghamton batted around in both the fifth and sixth innings. Sunday looked like it would be a repeat when the Mets sent 10 men to the plate in a six-run fourth to take an 8-1 lead.
It was 4-1 with two out when Sea Dogs starter Luis Diaz hit a batter to load the bases and McMillon brought in reliever Dayan Diaz to face Darrell Ceciliani, whose bases-loaded double had broken open Saturday’s game.
On Sunday, the left-handed Ceciliani struck again, lofting an outside pitch off the wall in left-center to score three more runs and make it 7-1. Sea Dogs left fielder Keury De La Cruz opted to play the carom rather than attempt to catch a ball that Sea Dogs center fielder Shannon Wilkerson said “probably hit about head-high or so” off the wall.
De La Cruz, who missed the first two months of the season because he broke his wrist diving for a ball in a major league exhibition game on the final day of spring training, said he thought the ball was “too high” to reach.
McMillon, who patrolled left field for the Sea Dogs in 1995 before the wall grew to its present height of 37 feet, said he would not want to second guess his player.
“Could he maybe have gotten it? I’m not sure,” McMillon said. “I’ll say this, there may be some outfielders who might get to that ball.”
As it was, Ceciliani scored on a single by Travis Taijeron to make it 8-1, but Diaz and fellow relievers Robby Scott (eight straight outs) and Wilfredo Boscan shut down Binghamton the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, the Sea Dogs clawed back with runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth to pull within 8-5 with three innings remaining.
“When you’re playing against Portland, you can’t be comfortable, especially when you’re playing them at (Hadlock),” said Binghamton Manager Pedro Lopez from a visiting clubhouse redolent of light beer and champagne. “We knew that we needed to get to the ninth inning to get to (closer Cody) Satterwhite.”
Wilkerson homered in the fourth off Binghamton starter Gabriel Ynoa, who gave up five hits and struck out eight before departing in the sixth. Cuban defector Rusney Castillo, recently signed by the Red Sox as a free agent, followed a Heiker Meneses double with a run-scoring single to make it 8-3.
A Jonathan Roof RBI double (on which Ceciliani crashed into the wall in left-center in a vain attempt at a two-out catch) chased Ynoa and Meneses greeted reliever Hansel Robles with a sharp single to make it 8-5.
“It just shows the resilience of this team,” Roof said. “We haven’t given up all year. At 8-1, we could have just folded and not even put up a fight, but we gave ourselves a chance.”
Robles allowed only one more baserunner, however, when Mike Miller opened the home seventh with a single and was stranded at second. Satterwhite closed the door in the ninth with two strikeouts before a Miller double gave the home crowd new hope.
With the potential tying run on deck, Satterwhite induced a grounder from De La Cruz to end the series and set off a Binghamton celebration in front of the pitching mound.
“The guys just never quit,” McMillon said. “Even when De La Cruz had two strikes on him in that last at-bat, I thought we were going to win that ballgame. I think the sentiment in the dugout and in the bullpen was that we were going to continue to play.”
Instead, the Sea Dogs are done for the year.
Summer, unofficially, is over.
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