Dalbec homers twice in record romp

Hours after the lineup he instructs set three club records, Double-A Portland hitting coach Lee May sought perspective. It is a marathon, not a sprint, he said, and Friday's 20-2 win over Binghamton was just one game. That outlook came with a concession.

"So many times you say, 'Don't chase the results, chase the process,'" May said. "'Trust the process and have a plan.' But every now and then you need some results to know you're on the right track and things are headed the right way."

The result at NYSEG Stadium was unmatched in SeaDogs' history. They had never scored that many runs, never earned 26 hits, never gone for 48 total bases. They did Friday, and Bobby Dalbec was chief among the contributors. The second-ranked Red Sox prospect homered twice in the romp, using his second multi-homer effort of the month to bring his long ball total to 10 on the season.

Both of Dalbec's homers came on the first pitch of an at-bat. The first, a solo shot off right-hander Joshua Torres in the sixth inning, cleared the fence in left field to give Portland a 9-0 lead. The second, another solo blast in the ninth, came off Jason Krizan, an outfielder who took the mound with Binghamton trailing by double digits.

"If there's pressure and leverage on that first pitch where they have to locate it, then that puts us in an advantageous position because now they have to make a good pitch and locate," May said. "We're not just going to spot them a pitch where they get ahead. We want to be able to dictate the at-bat. So when we step into the box and they throw a cookie in the middle of the plate or in our damage zone, that's what we're hunting."

Dalbec also singled in the fifth to finish 3-for-7. The 23-year-old has hit safely in each of his last four games and owns a .247/.360/.488 slash line in 170 at-bats. His numbers were drastically better in May -- .279/.359/.596 -- than in April, when he hit .197/.361/.318.

Gameday box score

Part of slugger's improvement, May said, has been because the conditions in Portland have improved, too. The Sea Dogs dealt with cold temperatures and rain often in the season's opening month; Maine has been kinder as spring has sprung. But Dalbec also has to deal with pitchers working around him.

"He's the one guy in the lineup that nobody wants to get beat by," the coach said. "It was the same thing that [Rafael] Devers dealt with when he was here. The same thing that [Michael] Chavis dealt with when he was here. It's what you deal with when you're that type of a hitter at the Minor League level."

Dalbec's balancing act of wanting to make use of his 60-grade power and waiting for opposing pitchers to throw into it requires patience. It can "lull" a young hitter like him into slumber in the batter's box, May said. It can produce a 32 percent strikeout rate, as it did last season between Portland and Class A Advanced Salem. But if Dalbec can wait long enough, it can also yield 2018 statistics like 70 extra-base hits and 109 RBIs, both of which ranked second in all the Minors.

"For him, it's just a matter of always being in the position of yes until no," May said. "You want to be hunting every pitch until it's not your pitch, as well as not giving in and not helping them out by pushing the envelope and pressing things and swinging at the stuff that they want you to chase. … When you start to see the walks to mount up and you start to see him do damage because he is swinging at better pitches, that's the direction we want to trend in."

The Sea Dogs batted around in the fifth, seventh and ninth innings of the record-setting victory, and Tate Matheny benefited just as much as Dalbec. He cranked two homers, two singles and a career-high six RBIs.

The 25-year-old also fared better in May than April, raising a .194 average at the turn of the calendar up to .238. The key, May said, has been a rejection of the trend of trying to put the ball in the air. It showed Friday. Matheny told May that it didn't even feel like he swung when he homered to center field in the seventh inning.

"He's getting his line drives and he's staying more on-plane with the baseball," May said, "as opposed to when he was trying to lift the baseball and his front side was pulling off with everything and there was more swing and miss. He's able to stay on-plane a little better with the baseball. He's able to use a little natural loft to his swing so that when he takes a little more direct to the baseball, his swing naturally planes out."

Red Sox No. 5 prospect Tanner Houck (5-4) matched the dominance on the other side of the ball, tossing six scoreless frames. He allowed three hits and three walks while striking out seven. The right-hander has fanned exactly seven batters in three of his last four starts. Friday's gem was his first scoreless outing since throwing five one-hit frames against Hartford on April 22.

Durbin Feltman -- Boston's No. 11 prospect -- closed out the game with a scoreless ninth. He struck out one and walked one.