Portland Wins Battle of the Sea's
Down 5-3 in the seventh inning, Oscar Tejeda scored on a Ryan Dent sacrifice fly to center to bring the Sea Dogs within one. Mark Wagner provided the big hit, a two out two run double that gave the Sea Dogs the 6-5 lead. Will Middlebrooks picked-up his Eastern League leading 76th RBI when he singled home Wagner to extend the lead to 7-5.
Tyler Stohr (0-1) suffered the loss yielding four runs on four hits in 1.2 innings.
The Sea Dogs took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Ronald Bermudez reached on an error by third baseman Bryan Pounds and scored when Oscar Tejeda ripped a double to right field.
Brandon Douglas tied the game at one when he singled off Charlie Haeger allowing Jamie Johnson to score.
Erie broke the 1-1 tie in the sixth inning when Pounds pounded a double scoring Audy Ciriaco, who had tripled. Bryan Holaday added a sacrifice fly to center scoring Deik Scram as the SeaWolves took a 3-1 lead.
Portland started Haeger went six innings allowing the three runs on five hits. The knuckleballer struck out four and walked four.
The Sea Dogs loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom half of the sixth forcing Erie starter Casey Crosby from the game. Stohr entered the game for Erie and quickly got Wagner to pop-up to first and struck out Middlebrooks looking. Matt Spring stepped to the plate for Portland and ripped a double to left enabling Dent and Khoury to score to tie the game at three. Both runs were charged to Crosby.
The Tigers affiliate struck for two runs in the top of the seventh off reliever Josh Fields to take a 5-3 lead. Justin Henry had a sacrifice fly scoring Johnson and Ciriaco added a RBI single.
Despite surrendering the two runs in the seventh, Fields (2-0) picked-up the win for Portland tossing two innings. The Sea Dogs would score four runs in the bottom of the seventh to capture the lead at 7-5.
Portland added a pair of insurance runs in the eighth when Alex Hassan singled to right scoring Tejeda and Dent.
Ryan Khoury played in his 304th game as a Sea Dog tying Iggy Suarez for the franchise record. Khoury is also the franchise leader in runs scored (170), walks (157), and plate appearances (1,257). He is four doubles shy of Chih-Hsien Chiang's club record for doubles.
The Sea Dogs are off on Monday and will head to Reading, Pennsylvania for a four game/ three day road trip on Tuesday against the Phillies. Sea Dogs' righty Brock Huntzinger (5-10, 5.64) is slated to start Tuesday's 7:05 PM contest. Reading will send righty Tyler Cloyd (3-3, 4.72) to the mound. The Sea Dogs return home for their second to last homestand of the season on Friday, August 19th.