PORTLAND, Maine — The Portland Sea Dogs walked off with a 6-5 win in a 16-inning marathon over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in a game that began on Thursday night at Hadlock Field and ended five hours and nine minutes later at 12:14 a.m. on Friday morning.
Outfielder Cole Sturgeon (1-0) earned the win with three scoreless innings of relief and scored the winning run in the bottom of the 16th on a wild pitch by Cory Burns (2-5). Sturgeon played 10 innings in left field to begin the game and then three as the right fielder before being called upon to pitch in the 14th inning. It was the longest game both teams had played this season.
New Hampshire jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a sacrifice fly from John Murphy, then added to its lead in the third on a solo homer by Dalton Pompey and an RBI single by Dwight Smith, Jr. to make it 3-0.
Austin Bibens-Dirkx held the Sea Dogs scoreless through five innings and recorded two quick outs in the sixth when the Sea Dogs rallied. After a wall ball double by Jantzen Witte and a single from Sam Travis, Bibens-Dirkx was lifted for Luis Perez to set up a lefty-lefty matchup against Carlos Asuaje. But Asuaje would deliver an RBI single to make it a 3-1 game, then Manuel Margot hit a two-run double to tie the game at three.
New Hampshire answered in the very next half inning off of Williams Jerez, when Dalton Pompey connected for a two-out single — his third hit of the game — to give New Hampshire the 4-3 advantage.
Portland would answer back in the bottom of the seventh. With two outs and runners on second and third, Witte hit a Jimmy Cordero fastball to score Jake Romanski and Marco Hernandez and give Portland its first lead of the night at 5-4.
Mike Augliera worked five innings in the start for Portland and allowed three runs (two earned) on seven hits, walking none and striking out four.
Trailing 5-4, New Hampshire rallied in the ninth off of Madison Younger, who had not allowed an earned run since May 29. After a leadoff walk to Jorge Flores and a sacrifice bunt by Shane Optiz, Dalton Pompey hit an RBI single for his fourth hit of the night to tie the game 5-5.
It would remain deadlocked until seven innings later, when the Sea Dogs loaded the bases with nobody out against Cory Burns before he issued a wild pitch while facing Witte to allow Sturgeon to score the winning run.