MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Keith Couch worked his third straight complete game and the Portland Sea Dogs hammered their way to a 11-0 Eastern League baseball win over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats Thursday night at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.
Couch set a Sea Dogs franchise record with his seventh career complete game.
Couch (W, 6-4) earned the shutout with seven hits allowed, no walks and six strikeouts. It marks his second straight nine-inning complete game.
He has recorded four nine-inning complete games in his minor league career. The win was the 25th in his career with Portland, the second most in franchise history.
The Sea Dogs got things started on a two-out, two-run single by Mauricio Dubon in the third inning off of Connor Greene to make it 2-0.
Portland scored eight more runs in the fifth — all with two outs. Aneury Tavarez drew a bases- loaded walk off Murphy Smith to plate the first run, then Jake Romanski followed with a two-run single to make it 5-0. Rainel Rosario and Tzu-Wei Lin each added an RBI single, then Yoan Moncada hit a three-run homer to center.
The eight-run fifth was the highest scoring inning for the Sea Dogs this season. They sent 11 men to the plate and had six hits and two walks.
The Sea Dogs cranked out 14 hits and six of the nine in the lineup had multi-hit games. Moncada tied a career high with three, while Dubon, Cody Decker, Romanski, Rosario, and Lin each had two apiece.