PORTLAND, Maine — The New Hampshire Fisher Cats rallied for two runs in the eighth inning and upended the Portland Sea Dogs 5-4 in an Eastern League baseball series finale in front of a sellout crowd on Sunday afternoon at Hadlock Field.
New Hampshire’s Christian Lopes singled off Austin Maddox (L, 2-2) with one out in the eighth and stole second base. Jason Leblebijian drove him in with an RBI single and advanced to second on an error, then Rowdy Tellez singled to score Leblebijian and put the Fisher Cats ahead for good 5-4.
The loss erased a quality start for Teddy Stankiewicz, his team leading 10th. Stankiewicz went six innings and allowed three runs on five hits while walking one and striking out five.
Fisher Cats starter Shane Dawson allowed four runs on six hits in six innings. He walked three and struck out four.
John Stilson (W, 4-0) and Chris Smith (S, 4) combined for three hitless innings to shut the door for New Hampshire.
Portland had RBI hits by Andrew Benintendi, Ryan Court, and Mauricio Dubon. Yoan Moncada extended his on-base streak to 14 games.
On Saturday night, the Sea Dogs scored in each of the first four innings and cruised to a 7-3 win over the Fisher Cats.
Making his Double-A debut, Jacob Dahlstrand (W, 1-0) allowed three runs (two earned) on just three hits, walking two and striking out two.
For the second straight night, Nate Freiman gave the Sea Dogs an early 1-0 lead with a sacrifice fly in the first inning to score Yoan Moncada.
Portland’s Cody Decker and Jake Romanski led off the second with back-to-back doubles off of Jeremy Gabryszwski to make it 2-0. After singles by Cole Sturgeon and Tzu-Wei Lin, Moncada drew a bases-loaded walk to put Portland up 3-0. Then Mauricio Dubon hit into a 5-4-3 double play, but Sturgeon scored to extend the lead to 4-0.
Decker added a solo homer in the third and Dubon had an RBI single in the fourth.
Derrick Loveless teed off and hit a two-run homer into the Sea Dogs bullpen to cut Portland’s lead down to 6-2 in the fifth and Jorge Flores added a sacrifice fly later in the inning.
Portland added insurance on an RBI double by Mauricio Dubon in the sixth.
The Sea Dogs’ Williams Jerez and Luis Ysla combined for three hitless, scoreless innings of relief to close out the game.