MANCHESTER, NH — The New Hampshire Fisher Cats (21-39, 51-77) dropped their second consecutive contest to the Portland Sea Dogs (38-23, 74-56) at Delta Dental Stadium on Friday night, 3-1. Garrett Spain posted New Hampshire’s lone run in the bottom of the ninth with his 11th home run of the season, a solo fly.
Fisher Cats pitchers tallied 14 strikeouts against Sea Dogs batters in the Friday loss. Starter Abdiel Mendoza (L, 8-11) fell responsible for all three Portland runs behind four strikeouts in four innings. Sea Dogs southpaw Connelly Early (W, 2-2) shined with nine strikeouts in six scoreless innings.
Portland scored all their runs in the top of the fifth. Alex Binelas and Blaze Jordan worked in tandem with back-to-back doubles off Mendoza to score the game’s first run. Max Ferguson singled and an ensuing walk to Elih Marrero ended Mendoza’s night. Right-hander Hunter Gregory slung a wild pitch to plate Jordan and stretch the Sea Dogs lead to 2-0. Ferguson crossed home on a sacrifice fly from Mikey Romero to move the score to 3-0.
Gregory ended the inning with a strikeout and struck out the side in a scoreless sixth inning to finish with four punchouts. Reliever Anders Tolhurst fired a scoreless pair of innings and struck out five batters. Fellow righty Andrew Bechtold finished the effort with a strikeout in a scoreless ninth.
New Hampshire’s Dasan Brown finished the game 1-for-2 with a double, hit-by-pitch and a walk. Designated hitter Ryan McCarty singled twice in a 2-for-4 night.
Saturday, September 7 is the final 20th Anniversary Celebration of the season, which features a replica 2018 Eastern League championship ring giveaway, presented by Northeast Delta Dental. Fisher Cats RHP Michael Dominguez (2-6, 4.15 ERA) toes the rubber against Portland’s David Sandlin (0-2, 6.97 ERA) with a 6:35 PM EDT first pitch.