The New Hampshire Fisher Cats (52-35) jumped out to an early lead and held off the Portland Sea Dogs (42-44) by the score of 8-2 Wednesday night at Hadlock Field to take the final game of the four-game set.
New Hampshire first baseman David Cooper had a solid ballgame at the plate, going three-for-four with two homers and four RBI to keep Portland out of reach.
In a sign of what was to come, the first three New Hampshire batters reached base in the first inning off of Portland starter Jeremy Kehrt to jump out to a 2-0 lead. Travis Snider continued to enjoy his rehab stint with the Fisher Cats, as he drove in Darin Mastroianni with an RBI single to bring in the first run of the game.
Portland would get one back in the bottom half of the first. Che-Hsuan Lin would lead off with a walk and a steal of second before advancing to third on a Nate Spears single. The base hit would be Spears’ fifth consecutive at-bat with a hit. Two batters later, Luis Exposito hit a sacrifice fly to leftfield to score Lin for his team leading 61st RBI.
However, Cooper would extend the New Hampshire lead to 6-2 with homeruns in the second and third innings. The first was a solo shot that hit off the Ford sign above the video board in the second, while the other was a two-out three-run shot into the U.S. Cellular Pavilion.
With the two home runs for Cooper, New Hampshire has now homered 17 times in their last 13 games.
Matt Sheely was two-for-three with a walk for Portland and scored the team’s second run on a Lin groundout in the sixth inning.
New Hampshire would add two more runs in the fourth on a two-out two-run double by Shawn Bowman off Portland reliever Ryne Lawson. The two runs that scored on the double closed the book on Kehrt (1-6) who went 3.2 innings allowing eight runs on seven hits and six walks while striking out three.
Despite Lawson allowing the two inherited runners to score, the Portland bullpen was strong. Lawson went on 3.2 scoreless innings, before giving way to lefty Mitch Herold who would toss two scoreless innings of his own for the home team.
The pitching was quality for New Hampshire throughout the game, as starter Rey Gonzalez (1-0) went seven innings, allowing just the two runs on six hits with 3 strikeouts. Danny Farquhar threw two scoreless frames in relief.
Portland will continue their eight game homestand Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Hadlock Field when the Sea Dogs and RHP Stephen Fife (4-2, 4.11) take on the New Britain Rock Cats and LHP Tyler Robertson (1-8, 5.31).
NOTES: The paid attendance for tonight’s game was 6,119…New Hampshire had their first 7 leadoff hitters reach base before Herold struck out Adeiny Hechavarria to begin the eighth…New Hampshire is 39-12 when scoring first this season.
Box Score
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