Sea Dogs Win Third Straight

Sea Dogs Win Third Straight

Rodriguez 3-for-5 with 2 2B, HR, 3 RBI

Portland, Maine - The Portland Sea Dogs offense tied a season high collecting 14 hits defeating the New Britain Rock Cats 8-5 Sunday afternoon before a crowd of 6,663 fans at Hadlock Field.  The Sea Dogs (20-29) earned their third straight win and improve to 8-4 against the first place Rock Cats (28-21) this season.

Reynaldo Rodriguez and Juan Carlos Linares led the offensive outburst with three hits apiece.  Rodriguez was 3-for-5 with two doubles, a home run, and three RBI, 19 out of Rodriguez's last 22 hits have gone for extra bases.

The Sea Dogs sent nine batters to the plate scoring five times in the seventh inning leading Portland to the victory.  Down 4-2, Jeremy Hazelbaker led-off the inning with a triple and scored on a Shannon Wilkerson RBI single.  After Juan Carlos Linares singled, Rodriguez added his second double of the game scoring Wilkerson to tie the game at four.  The Sea Dogs took the lead on a RBI single by Dan Butler.  Derrick Gibson and Zach Gentile also picked-up RBI's in the inning.

New Britain's Rene Tosoni led-off the game with a double off Chris Martin.  Tosoni would later score on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Nate Hanson to give the Rock Cats a 1-0 lead.

The Rock Cats extended the lead in the fourth inning when Evan Bigley belted a three run homer off the left-field foul pole.  The home run was Bigley's fourth of the season and second in as many days as the Twins affiliate took a 4-0 lead.

Rodriguez cut the lead in half with a two run homer in the bottom of the fourth.  The home run was his 11th of the season and tenth in the month of May.

Martin lasted four innings allowing four runs on three hits.  Jeremy Kehrt (2-0) relieved Martin and tossed 3.2 shutout innings allowing one hit and did not walk a batter to earn the win.

Hazelbaker added a home run in the eighth for the Sea Dogs.

Caleb Clay surrendered a home run to Deibinson Romero in the ninth but earned his fifth save of the season.

Gentile singled in the fourth to extend his hit streak to 11 games.

The Sea Dogs and Rock Cats will conclude the Memorial Day weekend series with a 1:00 PM game on Monday.  Lefty Chris Hernandez (2-3, 3.06) will get the start for Portland.  New Britain has not yet announced a starter.  Tickets are available and can be ordered by calling the Sea Dogs Ticket Office at 207-879-9500 or online at www.seadogs.com.