Snapped! Dogs End Skid with 5-1 Win Over Squirrels

Rodriguez gives up a run over six, De La Cruz homers again in win

Portland, Maine - The Portland Sea Dogs (76-50) bounced back off of a series sweep and returned to their winning ways with a 5-1 win over the Richmond Flying Squirrels (70-55) Friday night at Hadlock Field. The win marks the 76th of the season for Portland, tying the 2005 Sea Dogs for the most wins as a Red Sox affiliate.

The Sea Dogs sent Eduardo Rodriguez to the hill in hopes of snapping a four-game losing streak and he certainly got them off on the right foot.  The southpaw pitched a scoreless first and froze Kelby Tomlinson with a 96 MPH fastball for his first strike out of the night.

Rodriguez (5-7) picked up another two strikeouts and pitched around two hits in the second inning and kept Richmond off the board in the third with another scoreless inning.

Richmond's Ty Blach matched his counterpart with two scoreless innings, but the 'Dogs struck for a pair and broke the scoreless tie in the third inning.

Shannon Wilkerson began the rally with a single and Keury De La Cruz walked with one out, putting runners
at the corners for Michael Almanzar. The big third baseman hit a fly ball to right and plated Wilkerson on the sacrifice fly.

A wild pitch from the lefty put De La Cruz into scoring position and he scored with each on an RBI single off the bat of Carson Blair, which doubled the Portland lead to 2-0.

Portland's lefty worked around two more hits and tallied his fifth strikeout in the fourth, while his offense scored another in the bottom half.

Heiker Meneses doubled with two down and stole third on a ball four pitch to Wilkerson, again placing runners at the corners. Mike Miller followed with an RBI single against Blach (7-7) and Portland held the 3-0 lead.

Each pitcher tossed a perfect fifth, before allowing a run apiece in the sixth.

Rodriguez allowed a one-out single to Devin Harris and a two-out single to right off the bat of Myles Schroder, which brought home the first run and cut Richmond's deficit to 3-1.

The Sea Dogs manufactured a run and upped their lead back to three with a run in the bottom half of the inning. Stefan Welch drew a leadoff walk and scored on Wilkerson's sacrifice fly to right, three batters later, making it 4-1.

De La Cruz capped off the scoring for Portland with a laser home run that just snuck out of Hadlock in right field, against Jose Casilla, and made it 5-1 Sea Dogs.

Rodriguez's night came to a close after six innings. The lefty allowed the one run on eight hits; he did not walk a batter and struck out seven. Mike McCarthy retired six of the seven he faced in two scoreless innings and Noe Ramirez loaded the bases in the ninth, but pitched out of it in scoreless fashion.

Blach's outing ended after five and one-third; he finished allowing four runs on five hits. He walked a career-high five and struck out three. Casilla gave up a run on the De La Cruz blast over an inning and two-thirds and Daniel Slania tossed a scoreless eighth.

The Sea Dogs and Flying Squirrels resume their series with game two, tonight at 6:00 PM from Hadlock Field. RHP Keith Couch (7-1, 2.97) is scheduled to go for Portland and he will face RHP Clayton Blackburn (3-5, 3.20) of the Squirrels. Radio coverage begins at 5:40 PM on the U.S. Cellular Sea Dogs Radio Network. MiLB.tv coverage begins at 5:55 PM.