The New Hampshire Fisher Cats’ second winning streak of the year won’t grow to five games. That comes at the hands of the Portland Sea Dogs, who handed the ‘Cats a 4-3 loss in an early final on Wednesday.
Portland got things going quickly, scoring a pair of runs in the first and another in the second thanks to an RBI single from Deiner Lopez.
New Hampshire got back into the contest in the third, translating a pair of hits and a pair of walks into a pair of runs.
Mike Olt’s smash to the Sam Adams Bar and Grill in the fourth built the Portland lead back into a two-run advantage, and that would be enough. New Hampshire’s last run came from an Andrew Guillotte single in the fourth, bringing home Tuesday night hero Emilio Guerrero.
Portland pitching allowed just two hits from the fifth to ninth innings, with Sea Dogs relievers Jacob Dahlstrand and Jake Cosart allowing just one batter above the minimum over those final innings.
Dahlstrand (3-1) got the win after pitching four innings in relief of starter Jalen Beeks. Cosart pitched the eighth and ninth innings to get his second save of the year, the first coming earlier this week against Trenton.
Connor Greene (1-4) earned credit for the loss. His poor luck continues, he’s gone above 90 pitches in all but two of his appearances this season and approximately two-thirds of those are strikes. That was the case on Wednesday, with 61 of his 96 pitches coming across as strikes, but he didn’t strike them together often, recording only three strikeouts.
Greene went six innings in the effort, allowing all of Portland’s runs, scattering eight hits, walking two and hitting Joseph Monge in the second.
Guillotte continued his strong start as a Fisher Cat, going 2-for-3 in his second game for the team, following a 3-for-3 game in his debut.
Lefty Shane Dawson (1-5, 6.39 ERA) now aims to prevent another losing streak for New Hampshire, facing fellow southpaw Trey Ball (1-3, 5.06 ERA), with Game 3 of the series set to start at 6:35 p.m.