Sea Dogs edge Thunder Kenny Perez helps Portland overcome shaky bullpen

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PORTLAND – Monday was a bad day for citizens of “The Evil Empire.” Red Sox Nation, however, was all smiles.

Just hours after their parent club – the Boston Red Sox – notched a thrilling, come-from-behind victory over their hated rivals, the Portland Sea Dogs followed suit, over the Double A Eastern League farm club of those same New York Yankees.

Thanks to two guys named Perez, the Sea Dogs pulled out an 8-7 win over the Trenton Thunder in a late afternoon Patriots Day game at Hadlock Field.

Shortstop Kenny Perez smacked a first-pitch tailing fastball from reliever Jeff Kennard deep into left center for a game-winning RBI single with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

“I was waiting for a pitch in the zone,” said Perez, who has two last at-bat, game-winning hits this season. “I knew he had to come down the middle because he couldn’t walk me and I was just hacking at the first pitch, pretty much.”

The win was Portland’s fourth in the last six games as the Dogs move to 4-6 on the season. Trenton is now 4-4.

Things looked good for Portland starting pitcher Ryan Cameron after he left the game with a 6-4 lead at the end of the sixth. That was until the Dogs’ bullpen, which has yielded 33 runs in 41 innings, blew the lead.

Ryan Larson lasted just two-thirds of an inning after giving up three singles and a double with one out in the seventh. Juan Perez, lefthander from Villa Rivas in the Dominican Republic, relieved him and helped Portland escape further damage by issuing an intentional walk before striking out Jason Grove, who had homered in the fourth, with two runners on.

“Every pitch was working, especially my fastball,” said Juan Perez. “I was just thinking about getting ahead in the count so I could use my other pitches and offspeed stuff.”

Perez, whose build, stance, delivery, and even the way he wears his stockings are eerily reminiscent of Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, pitched 2 1/3 innings of hitless relief while striking out four batters and walking one to notch his first win.

“Juan is a guy who’s been real good for us so far and I’m really glad to see it,” said Portland manager Ron Johnson. “As a kid, he came up to us from A ball and we kind of put him in roles where he wasn’t in those kinds of situations, with the game on the line, but he’s done that for us so far this year and been very successful.”

Things couldn’t have begun much worse for the Dogs as Thunder bats were ripping Cameron. The Dogs’ starter gave up three hits – the second of which was a two-run homer over the 37-foot, green right field wall by Andy Phillips – to the first three hitters and walked the fourth.

A wild pitch put runners at the corners with nobody out, but Cameron, who was a pitch or two away from getting the hook from Johnson, wasn’t ready to hit the showers. The Massachusetts (North Adams) native came back from a 2-1 count to strike out Trenton No. 5 hitter Mitch Jones on eight pitches. The strikeout was just what Cameron and the Dogs needed as he went on to strike out the next two batters as well, on 10 pitches.

“We had a chance to break the game open in the first inning and didn’t get it done,” said Trenton manager and Maine native Carl “Stump” Merrill. “Not getting a guy in from third base with nobody out and having three guys strike out came back and haunted us.”

After enduring a 31-pitch inning, Cameron settled down and threw just 28 over the next three innings. While his arm was warming up, so were Portland’s bats.

The Dogs erupted for five in the second. With runners at the corners and two outs, Portland No. 8 hitter belted a 79 miles-per-hour offspeed pitch over the wall and the scoreboard clock for a 410-foot, three-run homer. A Raul Nieves single and a fielding error later, Mike Campo made the Thunder pay for extending the inning with a fielding error as he ripped Rik Currier’s 2-0 fastball to the base of the center field wall for a two-run triple.

Trenton cut Portland’s lead to one in the fourth as Grove’s 400-foot, two-run home run over the center field scoreboard clock with one out made it 5-4.

The Dogs got one of those runs back in the fifth with two outs. Kilburg flared one out into short left center, found a big gap and slid in safely with a triple before scoring on Jeff Bailey’s double down the left field line.

SEA DOGS 8, THUNDER 7

TRENTON (4-4) PORTLAND (4-6)

ab r h bi ab r h bi

Reese, cf 5 2 2 0 Medrano, 2b 5 1 0

Phillips, 3b 5 2 2 2 Camp, lf 5 1 2

Cano, 2b 5 1 2 1 Hattig, dh 4 0 0

Rifkins, 1b 3 0 1 1 Roneberg, rf 4 2 0

Jones, lf 4 0 0 0 Kilburg, 1b 3 2 0

Weber, dh 2 1 0 0 Bailey, c 5 0 2

Melian, dh 0 0 0 0 Perez, ss 5 0 1

Grove, rf 4 1 1 2 Johnson, cf 4 1 3

Fuentes, c 3 0 1 0 Nieves, 3b 4 1 0

Navarro, c 1 0 0 0

Tejeda, ss 4 0 0 0

Totals 36 7 9 6 Totals 39 8 13 8

Trenton 200 200 300 ? 7

Portland 050 010 101 ? 8

E?Grove, Tejeda; Medrano; LOB?Trenton 6; Portland 10; 2B?Rifkin; Bailey; 3B?Campo, Kilburg; HR?Phillips (1), Grove (2); Johnson (2); SB?Reese (1), Rifkin 2 (2); Medrano (5)

Trenton IP H R ER BB SO

Currier 1 2/3 5 5 3 1 3

Villegas 3 1/3 3 1 1 0 4

Isaacson 1 1/3 1 1 1 0 0

Blankenship 1/3 0 0 0 1 0

Kennard (L, 0-1) 1 2/3 4 1 1 2 1

Portland

Cameron 6 5 4 4 2 6

Larson 2/3 4 3 2 0 1

Perez (W, 1-0) 2 1/3 0 0 0 1 4

HBP?Rifkin (Cameron); WP?Kennard; Cameron; PB?Bailey; T?2:55; A?4,933