Sea Dogs’ Smith shaky early, but gets victory Bacani hits two RBI doubles to defeat N.H.

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PORTLAND – After getting touched up for two runs on three hits in the first three innings, Chris Smith bore down and pitched shutout ball along with the Portland Sea Dogs’ bullpen.

The 25-year-old righthander allowed just three hits the rest of the way to help lead the Sea Dogs to a 5-2 victory over New Hampshire in Eastern League baseball action Friday night at Hadlock Field.

“That’s the second straight time where he’s had some trouble in the early going and then really just started executing with his pitches and he definitely got stronger as the game went on,” said Portland manager Todd Claus, whose Sea Dogs are now 20-17 and in second place in the E.L.’s northern division.

Smith (3-3) had two strikeouts and two walks while throwing 54 of 87 pitches for strikes over seven innings.

Barry Hertzler and Edgar Martinez each pitched a scoreless inning.

“I don’t think he did a whole lot different from the first time we saw him other than he got aggressive when he got in trouble and used his fastball more later than he did earlier in the game,” said manager Doug Davis, whose Cats fell to 14-24.

Another aggressive effort paid off for Portland leadoff hitter and second baseman David Bacani, who went 2-for-4 with two RBI doubles. Before Friday, Bacani had four doubles all season.

“My approach today was, early in the count, if he gave me a good pitch to hit, I was going to take some aggressive hacks,” Bacani explained. “I thought we swung the bat OK the last time we faced him, but you don’t usually see the wind blowing out here, so that helped.

Bacani’s approach pretty much typified that of the Sea Dogs, who waited on lefty Davis Romero and took what he gave them.

“We saw him at their place and he really carved us up,” Claus said. “And he had better command tonight than he did there. He was showing his fastball on the inner third of the plate, but when he gave us pitches to hit out over the plate, we just put them in play.”

The Cats scored first in the top of the second via David Smith’s no-doubt, 335-foot shot well over the left field “Monster” wall on a first-pitch fastball from Chris Smith.

New Hampshire made it 2-0 in the third as No. 9 hitter Carlo Cota doubled off the base of the left field wall and scored on Curtis Thigpen’s two-out double to left.

Portland got its first hit and first run of the game in the bottom of the third. The Sea Dogs also tied the score and took their first lead of the game, thanks to a one-out walk (Alberto Concepcion) and four straight hits by No. 9 hitter Zach Borowiak (single), Bacani (RBI double high off the left field wall), David Murphy (RBI single) and Tyler Minges (RBI double off the base of the right field wall).

The lead looked short-lived, however, as the Cats loaded the bases with nobody out in the fourth on two singles and a walk, but Smith got Eric Arnold to ground to third and Dogs third baseman Chad Spann fired home for the force out. Smith then induced another grounder to third from Cota and Spann started a 5-4-3, inning-ending double play.

The Dogs tacked another run on in the fourth, again courtesy of a Bacani RBI double, this one coming via a sinking flare down the right field line to the corner with two outs and runners at first and second.

Portland added an insurance run in the eighth with two outs as Brandon Moss drew a walk and Jeremy West followed with a 3-iron shot to right center that burned center fielder David Smith, went for a double, and scored Moss all the way from first.

SEA DOGS 5, FISHER CATS 2

New Hampshire (record) Portland (record)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Mayorson, ss 4 0 1 0 D. Bacani, 2b 4 1 2

Lind, lf 3 0 0 0 Murphy, cf 4 0 1

Thigpen, c 4 0 1 1 T. Minges, lf 4 0 1

Cannon, 1b 4 0 0 0 Jimenez, 1b 1 0 0

Smith, cf 4 1 2 1 Twomley, 1b 3 0 0

Jova, rf 4 0 2 0 Spann, 3b 3 0 0

Chiaravalloti, dh 3 0 0 0 Moss, rf 3 0

E. Arnold, 3b 4 0 0 0 West, dh 4 1

Cota, 2b 3 1 1 0 Concepcion, c 2 1 0

Z. Borowiak, ss 3 1 1 0

Totals 33 2 7 2 Totals 31 5 9 5

New Hampshire 011 000 000 – 2

Maine 003 100 01x – 5

E-Concepcion; LOB-New Hampshire 6, Portland 6; 2B-Cota (7), Thigpen (4); D. Bacani 2 (6), T. Minges (4), Spann (8), West (3); HR-Smith (5); DP-Cota-Mayorson-Cannon; Spann-D. Bacani-Twomley

New Hampshire IP H R ER BB SO

Romero (L, 4-3) 6 8 4 4 2 5

Hill 1 0 0 0 0 0

Thorpe 1 1 1 1 2 2

Portland IP H R ER BB SO

Smith (W, 3-3) 7 6 2 2 2 3

Hertzler 1 0 0 0 0 0

Martinez (S, 4) 1 1 0 0 0 1

WP-Smith; T-2:13; ATT-6,921