If you were looking for one play to summarize a frustrating 2015 Eastern League baseball season of the first-to-worst Portland Sea Dogs, it would be hard to beat the seventh-inning fiasco in Monday night’s 8-4 loss to the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Trailing by a run after wiping out most of a 5-0 deficit, the Sea Dogs needed one more strike to escape a two-on, two-out jam at foggy Hadlock Field. Reliever John Cornely got New Hampshire’s Ryan Schimpf to chase a pitch in the dirt for strike three.

When the ball squirted away from Sea Dogs catcher Tim Roberson to the wet grass in front of the home dugout, the fun began. Instead of throwing to first in an attempt to force Schimpf, Roberson threw wide of Cornely, hurrying to cover home. That allowed the runner from third to score for a 6-4 lead.

Seeing the ball loose in the middle of the diamond, the runner from first rounded second and headed for third. Sea Dogs shortstop Tzu Wei-Lin grabbed the ball and again tried to hit a teammate on the run, third baseman Dustin Lawley scrambling back to his bag. Again, the throw was wild, allowing a second run to score and Schimpf to reach second base.

“It’s kind of how the season’s been going,” said Sea Dogs Manager Billy McMillon. “We get close, and then we can’t finish it.”

The game began as a duel between pitchers Conner Greene (2-0) of New Hampshire and Justin Haley (5-14) of Portland. Greene, rated as the ninth-best prospect among Blue Jays minor leaguers, retired the first 10 Sea Dogs.

“He keeps the ball down and throws 96 (mph),” said New Hampshire pitching coach Bob Stanley, a Portland native. “He throws his two-seamer at 88-90. He’s got that good downward plane. It must be hard to pick up, because he gets on you quick.”

Haley’s previous appearance at Hadlock was a 2-1 victory over Erie in which he retired his last 16 batters. On Monday he extended that streak to 22 before Emilio Guerrero led off the third with the game’s first hit, a single up the middle.

“(Haley) threw well,” said Roberson, his catcher. “He had good command of a lot of stuff. Fastball on both sides of the plate. His change-up was really effective.”

New Hampshire took a 2-0 lead in the fourth after second baseman Carlos Asuaje double-clutched before throwing home on a one-out grounder that could have kept the game scoreless. The Fisher Cats made it 5-0 in the sixth before Cornely took over.

Portland scratched out four in the sixth inning sparked by the first of two doubles by Aneury Tavarez to make it close before unraveling in the seventh.

“It kicked so far away from me, I thought my shot was to home plate,” Roberson said of his ill-fated decision. “I messed it up. I should have blocked (the pitch).”

The loss dropped the Sea Dogs to 47-81. New Hampshire is 62-63.

“Our season hasn’t gone the way we’ve wanted it, but it’s not like we try to go do that stuff,” Roberson said. “The guys in here go out there and play hard every day and mistakes are going to happen. It’s baseball. You’re not going to be perfect every day.”

NOTES: Attendance was announced as 5,320. …

Terry O’Reilly, the former Boston Bruins forward, made his first visit to Hadlock Field and threw out a ceremonial first pitch. He also said hello to another former Boston pro athlete from the same 70s-80s era, Stanley, a former Red Sox pitcher …

Portland’s Aaron Wilkerson was named Eastern League Pitcher of the Week after going 2-0 with a 0.64 ERA in two starts last week, beating Altoona and Harrisburg on the road. He becomes the second Sea Dogs player to win the weekly honor this season, after Oscar Tejeda (May 11-17).

Last season eight different Sea Dogs were so honored.

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