Ali Solis drove in six runs as the Portland Sea Dogs won three games in a row for the first time this season by rolling to a 13-2 victory against the Binghamton Mets in the first game of an Eastern League baseball doubleheader Saturday at Hadlock Field.
The streak came to an abrupt, however.
Dominic Smith drove in three runs to lead the Mets to a 7-3 win in the second game.
Henry Ramos homered twice and Rainel Rosario drove in three runs as the Dogs totaled 14 hits off four pitchers in the opener. Seven hits were for extra bases.
“I think the offense is getting a little rhythm,” Manager Carlos Febles said. “The guys are more relaxed at the plate. (We’re) just basically taking whatever the pitchers are giving us.”
The Sea Dogs took a 5-0 lead in the first inning of the first game.
Ramos pulled the third pitch he saw 380 feet into the pavilion in right for his first home run of the game. Singles by Ryan Court, Cole Sturgeon and Rainel Rosario produced another run. Wendell Rijo was hit by a pitch to load the bases and Solis slammed a bases-clearing double into the gap in right.
Ramos led off the bottom of the second with his third homer of the season, a 407-foot drive to right. Aneury Taverez followed with a triple deep into the alley in right and scored on Nate Freiman’s sacrifice fly to left to make it 7-0.
The Mets scored their first run of the game with two outs in the third on singles by Derrik Gibson, Niuman Romero and Matt Oberste. Portland took a 9-1 lead in the bottom of the inning when Solis belted his first homer of the season after Rijo led off with a single.
The Sea Dogs scored their last four runs in the sixth on a bases-loaded walk, Rosario’s two-run double and Solis’ sacrifice fly.
Solis came into the game batting .184 with one run batted in.
“He’s a guy who works extremely hard,” Febles said. “He’s been swinging the bat pretty good as of late (and) I was not surprised to see him drive the ball like he did today.”
Teddy Stankiewicz scattered six hits in the seven-inning game to earn his first win of the season.
“We scored some runs for him and he threw the ball extremely well,” Febles said. “He had a good fastball and he mixed his pitches well. We played good defense behind him.”
In the second game, Smith staked the Mets to a 3-0 lead.
Gibson led off the first inning with a single, stole second and scored on Smith’s two-out single to right. In the third, Smith hit his third home run of the season after Oberste doubled.
Kyle Johnson made it 4-0 when he hit his first home run of the season in the fifth.
The Sea Dogs scored all of their runs in the fifth.
Tzu-Wei Lin led off with a walk and went to third when Jose Vinicio bounced a hit-and-run single through the right side. Derek Miller lined a single into left for one run. After the Mets turned their fifth double play of the doubleheader, Sturgeon launched his first home run of the season 420 feet into the right-field pavilion to pull the Dogs within a run.
The Mets moved into a 7-3 lead by scoring three runs in the top of the sixth on Xorge Carrillo’s single, a walk, an error, a passed ball and Phil Evans’ single.
“We made a few mistakes in the sixth inning that kind of put the game away from us,” Febles said. “Other than that it was a solid game.”
NOTE: The announced attendance was 5,903.
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