Against the first 10 batters he faced Friday night, Somerset starting pitcher Mitch Spence looked unhittable, retiring all 10 easily.
After that, he was very hittable.
David Hamilton’s single to left field with one out in the bottom of the fourth erased all the magic in Spence’s arm. Christian Koss followed with a two-run home run to center field, and the Portland Sea Dogs scored four runs in the fourth on the way to a 5-0 win in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,368 at Hadlock Field.
Portland snapped a two-game losing streak and improved to 12-4 in the second half of the season.
Following the home run by Koss, Spence issued back-to-back walks to Izzy Wilson and Tyreque Reed. Kole Cottam and Cameron Cannon each hit an RBI single to push Portland’s lead to 4-0, chasing Spence after 3 2/3 innings.
Bryan Mata, the seventh-ranked prospect in the Boston Red Sox farm system according to MLB.com, threw five shutout innings to earn his first win of the season. He struck out seven and walked one while allowing five hits. Mata, 23, missed all of 2021 recovering from Tommy John surgery and made stops in Low-A Salem and High-A Greenville earlier this season before joining the Sea Dogs last month.
The Patriots (8-8) had a chance to take the lead in the top of the third inning, but Portland left fielder Wil Dalton threw out Elijah Dunham at the plate as he tried to score from second base on Jesus Bastidas’ single.
Michael Geddys, Oddanier Mosqueda and Brendan Nail combined for four scoreless innings of relief to complete the shutout.
The Sea Dogs added a run in the eighth inning when Hamilton stole third base and scored on catcher Austin Wells’ throwing error.
Wells had two hits for Somerset (8-8), including a double.
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