On a night Sea Dogs starting pitcher Jay Groome didn’t have it, the bullpen certainly did.
Five Portland relievers pitched 8 2/3 innings, allowing just two runs while striking out 15 Binghamton hitters, giving the Sea Dogs time to win the game with a walk-off error in the bottom of the ninth, 6-5, in front of 3,251 fans at Hadlock Field.
Tied 5-5, center fielder Devlin Granberg led off the bottom of the ninth for Portland (5-5) with a double to left field. With one out, the Rumble Ponies intentionally walked Tyler Dearden. Kole Cottam hit a bouncing grounder up the middle that went off the glove of Rumble Ponies second baseman Luke Ritter and into short left field, allowing Granberg to come around from second and score the winning run.
“I’m not fleet of foot but I was trying to force them to do something. I had my head down and saw the ball kind of kick over,” Cottam, the catcher, said. “I’m glad Devlin was able to score there.”
The lefty Groome, the Boston Red Sox first-round pick in the 2016 draft, retired the first hitter he faced, then ran into trouble. Groome gave up a single, hit a batter, allowed a double, and then walked three consecutive Rumble Ponies (3-6). After recording just one out, Groome’s night was over.
Dylan Spacke, Brendan Nail, Chase Shugart, Jacob Wallace and Frank German came on in relief, holding the Rumble Ponies in check the rest of the game. German earned the win after striking out the side in the ninth.
“They were fantastic, each and every one of them. Spacke picked us up right out of the gate and they kind of fed off that. That was huge,” said Portland Manager Chad Epperson.
Tuesday’s game was the second start of the season for Groome, who was excellent in his season debut last Wednesday at Harrisburg. In that game, Groome went five scoreless innings, allowing one hit and no walks while striking out four.
“Our starters have been great and had a little hiccup today. That’s going to happen. I like the way we responded. (Groome) was fighting it. You could see, he was fighting it from the get-go. There’s no need at this time of the year to keep pushing it,” Epperson said.
The Sea Dogs got back a pair of runs in the bottom of the third inning. With one out, David Hamilton took a walk and scored from first on Christian Koss’ double to the center-field wall. Koss scored on Dearden’s sacrifice fly to left field.
Portland took the lead in the fifth. Granberg hit a one-out single, and Dearden walked with two out. Cottam singled to score Greenberg and tie the game, and Cameron Cannon’s bloop single to center scored Dearden with the go-ahead run. Portland added a run in the sixth when Nick Sogard scored on Granberg’s triple to right.
Binghamton tied the game in the top of the seventh when Francisco Alvarez scored on a wild pitch and Brett Batty scored on an error.
“Everyone kind of stepped up. Groome had some bad luck there, but we had so many guys, everybody stepped up there. They put their best stuff out there and we threw strikes and we got the win,” Cottam said.
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