The Bowie Baysox (61-57) had their chances, but fell short in a 4-2 loss to the Portland Sea Dogs (57-59) on Saturday night at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie.
Trailing 3-1, the Baysox had runners at second and third with one out in the seventh, but RHP Ty Buttrey (1.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 K) fanned Aderlin Rodriguez and got Austin Wynns to ground to short and end the inning.
Bowie had runners at first and second with nobody out in the eighth, but were able to push just one run across when Stevie Wilkerson reached on an RBI fielder’s choice.
Jeremy Barfield’s solo shot in the top of the second off of Baysox starter Jordan Kipper gave Portland an early 1-0 lead.
In the top of the fourth, Cole Sturgeon led off with a single, advanced to third on a double and scored on Barfield’s RBI groundout to give the Sea Dogs a 2-0 lead.
The Baysox got on the board with a run in the home half of the frame as Ryan Flaherty was hit by a pitch to start the inning, went to third on an Austin Hays single and scored on Anthony Santander’s sac fly to deep center.
Kipper (2-1) allowed the two runs on seven hits while walking one and fanning five in six innings of work.
Portland starter Henry Owens (3-3) surrendered one run on one hits to go along with two walks and four strikeouts in 5.0 IP.
The Sea Dogs stretched the lead to 3-1 in the seventh as Deiner Lopez got on base with a one-out triple and scored on Danny Mars’ RBI single.
Josh Tobias singled with one out in the eighth, advanced to third on a single and came home on Lopez’s sac fly to stretch the Portland lead to 4-1. LHP Bobby Poyner (1.0 IP, 2 K) tossed a scoreless ninth to notch his seventh save of the year.
Hays (2-4) had two of Bowie’s four hits on the night.
The series wraps up on Sunday at 2:05 p.m. with RHP Lucas Long (7-5, 2.88) on the mound for the Baysox against Sea Dogs RHP Kevin McAvoy (5-6, 4.21).
