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Altoona takes command early and hands Portland its first loss in six games with a 10-3 victory.

By JIM LANE, Special to the Press Herald August 12, 2009

ALTOONA, Pa. — The Portland Sea Dogs' bid for their first six-game winning streak since 2008 never materialized Tuesday night.

The Altoona Curve scored early and often on the way to a 10-3 victory over the Sea Dogs before a crowd of 6,405 at Blair County Ballpark.

Rain delayed the start of the game by 16 minutes.

After scoring single runs in the first and third innings on sacrifice flies by Miles Durham, the Curve exploded for six runs on five hits in the fourth, highlighted by Shelby Ford's two-run single. That made it 8-0, and the Curve coasted from there behind the pitching of Mike Crotta and Derek Hankins.

"We didn't play very good defense," Portland Manager Arnie Beyeler said. "In their big inning (fourth), they had like two balls out of the infield. There was a missed call on a double play, but that was only one out.

"We just didn't play very good defense."

Crotta, who also earned a win against the Sea Dogs last week, evened his record at 6-6 by working the first 5 2/3 innings. Hankins pitched the final 31/3 for his first save.

Ryne Lawson, the first of five Portland pitchers, suffered his 10th loss in 13 decisions.

"(Crotta) pitched real well against us," Beyeler said. "He beat us the other day and he carved us up for six innings again today."

"Crotta was getting ahead," Altoona Manager Matt Walbeck said. "He was very efficient with his pitches and had all of his stuff working.

"It's unfortunate he didn't get a little better defense behind him," Walbeck added, referring to two errors that gave Portland a couple of unearned runs in the sixth.

"Hankins came in and did a fine job also."

The Curve banged out 15 hits, including three each by top prospect Pedro Alvarez, Gorkys Hernandez and Steve Lerud.

"It was a good night all around for us," Walbeck said of the Curve's offensive output. "It's good to have those games."

"They got some ground balls that found some holes," Beyeler said, "but that's baseball. They did that the other day at our place."

The Sea Dogs scored twice in the sixth on two Altoona errors, a single by Juan Apodaca and a sacrifice fly by Yamaico Navarro.

Luis Exposito, who collected three of Portland's eight hits, singled home Jon Still with Portland's third run in the eighth. Still doubled to open the inning.

"We got some hits late, but those first two times around the order (Crotta) was pretty tough," Beyeler said. "We don't hit a lot of balls hard enough."

The Sea Dogs and Curve meet again tonight and Thursday before the Sea Dogs move on to Bowie.

NOTES: Lawson and right-hander Jarod Plummer are the last two losing pitchers for the Sea Dogs, and they each allowed eight runs. Exposito has hit safely in 5 of 6 games since joining Portland and picked up his first Double-A three-hit game. Daniel Nava and Still each doubled for the Sea Dogs -- Still leads the Eastern League in doubles with 34.