SANFORD — Sometimes it’s not the hard-hit balls that beat you, but the little bloops and dribblers that are hit where the fielders aren’t.

Such was the case in the Sanford Mainers’ 10-inning loss to the Ocean State waves Friday night at Goodall Park.

Knotted at 6-6 in the 10th, it looked like Sanford would get a chance to win it when reliever Andrew Gallagher got two quick outs following a knuckler of a single off the bat of Cade Bailey that had started the inning.

But that’s when the baseball gods intervened, as a Shaun McGraw blooper that fell fair down the right field line pushed Bailey to short, bringing up nine-hole hitter Evan Ocello, who was 0-for-3 on the night and had entered with a .129 batting average.

But Ocello proceeded to be the unlikely hero, drubbing one that left shortstop John Howell with no chance at a play to score Bailey. Christian Muscarello followed with a bunt single to load the bases, and Reed Gamache then came up with the first hard-hit ball of the inning, singling to right to score two more as the Waves went on to a 9-6 extra-innings victory.

“Gally threw the ball great,” Sanford manager Aaron Izaryk said. “That’s why we sent him out there. He left one ball up to make it a three run lead, but the others didn’t leave the infield.”

Ocello had been the hero earlier in the field, throwing out Sanford’s Kyle Moore at the plate to end the eighth inning and keep the game tied.

Moore had pinch run for Cole Martin, and was just rounding third when Ocello picked up John Howell’s liner into center, throwing a rope to catcher Pat Quinn to gun down Moore by 30 feet.

“You’re looking for that big hit and we haven’t been hitting much,” said Izaryk. “(Ocello) got that honey hop and he did his job, he threw him out. But anywhere up and down the line we had a run. Kyle was on his horse, we had to put pressure on the defense and they made a play.”

While defense saved the Waves, it had cost the Mainers earlier as three big errors led to Ocean State runs.

After the Mainers took a 3-0 lead in the first on a Zander Wiel two-RBI single and Phil Mosey run-scoring groundout, Ocean State struck back for four two innings later as Sanford starter James Bourque got little help from his defense.

Quinn led the inning off with a double, scoring on McGraw’s single a batter later.

McGraw got all the way to third on a throwing error, scoring soon after when Ocello reached on another throwing error, this one by Howell. The Mainers then committed their third miscue in as many batters as Phil Mosey missed a grounder at third.

Bourque looked like he might pitch out of the inning when he got a strikeout followed by a pop up, but Chris King came up with a two-out double to score both Ocello and Mosey and make the score 4-3.

 It stayed that way until the fifth, when after a Thomas single and Papio walk, Wiel launched a James Bessell pitch well over the left field wall to again give the Mainers the lead, 6-4.

“Coach mentioned that he had led me off with a breaking ball the previous two at-bats and so I was looking for it,” Wiel said. “I swung and connected. I knew off the bat it was gone.”

That wouldn’t last for long, though, as a pair of knocks to lead off the fifth put Waves runners on second and third.

Izaryk pulled Bourque in favor of Charlie Butler, but McGraw singled to score one run, with a second coming around when Thomas misplayed the ball in right to tie the score at 7-6.

“I think win or lose, if we look ourselves in the mirror we know we didn’t deserve to win tonight,” Izaryk said. “If we did, the game would be lying to us a little bit. You can’t give teams extra outs to play with and our defense made it tough on our pitchers and our offense tonight.

“You’ve got to play clean to win in this league and we didn’t tonight.”

Both teams missed chances in the later innings, with Sanford getting a runner into scoring position in the sixth and seventh, with Moore then being thrown out at the plate in the eighth.

Ocean State (5-6) made the Mainers pay for those untaken opportunities in the 10th, and despite Wiel and Nic Thomas singles, Mike Friel grounded out to end the game in the 10th as Sanford fell to 5-5.

“We just had some mishaps today in certain areas, but we’ll fix them,” Wiel said. “We all know that there’s things we can improve on. We had some mental mistakes and if we clean those up we should be good.”

“It’s the littler things we aren’t doing that are biting us right now,” Izaryk said. “The good news is it’s things we can fix, the bad news is we aren’t doing them yet.”

The Mainers are back in action today, when they travel to New Bedford, Mass., to take on the division rival Bay Sox. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., with Conor Krauss expected to get the start for Sanford.

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 323.