PORTLAND —The Portland Sea Dogs (38-20) opened up the six-game homestand with a barnburner against the Erie SeaWolves (27-29), which ended 11-9 in favor of the visitors Tuesday night at Hadlock Field. The loss is the ninth in 28 games in Portland for the Sea Dogs.

The first game of the homestand was a slugfest that entered the eighth inning all tied up at 9-9. Wilfredo Boscan trotted back out for his fourth inning of work in the eighth and retired Ramon Cabrera on a groundout to begin the inning.

Corey Jones followed with a single and Aaron Westlake put Boscan’s night to an end with a double before Michael Olmsted took over. The big righty was greeted by a suicide squeeze bunt off the bat of Craig Albernaz, which scored Jones from third and gave Erie the 10-9 lead. Dixon Machado followed with an RBI double and put the SeaWolves the two run lead at 11-9.

The Sea Dogs had been silenced over the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings by the righty Bryan Augenstein and it was more of the same when the southpaw Ryan Robowski took over in the eighth.

The lefty retired the first two in order, before Sean Coyle reached via a walk and Keury De La Cruz singled to put two on with two outs. Jonathan Roof worked the count full, but flied out to left field to end the threat and Robowski escaped the 8th unscathed.

After Olmsted pitched a scoreless ninth, it was left up to the offense to bounce back from the two-run deficit against the righty Jose Valdez in the home half of the inning. Derrik Gibson flied out to center, Heiker Meneses walked and moved to second on a stolen base before Bo Greenwell went down looking and Devern Marrero was retired on a groundout to end the game.

Augenstein earned the win in relief with three scoreless innings of work, in which he allowed a hit, walked a batter and tallied four strikeouts. Boscan took the loss with three and one-third innings, in which he allowed four runs, three earned, on eight hits.

The SeaWolves started the night with four straight hits, taking a 1-0 lead on a run-scoring single by Steven Moya. 

Portland responded in their first turn against Wilsen Palacios, scoring three times off the righty. Deven Marrero doubled and scored on an infield-single by Stefan Welch. On the play, Marrero was awarded home after interference by catcher Craig Albernaz. Sean Coyle and Keury De La Cruz capped off the scoring with back-to-back RBI doubles.

The Sea Dogs continued the double parade in the second inning, taking a 5-1 advantage on run-scoring doubles by Marrero and Blake Swihart. Portland had seven hits and 10 baserunners through two innings.

Both teams exchanged runs in the third inning. Devon Travis reached on a two-out error by Marrero and came home on a double to left field by Moya.  Portland knocked starter Wilsen Palacios (ND) out of the game in their half of the third. Jonathan Roof led off with a triple and scored on Derrik Gibson’s single to right.

Mike Augliera had a rough fourth inning, yielding five runs on five hits. Albernaz cut the Portland lead to 6-3 with a sacrifice fly. Jamie Johnson knocked home two with a double, Jason Krizan followed with an RBI double and Travis gave Erie a 7-6 lead with a triple to left-center field.

Augliera left the game after four innings, giving up a season-highs in runs (seven) and hits (11).

Portland delivered a three-run third off relieve Will Startup to grab a 9-7 lead.  Catcher Blake Swihart hit the first pitch of the frame over the first level of the batter’s eye for his 6th homer of the season. Welch walked and took third base on a double by Coyle. De La Cruz knocked in his second run of the game with a sacrifice fly and Gibson blooped a two-out run-scoring single to right.

Wilfredo Boscan relieved Augliera in the fifth and added an unearned run to cut the deficit to 9-8. Corey Jones reached on a three-base error by 2B Sean Coyle and scored on a double by Albernaz.