PORTLAND — The Portland Sea Dogs (23-31) rallied late for the third straight night, but came up just short and dropped the rubber match to the Richmond Flying Squirrels (25-26), 4-3 on Thursday afternoon at Hadlock Field.

Adalberto Mejia made his season debut after serving a 50- game suspension to begin the year and held the Sea Dogs’ offense silent through four innings of work. Mejia allowed just two base-runners — one walk and one error — and struck out three.

The Sea Dogs were held hitless until Danny Bethea led off the bottom of the sixth with a single up the middle, but remained scoreless until an eighth-inning rally. After a walk to Blake Tekotte and a single by Jose Vinicio, Bethea hit an RBI single to cut the lead to 4-1. Carlos Asuaje drilled a tworun double down the right-field line to make it a 4-3 game.

But, Jose Casilla got Oscar Tejeda (0-4) to ground into a 5- 2-3 double play to get two crucial outs, and after Keury De La Cruz was hit by a pitch, Aneury Tavarez grounded out to first to end the rally.

Portland hosts Bowie tonight at 7 p.m.