Denyi Reyes, making his first Double-A start, staked the Portland Sea Dogs to a 4-1 lead with six strong innings. But the Reading Fightin Phils rallied against four ineffective relievers and won Friday night’s Eastern League game 6-5 in 10 innings at Hadlock Field.
Reading rallied for two runs against Jordan Weems in the eighth, tied the game with a run in the ninth against hard-throwing Durbin Feltman, the 21-year-old closer making his Double-A debut, and went ahead on a deep two-run homer in the 10th by Cornelius Randolph off Matthew Gorst.
“It was just a night that we didn’t see coming because they’ve been strike throwers the whole time, and they fell behind and couldn’t get strike one and then started picking,” Sea Dogs manager Joe Oliver said. “You do that, it’s tough to pitch against these hitters because then you have to come across the plate.”
Portland scored once in the 10th on a wild pitch, but Reading winning pitcher Kyle Doughy (3 innings, 1 hit) struck out two and ended the game with a groundout with the tying run at second.
The starting pitching matchup featured two 22-year-old right-handers from the Dominican Republic, both on major league 40-man rosters, making their Double-A debuts in breezy 39- degree weather.
Mickey Moniak, the first overall pick in the 2016 draft, turned on Reyes’ seventh pitch of the game and drove a 371-foot home run well to right for a quick 1-0 Reading lead. From there, Reyes gave up one more hit, no runs, in six strong innings.
With an 87 mph fastball, Reyes’ off-speed mixture worked well, particularly when he struck out Moniak on a nasty curveball at the left-handed hitter’s shoe tops.
“I think he made one mistake tonight on the home run,” said Oliver, Portland’s first-year manager. “He shook that off and really settled in, and started commanding his secondary pitches really well, and that’s what I saw from him last year in Salem. It was a good outing for him and it was a shame we weren’t able to get across the finish line for him.”
Shut out on two hits in Thursday’s season-opening loss, Portland scored its first run of the season in the fourth.
Luke Tendler led off with a double, took third on a fly to left and scored when John Nunez hit a high hopping infield RBI single.
Poor Reading defense led to two more unearned runs in the inning. Third baseman Austin Listi’s wild throw allowed Joseph Monge to reach, and Randolph dropped Jeremy Rivera’s fly to medium left, scoring Nunez and Monge.
Portland tacked on a run in the seventh. C.J. Chatham (3 for 5, two doubles) hit a one-out double and scored on Bobby Dalbec’s first hit of the season. With Reading’s infield shifted to the left, Dalbec went opposite field to the vacated second-base area.
“They were pitching him tough and he made the adjustment. That was a big hit for him,” Oliver said.
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