PORTLAND – The Portland Sea Dogs offense had been in the fog for more than a week. It stayed in the fog Thursday night at Hadlock Field, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Marvin Seale’s misplay of a fly ball to center in a dense fog gave Portland the lead in the seventh inning of a seesaw game as the Sea Dogs and the Binghamton Mets played into extra innings at Hadlock Field Thursday night.

Binghamton’s Victor Diaz tied the game at 6-6 with an RBI single in the eighth, where it remained heading into the 11th inning. But the Mets put two more on the board and took an 8-6 lead.

Coming off a winless road trip, the Sea Dogs were hoping a return home would turn things around so they could maintain their tenuous one-game lead over Trenton for the Eastern League Northern Division’s wild card spot.

To get back in the win column, Portland thought it needed its bats to heat up after managing just 14 runs on the eight-game trip. But awaiting the Sea Dogs in the opener of their short four-game homestand was Mets’ starter Bob Keppel, who no-hit the Sea Dogs in Binghamton in his last start.

Raul Nieves broke up Keppel’s mastery of the Sea Dogs with a single on his second pitch of the game. Portland would go on to knock him out of the game after just four innings, in which he yielded eight hits.

Binghamton chased Portland starter Ryan Cameron (5 2/3 innings, five hits, eight strikeouts, two walks), then victimized reliever Jake Chapman for three runs in the seventh to take a 5-4 lead as Greg Catalanotte had difficulty tracking down Frank Corr’s two-run double in right field. It was Catalanotte’s second adventure in left that cost the Sea Dogs a couple of runs.

Portland dug itself into a quick hole with some sloppy defense in the first. Chris Basak led off the game with a double, and after a strikeout, Craig Brazell hit a fly ball down the left field line that Catalanotte overran and had drop out of his glove. Two batters later, Mike Jacobs put the Mets on the board first with a two-run single to right-center.

Portland’s defense righted itself in the second, when catcher Kelly Shoppach erased two straight baserunners, one trying to advance to third on a ball in the dirt and the other attempting to steal second with two out. Jeremy Owens threw more leather in the fourth, making a spectacular diving catch to his left in right-center field to take extra bases away from Jacobs.

The Sea Dogs took their first lead in the second. Justin Sherrod belted a leadoff home run off the Citgo sign to cut the deficit in half. Then Catalanotte, who came into the game batting .050 (1 for 20) with 10 strikeouts) since being called up Friday, made up for his miscue in the bottom of the second by smashing a two-run homer into the Sea Dogs bullpen in right field.

Portland widened the lead to 4-2 in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Sean McGowan.

Sea Dogs notes: Former President George Herbert Walker Bush threw out the first pitch before the game and received a standing ovation from the sellout crowd…Pitcher Jake Chapman rejoined the Sea Dogs in Portland Thursday after missing the last two games of the road trip to return home because of personal reasons..Justin Headley remains on the disabled list with a sore left shoulder even though he is eligible for activation. He’s expected to remain on the DL for at least two more games…Pitchers Charlie Zink and Matt Karcher were send back down Sunday after spending two days with the team to make room for Tim Kester and Junior Herndon on the active roster. Zink was called up from Single-A Sarasota and Karcher from the Gulf Coast League…Herndon faces right-hander David Mattox (6-5. 3.32 ERA) in tonight’s second game of the series…With his home run off the Citgo sign above the Maine Monster in the second, Sherrod and a lucky fan were given $5,900 to split by Citgo…Portland was hitting just .214 this season against Binghamton going into Thursday night’s game. The Sea Dogs had scored only 47 runs in 16 games against the Mets.

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