PORTLAND – It’s desperation time for the Portland Sea Dogs.

What once seemed a foregone conclusion, a postseason berth, is now a longshot at best.

The Sea Dogs trail second-place New Britain by two games for the second and final playoff spot in Eastern League’s Northern Division with eight to play.

The Rock Cats, who have just six games remaining, lost to Binghamton 8-4 Monday night.

New Britain’s magic number stands at six.

Any combination of Rock Cat wins and Sea Dog losses totaling six would result in Portland missing the playoffs for the sixth straight season.

The Sea Dogs’ final eight games are all against first-place New Haven, which clinched a playoff spot with a win on Sunday and is on the verge of winning the Northern Division title.

The teams play four games in three days, beginning with a doubleheader tonight at Yale Field. They will then come to Portland and close out the regular season with a four-game set over Labor Day weekend.

If New Britain (70-66) plays just .500 ball (3-3) the rest of the way, the Sea Dogs (67-67) would need to win six of eight just to force a one-game playoff on Sept. 2.

That game would be at Hadlock Field beginning at 6 p.m.

Looking at all the possibilities didn’t seem like it would be necessary back on July 30, when the Sea Dogs left Portland for an eight-game road trip in first place, one game ahead of New Haven and 7 in front of New Britain.

The question then was whether or not they’d finish in the top spot in the division and host the first two games of the playoffs.

“At the beginning of the month, we were looking forward to getting ready for the playoffs,” said outfielder Justin Headley. “Then we started sliding a little bit and started panicking a little.”

That slide included dropping all eight games of the trip to Binghamton and Trenton.

The losing streak finally ended at nine, but since then the Sea Dogs have also had three-and five-game skids.

Portland has lost eight of its last nine while falling behind in all but one of those games.

“It isn’t like our pitching’s done bad,” said Headley. “They’ve given up two, three runs. That’s not hard to overcome. But once you’re climbing from behind, you put more pressure on yourself.

“It’s almost like a ‘here we go again’ thing. But it’s been more the hitting than the pitching during this stretch.”

The Sea Dogs are 8-18 and have hit just .235 in August.

The last homestand against Norwich (59-75) and Erie (66-68) was a golden opportunity for Portland to gain a grip on second place.

Instead, the Sea Dogs went 1-5, including a three-game sweep by Erie during which Portland hitters went 1-for-24 with runners in scoring position over the final 22 innings.

We’ve put ourselves in a very difficult position,” said manager Ron Johnson. “But until it’s September 1, we’re going to keep going as hard as we can.”

Sea Dogs notes: Tim Kester (9-9, 4.00 ERA) and Charlie Zink (2-2, 3.86) will pitch for the Sea Dogs in tonight’s doubleheader.The Sea Dogs are 5-7 against New Haven this season.The Ravens magic number to clinch the division title is one.Prior to June 18, the Sea Dogs hadn’t lost more than two games in a row. Since then they’ve had losing streaks of nine, four (twice), three (three times) and the current five-game skid. During that time, Portland has gone 29-41 to fall back to the .500 mark.Johnson, pitching coach Bob Kipper and some players were at Fenway Park Monday afternoon for the Red Sox game against Seattle. Johnson and Kipper were scheduled to meet with Boston general manager Theo Epstein.

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