By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

PORTLAND – One of the most anticipated seasons in Portland Sea Dogs history began Thursday night, and the Sea Dogs gave a hearty Hadlock Field crowd reason to believe the hype.

Jon Papelbon pitched six strong innings and Jared Sandberg clubbed a pair of homers and drove in all of Portland’s runs to lead the Sea Dogs to a 4-2 victory over Norwich in their Eastern League season opener before 5,278 fans.

“I thought both clubs threw the ball well. We just got the big hits when we need them,” said first-year Sea Dogs manager Todd Claus. “Jon’s goal is to keep us in the ball game and put our club in a position to win, and he did that tonight.”

Papelbon, one of the more highly-touted pitchers in the Boston Red Sox organization, surrendered five hits and two earned runs while fanning seven and walking none. He overcame Opening Day jitters and temperatures in the low-40s and threw 54 of his 77 pitches for strikes.

“You just throw all that stuff out the window and just try to go out there and get outs and pitch,” said Papelbon, whose fastball consistently clocked at 94 mph. “That’s really what my game plan was and not worry about the cold weather and not worry about all of the adrenaline from Opening Day.”

The Sea Dogs roster is stocked with 10 of the organizations top 30 prospects, but it was the veteran Sandberg, who has played nearly 200 games in the big leagues with Tampa Bay, who led their 10-hit attack.

Portland struck quickly against Norwich starter Alfredo Simon. Leadoff hitter Chris Durbin slapped his first pitch for a single. Two outs later, Sandberg smacked a 2-2 offering over the Maine Monster in left and the Sea Dogs had a 2-0 lead.

Papelbon looked sharp in the early stages of his Double-A debut, retiring the side in the first inning on 11 pitches, 10 of them strikes.

“He’s very strong mentally,” said catcher Alberto Concepcion, the only Sea Dog besides Sandberg with a multi-hit game (2-for-4). “He gets up there and he goes right after guys. You don’t want to get too geared up, but he did a great job of attacking the strike zone right off the bat. I think he might have thrown one off-speed pitch in the first inning and that’s because he was locating his fastball and getting batters out.”

“I doubled-up on curve ball a few times. My slider wasn’t as good as I’d like it to be. I kind of pulled off on it a few times,” Papelbon said. “But it’s early in the season. I’ll make the adjustment.”

Julian Benavidez touched him for a two-out solo homer in the second, and Tyler Von Schell got to him for another solo homer to left-center in the fourth. .

“We battled back. We couldn’t string any hits together,” said Norwich manager Dave Machemer. “It was a well-pitched ballgame by both sides. (Papelbon) is tough, there’s no doubt about it.”

Simon settled down after the rough first inning, surrendering just a single and double to Concepcion through the fourth inning until the heart of the Portland lineup got to him again for three straight singles in the fifth. The Norwich righty appeared to catch a break when Dustin Pedroia was thrown out on a questionable call while trying to retreat to the third-base bag on a Hanley Ramirez single, but Portland still broke through when Ramirez stole second and beat Dan Ortmeier’s throw to the plate on Sandberg’s single to right to put the Sea Dogs back up 3-2.

Sandberg added insurance in the eighth with his second round-tripper, a solo shot over the State Farm sign in deep center field off Norwich reliever Billy Sadler.

“Jared came up with some big swings,” Claus said. “The home run in the eighth was gravy, but the single, I believe it was a two-strike single the other way, to drive (Ramirez) in after we had the tough play at third with Pedroia was huge.”

The bullpen backed Papelbon up. Talley Haines baffled the Navigators with his off-speed stuff and struck out the first four batters he faced in two innings of shutout relief. Cla Meredith worked a perfect ninth for the save. They combined with Papelbon to retire the final 17 Navigators.

Notes: Former Auburn resident Mike Bordick threw out the ceremonial first pitch, then went up to the press box to work as color analyst for WMTW’s telecast of the game. Bordick is currently living in Baltimore and doing some work for the Toronto Blue Jays’ organization as a roving instructor. … The Sea Dogs are now 6-6 all-time in season openers, 7-5 in home openers. … The temperature at game-time was 41 degrees, but it marked the first time since 1997 that Portland opened the season at home and it went off as scheduled. Snow postponed the openers in 2001 and 2003. … The Sea Dogs’ 24-man roster features nine players who have played in Portland, but only three who were on the Opening Day roster from a year ago – Raul Nieves, Mike O’Keefe and Sheldon Fulse. … Sandberg became the first Sea Dog to hit two homers in the opener since Charles Johnson in 1994. … The series continues tonight at 6 p.m., with Jon Lester scheduled to pitch for the Sea Dogs against Norwich’s Brian Burres. Portland and Norwich square off again on Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m., then New Britain comes in for a three-game set starting Monday.