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PITCHER HITS HOMER AS PORTLAND ROUTS GREEN MTN.
DRESSEN SMACKS TEAM’S 9th HR OF SEASON, RUPPEL ADDS FIVE HITS AS PORT. NOW 43-9

BURLINGTON, VER. (July 22, 1880) - One of the four series in the New England Championship this week involves defending champions Green Mountain hosting presumptive champions Portland, and after a 10-2 win in the opener the visitors took another dominant victory in a season full of them on Thursday:

Green Mtn. started the game off right. They scored twice in B1 via Error and Triple by CF Franklin Painter, and after Portland plated a pair with two Singles in T2 the hosts responded with three more Runs, the key Hit being a run-scoring Double by LF Joseph Walters, to take a 5-2 lead.

Unfortunately for Green Mtn., Portland woke up after that and dominated the rest of the contest at Chittenden Field, scoring thirteen of the game’s last sixteen Runs. They scored four times in T3 to take the lead (6-5), with the big moment an Inside the Park Home Run by LF Albert Noyes. After a Run in T4 to go ahead by two (7-5), they plated a pair in T5 to go up 9-5, with the key Hit, of all things, an Inside the Park Home Run from P Robert Dressen that gave Portland their ninth round-tripper of 1880 (N.B.B.O. team avg: 6).

Portland ended the contest in T6 with a five-run rally that made it a 15-5 game. The runs in that inning were scored on a Single by Dressen, a run-scoring Ground Out, a Single by 3B Earl Ludgate, a Single by Noyes, and finally a Double by CF John Ruppel. The hosts responded with three Runs in B6, but that wasn’t going to trouble Portland and the visitors added a final tally in T9 to give the game its final score of 15-8.

For unlikely Home Run hitter Dressen, it was an odd afternoon in that the 2x All-Star struggled with the ball but easily made up for it with the bat:

• PORT P Robert Dressen: W (15-4), 8.0 IP, 13 HA, 8 RA/6 ER, 1 BB, 2 K
• PORT P Robert Dressen: 3/4 (HR), 2 R, 2 RBI, 6 TB, SAC BUNT

While the Home Run was the second of Dressen’s nine-year career across nearly 1,200 Plate Appearances, the Win gave him a 15-4 record and 2.69 ERA, with 35 Strikeouts and 3.5 Pitching WAR over 177.1 innings on the season. Dressen’s work, combined with that of #1 Francis Molinari (25-4, 2.21 ERA, 152 K, 7.8 WAR), means Portland has the distinct chance that they’ll have two Pitchers in the All-Star Game.

Dressen was also far from the only three-hit Portland player, as the team’s total of 21 Hits at Green Mtn. meant four players aside from Dressen finished with 3+:

• PORT 1B Ed Donovan: 3/6 (3B), 1 R, 2 RBI, 5 TB
• PORT LF Albert Noyes: 3/6 (2B, HR), 3 R, 2 RBI, 7 TB
• PORT CF John Ruppel: 5/6 (2 2B), 1 R, 2 RBI, 7 TB
• PORT RF Cody Harris: 3/5 (2 2B), 2 R, 1 RBI, 5 TB

The win improved Portland’s record to a simply absurd 43-9 (+177 RD), which currently has placed them as the #1 overall team in the N.B.B.O. by no less than seven games over Coastal Championship co-leaders National & Philadelphia B.C.C. Their lead over second-place Salem in New England is a staggering fifteen games, meaning there’s a chance Portland could clinch their spot in the playoffs this week, with 15+ games remaining.

As for defending New England Champions Green Mtn., they’re tied for 3rd in New England with Sons of the Ocean at 25-27.