The seemingly never-ending streak is now at 12 for the dreadful start to the season for the Altoona Curve.

A third-inning grand slam from Portland’s Max Ferguson was the back-breaker in a 7-0 loss to the Sea Dogs on Thursday evening in front of 2,447 in attendance at Peoples Natural Gas Field.

The Curve bullpen silenced the Portland offense through five innings, but by the time they were down 7-0, they only managed to get just four hits for the game.

Altoona starter Peyton Stumbo worked four innings and allowed seven earned runs on six hits while walking three. The Ferguson grand slam and another solo homer from Marvin Alcantara in the fourth inning put Altoona behind the eight-ball.

Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Curve's Jesus Castillo is tagged out by Portland catcher Nate Baez after Baez dropped the third strike.

“(The grand slam) definitely put us in a hole,” Curve manager Andy Fox said. “You don’t want to go down by six at that time, but it was still early in the game. Even (Wednesday night), we were down early and we fought our way back and got close.”

Out of the 12 losses to start the season, the Curve have dropped nine of them by three runs or less. Thursday evening was one that got away early.

“The effort has been good,” Fox said. “Pitching sets the tone, and offense brings energy. We saw that last night. I give them credit. They’re not quitting. They still come and work and prepare, and do the things they need to do. You’re hopeful sooner rather than later you’ll see the results from the work they have put in.”

Sea Dogs starting pitcher Eduardo Rivera worked 5• innings and allowed three hits, walked two and struck out nine to improve his earned run average to 0.90 for the young season.

Joe Vogatsky tossed the final 3• innings for the save, allowing just one hit and striking out two.

The Curve bullpen of Jaden Woods, Cy Nielson, and Landon Tomkins had a combined five scoreless innings, and allowed just two hits.

“They pounded the strike zone,” Fox said. “We preach first-pitch strikes. It was huge for our bullpen to grab some innings. You hope you don’t have to tax the bullpen that much, but they did a good job limiting the damage and gave us a chance at least.”

Mitch Jebb, Jack Brannigan, Callan Moss, and Jesus Castillo had the lone hits — all singles — for the Curve.

Los Peces Dorados

The Curve wore the Los Peces Dorados jerseys, which is their third season wearing the jerseys for select games. The jerseys will appear in four more games throughout the season.

Up next

The Curve and Sea Dogs continue the series this evening at 6 p.m. Right-hander Po-Yu Chen will start for Altoona against Portland lefty Dalton Rogers.