By MICHAEL RADANO
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN

The Camden Riversharks have endured losses before Saturday night.

Let's face facts, they have endured a lot of losses before Saturday night's game with Lehigh Valley. So many in fact that the losses are nothing more than an endless blur in their memory.

Saturday was different.

``I don't see any positives,'' manager Wayne Krenchicki said. ``We find a way to lose ballgames and that's what it comes down to.''

Lehigh Valley scored the game-winning run in the top of the ninth to take a 7-6 decision over the Sharks in front of 5,912 at Campbell's Field. The winning run was scored off of Jeff Love, who hadn't given up a run in his previous five appearances but that wasn't what made this game memorable.

No, on this night the Sharks blew a 6-0 lead to the Atlantic League's worst franchise with a season-long record of 21-50, but that didn't matter on this night. To compound matters, Lehigh now holds a 6-5 advantage in the season series.

With the score tied at 6, Asbel Ortiz led off the ninth with a single up the middle. P.J. Williams then executed a perfect sacrifice bunt to get Ortiz to second. Love coerced a flyout to right by Victor Gutierrez but Chad Gambill then hit a line-drive single to right to score Ortiz with the game-wining run.

The Sharks got the tying run to second and the winning run to first in the ninth with one out but Jesus Azauje flew out to left and Darrell Nicholas ended the game with a fly out to right.

Lehigh Valley (21-50, 3-5 second half) tied the game with six runs off starter Lincoln Mikkelson in the top of the sixth inning. Until that point, Mikkelson hadn't even been threatened as his assortment of off-speed pitches limited the Diamonds to two hits.

Unfortunately, they figured him out in the sixth when, with one out, five straight hitters reached base on two singles, two walks and a hit batsman. Mikkelson left with the bases loaded and one out, but he held a 6-2 lead. Edgar Tovar changed all that when he hit reliever Ted Silva's first pitch just inside the foul pole along the left-field line for a grand slam - just his second home run of the year - to tie the game.

``Obviously I wanted to finish the game,'' said Mikkelson, who pitched into the sixth inning for the fifth time in as many games. ``I just made some bad pitches. I still felt confident. Same guy (John) Adams. I did the same ... with him the first three times up. I got behind him. I got behind him and the last time I walked him. I wanted to stay in but if I was the manager I probably would have pulled me, too.''

``Ted threw one bad pitch,'' Krenchicki said. ``You wish you could get that pitch back but you can't. Other than that he threw well.''

The Sharks (25-46, 1-7) took a 3-0 lead with a pair of runs in the first and one more in the third. The Sharks, who seem to have started hitting the ball over the past few games, still are struggling to score in large numbers.

In the fifth, they increased their lead to 6-0 when Dwight Maness hit a three-run home run to left with two outs. It was the left fielder's eighth home run of the season and, the way Mikkelson had pitched until that point, it looked like nothing more than some insurance.

But then, we know better than that.

``They haven't found a way to win games in a spectacular fashion,'' Krenchicki said when asked if his team found ways to lose in spectacular fashion. ``It's a ... shame, really.''

•From the Shark Tank: The Sharks' disabled list remains full. Along with Brian Sherlock, the Bishop Eustace Prep School graduate who is gone for the season with a broken leg, the list includes pitcher Del Mathews, shortstop John Dorman and third baseman Kim Batiste. Mathews and Dorman are both day-to day. Mathews is nursing a sore left shoulder and Dorman, who currently has hit in a team high 10 straight games, is working to strengthen his left knee. Batiste is looking to come back sooner than the two weeks the team wants him to sit. The former Phillie was hit by a foul ball over a month ago on his left shin. On On Tuesday, he had to have the injury drained after it had swelled up. ...

Brad Strauss extended his hit streak to seven with a single in the fifth inning.