Second-place Great Lakes (31-24) won in extra innings for the second straight night at South Bend to inch within four games of the Dragons (36-21). West Michigan (31-25) is in third place a half-game behind the Loons. The Dragons magic number for clinching – a combination of wins and Loons losses – is six games.
“Pressure’s a privilege – we’ve earned that,” Dragons manager Vince Harrison Jr. said. “We’re not going to go change what we’re doing because of what’s at stake. It’s our job to show up and do what we’re supposed to do to give ourselves a chance to win.”
Dragons starter Brian Edgington entered the game on a three-start stretch of pitching well enough to keep his team in the game. But in the second inning, Johnny Peck hit a two-run homer and Dom Johnson hit a three-run homer to put Dayton in a 5-0 hole.
“They’ve got some good hitters,” Harrison Jr. said. “You put pitches up in the zone, they hit them. It’s just a matter of making pitches sometimes.”
The Dragons responded on Jay Allen’s RBI double and Ethan O’Donnell’s two-run homer, his 10th, in the third to trail 5-3. But the lead grew to 7-3 in the fifth against Edgington. The Dragons responded again in the sixth on Leo Balcazar’s two-run homer, his sixth. The Dragons then loaded the bases with one out, but a runner was forced out at home on Hector Rodriguez’s grounder and Allen II struck out.
“There’s no magic words – you gotta come through,” Harrison Jr. said.
Maybe no magic words, but the right words – the message he wants his team to hear and remember – are important to Harrison Jr. right now.
“It’s not what we got to do, it’s what we get to do,” he said. “I feel like the outsiders are putting on what we have to do. That’s not how we’ve operated. We get to do this. We put ourselves in a position to be where we are by not because we had to win, because we’ve done things to win. So we’re not thinking about what we have to do. We’re doing what we need to do to be the best version of ourselves.”
Harrison Jr. knows his players are hearing about the lead they have and the magic number and the playoffs and maybe bringing Dayton its first Midwest League championship.
“They’re going to think about it because everybody else is talking about what we need to do,” he said. “But we would be doing them no justice to tell them what we have to do because we haven’t done that all year.”
Winning in the minors is often viewed as secondary by Major League teams. Development is the mantra. When the year begins every player is working to move up and build a good stat line. But by now that’s changed. The competitive nature to win is strong, and a team as close as the Dragons want the season to last as long as possible.
“There’s a reason to celebrate a win,” Harrison Jr. said. “That’s the reason guys dump water on you in the walk offs. It’s fun to be a part of something like that. So, yeah, it’s a big deal. We want to give ourselves a chance to be in that.”
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