The frustrating stain on a 4-2 series win over the Midwest League East Division first-half champion Lake County Captains will need a day or so to be rinsed from memory. The Dragons allowed four runs in the ninth inning to lose 5-2 and see their division lead shrink to a half-game over West Michigan.
“We played with fire too much,” Dragons manager Vince Harrison Jr. said. “We can’t walk two batters in the ninth.”
Trailing 2-1, ninth-place hitter Isaiah Greene began the ninth with a single and Travis Bazzana walked. Harrison Jr. replaced right-hander Dylan Simmons, who worked around a leadoff walk in the eighth, with right-hander Brock Bell, who has worked lots of late-game situations and has a team-high seven saves. But Bell walked Cooper Ingle to load the bases.
With the infield in, the next batter grounded to second baseman Victor Acosta who threw home for the first out. But Esteban Gonzalez and Jake Fox followed with two-run singles to end the Dragons’ four-game win streak.
“The result of the game is what we didn’t do,” Harrison Jr. said. “We need to focus on what we did do. We put ourselves in a position to win, and they took advantage of the things that we gave them late in the game.”
The Dragons (25-17, 59-49 overall) grabbed a 2-1 lead in the second inning when Johnny Ascanio, a part-time infielder, got his first big hit since joining the team when Sal Stewart went on the injured list. With two outs, Ascanio ripped a two-run single through the right side.
Carlos Jorge, who has played mostly center field this year after coming up as a second baseman, played right field Sunday. In the fourth, the Captains’ Tyresse Turner tagged up on a fly ball and Jorge threw a strike to the plate for a double play. He ended the inning when he had to jump toward the screen to catch a popup in the Lake County bullpen with the bench in his way.
“He’s a high energy, high character guy,” said Ethan O’Donnell, who played center Sunday while Jay Allen II, also a good center fielder, played left. “We laugh all the time about how we have three center fielders out there. I’m sure it helped him out early on in his development.”
The Dragons had opportunities to enter the ninth with a bigger lead.
O’Donnell singled with one out in the third, stole second and third, but was stranded by two strikeouts.
In the fifth, Jorge drew a leadoff walk and stole second. Then he stole third and scored when the catcher’s throw sailed into left field. But Jorge was sent back to second because plate umpire Justin Hopkins called interference on himself with the catcher’s throw for the second time in the game.
Jorge had third stolen easily. Without the interference and probably no throwing error, he would have scored soon on Allen’s deep fly ball to right for a two-run lead. Instead he was left stranded at third.
“You’re in the damn way,” Harrison Jr. said. “It doesn’t happen that often, and it happened twice and took two stolen bases away from us.”
The Dragons had a chance to break the game open in the seventh with the bases loaded and two outs. O’Donnell, who entered the game with RBIs in six straight games, batted once again with men on base and ripped a low line drive that first baseman Maick Collado caught while diving to his right.
“That’s just part of the game – that’s not a break,” Harrison Jr. said. “We had multiple opportunities to break it open and score earlier.”
O’Donnell was 1 for 3 and finished the series 9 for 22 with eight RBIs.
“Being competitive it hurts, but that’s the game of baseball,” O’Donnell said. “Sometimes they’re going to get caught. A lot’s out of your control. I’m happy I made an adjustment. He got me on the first change up.”
The loss stung, but the Dragons head to Fort Wayne in first place with four weeks left in the season. The Dragons are 11-7 against the TinCaps this season and 5-1 in Fort Wayne. West Michigan heads to fifth-place Lansing. The Whitecaps are 7-5 against Lansing this season.
“In the playoff push, every game matters, but we’ve got a lot to learn from this week,” O’Donnell said. “Seems like we always play Lake County in close games, and from my prior experience in college, it’s really important to be able to play in one-run games, especially this close to postseason. The little mistakes they stick out.”
TUESDAY’S GAME
Dragons at TinCaps, 6:35 p.m., 980
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