To date, the Dragons are batting a league-low .180, have struck out the most, have the fewest extra-base hits and are the lowest scoring team in the 12-team Midwest League.
The Dayton Dragons might not be a team that can’t hit or won’t eventually hit. But nine games into their 25th season this is a team that rarely hits when it needs to the most.
Once again the Dragons got enough pitching to win, but the aforementioned numbers reveal the truth about Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Fort Wayne.
“Baseball is unpredictable, and these guys are young,” manager Vince Harrison Jr. said. “Between the weather that we’ve had and ... it’s so early to start to put labels on guys.”
The pressure mounted Sunday after the only difficult inning so far by a Dragons starter. Gabriel Aguilera allowed two runs in the second inning on a single and a bases-loaded walk. But he followed that with three scoreless innings and left the mound after five innings trailing 2-0.
“They’ve put us in position to be able to win, and we’ve had multiple opportunities on offense to produce runs, and we haven’t,” said Harrison Jr., whose starting staff leads the league by a lot with a 1.16 earned run average.
The Dragons (3-6) loaded the bases in the second inning on the first of John Michael Faile’s two hard-hit singles, an error and a soft infield single by Connor Burns.
But Myles Smith, a first-year pro drafted in the seventh round last summer, hit into a double play the end the threat.
Faile and Anthony Stephan, who is hitting .259, singled with one out in fourth. But Burns and Smith struck out to end the inning.
The Dragons scored in the fifth with the help of one of Fort Wayne’s four errors. Trey Faltine reached on an infield single, stole second and went to third when the throw skipped into center field.
With no outs the TinCaps (5-4) pulled in the infield, and Victor Acosta hit a ground ball through the legs of second baseman Brandon Butterworth for an error that allowed Faltine to score. A bunt and wild pitch moved Acosta to third, but he was thrown out at the plate on a grounder.
The Dragons put runners in scoring position in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings but couldn’t score.
The TinCaps added a run in the sixth inning on a sacrifice fly that knocked center fielder Carlos Jorge out of the game after he made a tremendous catch. Jorge was shaded toward right field and ran down a fly ball to almost straightaway right field on the warning track.
Jorge caught the ball over his shoulder and immediately slammed into the fence. He threw the ball back in as Fort Wayne’s Nerwilian Cedeno trotted home from third.
Jorge fell to the ground after the throw, and right fielder Ariel Almonte signaled for help. Eventually Jorge was carted off the field with an apparent injury to his left knee.
“He’s going to be fine — he’s getting checked out,“ Harrison Jr. said. ”But the initial tests aren’t as bad as it looked on the field. We’ll learn more tomorrow about him, but we don’t know anything definite yet."
The Dragons head to Great Lakes (4-5) to begin a six-game series Tuesday. The Dragons return home April 22 for a six-game series against West Michigan.
About the Author