When McGarry, a left-handed first baseman, was promoted from Low-A Daytona to the High-A Dayton Dragons on May 21, he had not previously played with any of his teammates. He felt welcomed right away.
“Making new friends and getting close with guys I didn’t know two or three months ago has been awesome,” McGarry said.
The effect a positive clubhouse experience has on a baseball team’s record can’t be measured. But the Dragons say it has helped.
“There’s good energy in the clubhouse,” McGarry said. “We’re all feeding off each other’s energy and each other’s successes, so it’s been a lot of fun.”
At the halfway point of the season, the Dragons are 34-25 with a 2-1/2-game lead in the East Division over Great Lakes and Lake County.
“I can’t agree more with Alex,” said outfielder Jacob Hurtubise who is also playing his first year in the minors after four years at Army. “Even though we have guys transitioning in and out, every guy that comes in we welcome them. We know that they can be an important piece to helping us win games.”
Dragons manager Jose Moreno said the spring training setup that was unique to this season helped. The Reds put teams together at the start of camp rather than later, so the bonds formed early.
“The chemistry they have, they know each other, the joking around is really good,” he said.
The Dragons have 61 games to play and have put themselves in position to make a run at what would be the eighth playoff appearance and eighth winning record since the franchise came to Dayton in 2000. When the season began no playoffs were scheduled. But a best-of-five championship series was recently added between the teams with the two best records in the league.
The Dragons are second overall in the league at 4 1/2 games behind West Division leader Quad Cities and a half-game ahead of Cedar Rapids, also in the West. In past years, the season was split into halves with the champion of each half earning a playoff berth.
“Very happy because if you’re thinking about the format we’ve had in the past, we would have clinched the first half,” Moreno said. “I know there’s still a lot of room for improvement in the second half. We need to try to find a way to be more consistent through a six-game series even when we win three or four.”
The unusual schedule of week-long, six game series this season has worked well for the Dragons. The opened the season with a 5-1 series win at Great Lakes. The Dragons have won six of the 10 series they’ve played and tied one.
Not one thing has carried the Dragons. They’ve won low-scoring and high-scoring games. They’ve been the best comeback team in the league, winning eight times after trailing by at least three runs. They’ve committed only 52 errors in 59 games and rank second in the league in fielding percentage. They are middle of the pack in most hitting categories and rank No. 7 out of 12 teams in ERA. Oddly, they’ve been outscored by eight runs.
“The key is that don’t have to do anything spectacular in order to win games,” Moreno said. “You have to play clean baseball, catch the ball, secure the baseball, throw strikes and put the ball in play. Now, of course the talent is very important, and that’s when you have a special team. A team like, ‘Wow, that team is going to be a championship-caliber team.’”
The Dragons have mostly been carried by two or three hot hitters. Brian Rey, however, carried the team for most of May and won league batter of the week twice before being promoted to Double-A Chattanooga. The most consistent hitter since Rey left has been second baseman Francisco Urbaez. He is second in the league in batting average at .335 and is batting over .360 since May 29.
“It seems like every at-bat he’s hitting a rocket somewhere,” McGarry said. “Man, he’s ballin’. It’s fun to watch.”
The team energy and togetherness was evident this past Friday when, with a three-run lead in the eighth, the entire team was at the dugout rail going crazy for outfielder Mariel Bautista. He singled, stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error, then scored on a wild pitch.
“Everybody was so excited for him,” McGarry said. “You want to see your teammates do well, and that energy’s huge for us.”
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