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Dragons' Lutz hits for cycle in dominating win

First baseman collects all the necessary hits ... by the fifth inning.

Teesha McClam Dayton Dragons' Donald Lutz at second base with Peoria Chiefs' Arismendy Alcantara at Fifth Third Field on Thursday, July 21.

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By Sean McClelland, Staff Writer Updated 12:13 AM Friday, July 22, 2011

DAYTON — Donald Lutz did more than become the first Dayton Dragons player to hit for the cycle Thursday night.

He did it with flair.

Lutz assembled the feat piece by piece, but he accomplished it backwards, as if styling for a Fifth Third Field sellout crowd of 7,885 that was hoping for something cool on a 97-degree night.

“That’s pretty good, man,” manager Delino DeShields said after all the hits were counted in a 13-0 thwacking of the Peoria Chiefs. “They’ve had some pretty good players here. For him to get on the board like that is huge.”

Lutz swatted a bases-empty home run in the first inning to cap a four-run uprising. The triple, usually the toughest in the cycle but especially so for a 6-foot-3, 240-pound first baseman, figured prominently in a five-run second. It was Lutz’s first of the season.

Then came a third-inning double and a fifth-inning single and some scattered applause from those who realized what they had just witnessed.

It was a single all the way.

“Everyone in the stands was yelling, ‘Wherever you hit it, stop at first!’ ” Lutz said. “I didn’t want to be that guy. It’s pretty exciting. I got on base when I hit the single and at every base they were saying, ‘Did you just hit for the cycle?’

“I looked up and it was only the fifth inning. It’s something special. Just one of those days when you feel real good.”

The Dragons pounded out 21 hits, one short of the club record, and second baseman Ronald Torreyes went 5-for-5, giving him nine hits in his last two games and 12 over his last three.

Torreyes (now batting .402), who bats second, combined with leadoff man Billy Hamilton to go 8-for-10 with seven runs and two RBIs. They continue to give Dayton perhaps the most terrifying top-of-the-order twosome in the Midwest League.

“Might be the best since me and Marquis (Grissom) in 1988,” cracked DeShields, who played for Rockford in the MWL on his way to the Montreal Expos.

Torreyes’ five hits tied a club record. Hamilton stole his planet-leading 72nd base.

Today’s game

Who: Peoria at Dragons

When: 7 p.m.

TV: WHIO-TV 7.2; Time Warner digital 372;  basic cable 23

Radio: WONE-AM (980)

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