Four of those days felt like winning the lottery. The other two were close, like those days you miss by only a digit or two.
The number of hits those days — 17, 17, 12, 8, 19, 10 — were mostly winning numbers, too, for a team that enjoyed a 4-2 stretch during a season previously filled with close, hard-to-take losses, a lack of timely hitting. and few-and-far-between big innings.
The Dragons return home Tuesday night for a three-game series against Lake County with a 4-5 second-half record, a more consistent offense and confidence that this half will be much better than their buried-in-last-place first half of the Midwest League season.
“We’ve just got a bunch of guys buying into a nice line-drive approach,” manager Vince Harrison Jr. said. “We don’t have a bunch of guys that are going to hit home runs.”
Even in Friday’s 19-4 victory at Lansing it took 19 hits because only Victor Acosta and Leo Balcazar hit home runs. The Dragons have 47 homers in 74 games.
“We have the type of team where we just have to constantly apply pressure, line drive, running the bases hard, doing the small things, moving a guy from second to third, driving a guy in when there’s a runner on third,“ Harrison Jr. said. ”We’ve had a couple opportunities to do that, and we definitely capitalized on that this this week a few times. Overall, it’s just seeing the train moving and more guys jumping on that train."
The Dragons lost the final two games in Lansing to split the series 3-3. Sunday’s loss was 6-1, but they scored a season-high 52 runs, which is also the most for the Dragons since the league started playing six-game series in 2021. Their 30 extra-base hits are also their highest in a six-game series.
This new level of offense the Dragons hope to continue all the way to September is not being carried by one or two hitters. Lots of hitters, as Harrison Jr. said, are driving the train.
Outfielder Yerlin Confidan showed at times in the first half of the season that he can rack up hard-hit balls more than anyone in the league. Now he’s doing consistently. In his last six games, Confidan is 12 for 26 (.462) with three doubles, a triple, nine RBIs and seven runs scored.
Balcazar, the team’s shortstop and most consistent hitter all season, has hits in 12 of his last 13 games, batting .327 with two homers, four doubles, eight RBIs and five stolen bases.
Carlos Jorge, who covers more ground than most center fielders, has finally come alive with the bat. He has hits in nine of his last 10 games, batting .381 with a homer, triple, four doubles, eight RBIs and five stolen bases.
Anthony Stephan, who has been on the injured list twice, is hitting .375 over his past seven games with a homer — a three-run shot to tie the score in Dayton’s 12-11 record-comeback victory two Sundays ago at home over Fort Wayne — five doubles and eight RBIs.
Carter Graham, who began the season at Low-A Daytona, is 7 for 15 in his last four games with a homer, double, four RBIs and five runs scored.
The Dragons have also been helped by two recent promotions. In his first two games, Jack Moss is 4 for 7 with a double and four RBIs. And third baseman Carlos Sanchez is 6 for 21 with a homer and five RBIs.
“We got a couple new players that had some big weeks, and it’s just had a bunch of guys doing a lot of good things,” Harrison Jr. said. “Having those new guys come in and provide some fresh energy allows us to be a little more flexible with the lineup. Hopefully we see more guys doing that and continuing to have good at bats.”
Sunday’s 6-1 loss to conclude the Lansing series was the anomaly of the series. For most of the season, that type of result was the norm. Like most of the season, the Dragons had early leads in both weekend losses.
“The record is kind of the same deal,” Harrison Jr. said. “The record isn’t a reflection of who we can be. We just got to find a way to pick each other up get it done.”
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