Trying to explain why for a team that is 28-29, leads to shoulder shrugs. But 3.4 runs a game, including four games of two runs or fewer, is a start. The Dragons have also lost Sunday games 10-9 and 8-6. Those are the ups and downs of baseball that are the difference between staying in the Midwest League’s first-half East division race and falling out of it.
On Sunday, the Dragons continued their Saturday night downer, a 14-1 loss. After that game, Dragons manager Vince Harrison Jr. said his team had to turn its focus quickly to Sunday and getting a series win. Instead, the Dragons split a series 3-3 for the fourth time this season and fell six games behind Lake County with nine to play in the first half.
Just like Saturday, the Dragons’ bats continued to make soft contact Sunday. The seven strikeouts weren’t the big problem. The 15 outs as a result of bouncing, easy-to-field ground balls were. Two of them killed scoring chances with double plays.
Sal Stewart followed a lead-off single by Hector Rodriguez with a double play in the fourth. Jay Allen hit into a bases-loaded, inning-ending double play in the fifth. The Dragons also got the first two hitters on in the seventh and ninth but popups and strikeouts were the enemy.
“We didn’t really swing it well today,” Harrison Jr. said. “We had opportunities. We never really put anything together.”
The Dragons’ only run came on Cam Collier’s 10th home run right after Stewart’s double play in the fourth.
Credit also belongs to Lansing starter Luis Morales, who allowed only Rodriguez’s single and Collier’s home run in four innings. Morales, otherwise, pitched like Oakland’s top-rated pitching prospect and its No. 2 overall prospect, popping the catcher’s mitt with 96-98 mph fastballs. The A’s signed Morales last year out of Cuba.
Morales was backed up by four three-hit innings by Jacob Watters, a 2022 fourth-round pick, and the ninth inning by Colton Johnson.
Dayton, however, didn’t get their common winning formula of a starter getting beyond five innings. Ryan Cardona pitched well for four innings and started the fifth tied 1-1. Then Cameron Masterman hit a one-out homer and Henry Bolte hit a two-run triple for a 4-1 lead to end Cardona’s day.
After losing the series opener, the Dragons won three straight games to get to a game over .500. The got key hits and key outs like they have been in recent weeks. On Wednesday and Thursday, they got seven great innings each from starters Javi Rivera and Johnathan Harmon.
“That definitely affects the way the game is played,” Harrison said. “You have a chance to stick with a guy if they’re rolling like that. We’ve done a good job of scoring early and those are reasons we won those three games.”
But with a chance to win a third series 4-2 in their past four chances, that formula didn’t materialize.
Sunday, Sunday, sometimes it just turns out that way.
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