LaHair, his players, his coaches and the fans enjoyed Saturday night’s 5-1 victory over Lake County at Day Air Ballpark that pushed their season record to 35-33. The pitchers, led by starter Julian Aguiar, more than did their job, and the offense came alive in the late innings.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” LaHair said. “We still got to keep playing, keep competing. We’ve been two games over, three games over before. We just take one day at a time, keep working and hopefully at the end we’ll be where we want to be.”
Saturday’s ingredients were the ones that can keep a team winning at high rate and in the second-half race for a playoff spot. It started with Aguiar (4-1) pitching six shutout innings and lowered his ERA to 1.97. He allowed three hits, one walk and struck out six. His six innings ran Lake County’s scoreless streak to 14 innings.
“Aguiar really had hitters off balance, put up a lot of zeros for us early, kept us in the ballgame, and then we were able to score,” LaHair said.
Then the Dragons’ bullpen did what it normally does. Jayvien Sandridge pitched the seventh and eighth and allowed only a solo homer to Micael Ramirez in the seventh. Then Jake Gozzo did in the ninth what he’s done all season with a 1-2-3 inning on nine pitches to lower his ERA to 0.93.
“It’s feeling good having a good bullpen behind you to come in and just keep the game going on the positive side,” Aguiar said. “Everybody’s starting to heat up in that bullpen.”
A 2-0 start on the second-half playoff push is nice, but Aguiar knows better than to think about what a single game might mean in the standings when there is so much season left.
“Not really thinking about that,” he said. “Just going out there and dominating and just getting these hitters out, putting up zeros on the board, so the guys on offense can score some runs and get some wins for us to keep the momentum going.”
Lake County starter Reid Johnston matched Aguiar until the fourth inning. A hit batter and a walk set up Austin Callahan for a two-run double, which was the Dragons’ first hit of the game.
“I just put a good swing on something and it turned out well tonight,” Callahan said. “In the at-bats leading up to that point, we talked in the dugout about the movement of his pitches and just focused on being on time.”
Tyler Callihan was on time against Johnston in the seventh with his seventh home run for a 3-0 lead. Then the Dragons started the eighth with four straight hits against Franco Aleman to extend the lead to 5-1. Jack Rogers, who had struck out three times, singled to start the inning. He scored on Edwin Arroyo’s double to the left-field corner. Callihan followed with his second hit, then Ibarra singled in Arroyo.
“Our leadoff hitters for the inning did a good job of getting on base,” said Callahan, who also doubled in the seventh. “Hitting’s really contagious, and I think it showed tonight.”
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