When Hopkins reached the mound to break up the meeting, he clearly didn’t like something he heard Garman say to Franco. So Hopkins ejected Garman, which gave him the chance to tell Hopkins what he really thought of his calls.
Four batters later, after Franco walked in the second run, manager Vince Harrison Jr. removed him from the game. As Franco walked to the dugout he had words for Hopkins and was ejected. The inning summary at that moment: 2 runs, 2 outs, 2 ejections.
But despite the early deficit and no pitching coach, the Dragons let all the negativity go. Cody Adcock began a strong run of relief pitching, Ethan O’Donnell, doubled, tripled and homered, everyone in the lineup contributed something and the Dragons remained in first place with a 7-3 victory over Lake County.
“Resilient,” Harrison Jr. said. “I try to say it as often as possible that I know the umpires are trying. I don’t think they’re intentionally trying to mess games up, but there’s a few calls that will make you emotional. Some of those didn’t go in our favor, and it was unfortunate, but in reality it did draw us together. Guys started fighting.”
The Dragons (24-16 second half) have a chance to win the six-game series with a win Saturday or Sunday. They maintained their half-game lead over West Michigan in the Midwest League East Division. After this series, the Dragons have four more weeks of games as they try to win the second half and a playoff berth for the first time since 2017.
To do so the Dragons have to win games like they did Friday and have hot hitters. O’Donnell is the hottest. Hitting .388 in his last 12 games, he tripled in the third and scored on Hector Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly. It was a start.
Leo Balcazar led off the fourth with his second homer of the series and third of the season. Jay Allen II singled, Carter Graham doubled, Victor Acosta plated Allen II with a groundout and Carlos Jorge doubled home Graham for a 4-2 lead.
Then in the seventh O’Donnell hit a two-run homer, his sixth this season, for a 6-3 lead. O’Donnell and all the hitters got a pep talk before the game from a Hall of Famer Barry Larkin and went into the game with the goal of being focused on discipline in every facet of the game.
“That’s the thing they’ll tell you coming from college is the experience you’re going to be around and having guys like Barry Larkin, Eric Davis, and every guy on our staff,” O’Donnell said. “To hear from them, learn from their struggles, so hopefully we don’t have to walk down that same road, it’s amazing.”
Perhaps the biggest moment of the game was when Adcock, who joined the Dragons last week from Daytona, replaced Franco with the bases loaded in a game that could have gotten out of hand quickly. But Adcock struck out Jorge Burgos looking. And Burgos didn’t much care for the call.
With Franco’s early exit, Adcock (1-0) knew his team needed some good innings out of him. He pitched the next three, allowed one hit and struck out three.
“The crowd was awesome, I love playing at home, I love being in Dayton,” Adcock said. “That was one of my favorite outings that I’ve ever had.”
While Adcock was signing autographs for kids after the game, an 11-year-old named Ethan showed a ball to Adcock and said it was the home run ball O’Donnell hit. He asked Adcock if he could get O’Donnell to come out of the clubhouse and sign the ball. Adcock said absolutely.
A few minutes later, O’Donnell signed the ball and had his picture taken with young Ethan. And he signed everything else the small group of kids had with them.
And a night that began like it would taunt the Dragons for nine innings, ended with lots of kids taking home cherished baseballs full of autographs.
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