When the Dragons, who lost 10-0 on a one-hitter Saturday, faced a 10-2 deficit, they could have disregarded Gingrich’s study guide. But that’s when his tips kicked in. It didn’t matter what pitcher Fort Wayne put on the mound — there were seven of them — the Dragons stuck to Gingrich’s plan and started hitting and scoring at record pace.
A pace propelled by hit after hit, simply putting the ball in play, a tying three-run homer by Anthony Stephan and a lockdown finish by reliever Trey Braithwaite. What it all wrought was a 12-11 victory and, at eight runs down, the biggest comeback in 25 seasons of Dragons baseball.
“We got us a bunch of grinders and fighters on this team, so I wasn’t surprised,” Braithwaite said. “This is what we were made for.”
Stephan, a 2024 13th-round pick out of Virginia, had four hits and batted in six runs. After Fort Wayne sent nine batters to the plate in the second and third innings to build a 7-1 lead, Stephan singled in a run in the bottom of the third. Based on past results of a team with the worst record in the Midwest League, the run appeared meaningless. But not Sunday.
On a day when the thermometer spiked into the 90s, when ushers permitted fans to move into the shade, when sales of Kona Ice, Aquafina and Graeters surely peaked, the Dragons’ bats were just warming up.
But not before the TinCaps pushed the lead to 10-2 in the top of the fifth on Braedon Karpathios’ 108-mph, 423-foot home run over the batter’s eye screen in center. How do you come back from that?
During that pregame meeting, Harrison Jr. likened the game to a boxing match.
“It’s a competition, and there’s rounds to it, and you might get hit in the mouth, which we did, but you got to keep punching,” he said. “And if you don’t punch, you just get knocked out. The guys just kept punching.”
Stephan, who already had two hits, landed a big punch with a two-run double with two outs in the fifth to cut the deficit to 10-4. Still, not enough to take anyone’s mind off the heat. When the Dragons came to bat in the sixth, they trailed 11-4.
But 14 batters later the score was tied.
Victor Acosta singled and moved to second on a wild pitch. Carlos Jorge singled Acosta home. Leo Balcazar singled and Peyton Stovall flew out. Then the inning almost ended. John Michael Faile, who struck out three times, kept punching and hit a tailor-made double play bouncer to shortstop Leo De Vries, the 18-year-old considered San Diego’s No. 1 prospect.
But De Vries fumbled the ball for an error and the bases were loaded.
“That’s a small thing that’s going to get overlooked in this whole deal,” Harrison Jr. said. “J Mike’s been off. He shortened up with two strikes and put a ball in play and gave us a chance.”
De Vries’ error left an opening for a left-right combination and Stephan’s knockout punch.
Yerlin Confidan and Carter Graham followed with RBI singles before Stephan’s uppercut tied the score.
“Just to do it for the guys, is just really special,” he said. “When I’m rounding first I hear [first-base coach Peterson] Plaz getting excited, and I get to second and I see the bullpen jumping up and down, then I get to third and see the dugout going crazy. That’s why you do it, that’s why you play.”
Staggered and against the ropes, the TinCaps managed to get a second out. But Acosta followed with his second hit of the inning, and the next three — Jorge, Balcazar, Stovall — walked to force in the go-ahead run.
“I know how much behind closed doors we work, and yesterday wasn’t our best offensive day, but we don’t give up,” Stephan said. “Being in those hitters meetings and being with the guys, I know how much they care. And so to come back down 10, it means all the world.”
The comeback wasn’t complete, however, and Braithwaite knew what was required of him with a bullpen running out of options.
“The guys battled for us today, and I just had to throw up a zero and then trust to have all my guys behind me with the defense and just compete in the strike zone,” he said.
Braithwaite got the final nine outs with barely a scratch. He struck out two and allowed only a two-out single in the ninth.
“Trey’s a dog — he’s got that mentality,“ Stephan said. ”I didn’t want anyone else with the ball in that situation.”
The Dragons are 1-2 in the second half and 22-46 for the season. They appeared an unlikely candidate to pull of the best comeback in team history. But in a little over half of those losses the Dragons held a lead.
“Unlikely if you look at the record,” Harrison Jr. said. “We might not have the heralded group like we did last year with all the first-rounders, but we’ve been in so many games, and a pitch here, an at bat here, a defensive miscue here, has changed the outcome.”
On Sunday the Dragons proved they always have a puncher’s chance.
“We’ve done it as an open hand,” Harrison Jr. said. “You saw the fist a little bit today.”
About the Author