But the recurring result was all too familiar, the same stranding of runners that plagued the Dragons in their first-half last-place finish.
On Friday night at Day Air Ballpark, the Dragons left eight men on base, including six in scoring position, in a 3-2 loss to the Fort Wayne TinCaps.
“We didn’t get the hit, we took strike three a couple times with runners in scoring position on pitches to hit,” manager Vince Harrison Jr. said. “We got to be ready to drive in runs, and you can’t drive them in if you’re not swinging at pitches in the zone.”
The Dragons’ only breakthrough moment came in the third when Carlos Jorge singled in two runs for a 2-1 lead. His hit was set up by Anthony Stephan’s bloop single, Connor Burns’ walk and leadoff hitter Victor Acosta’s sacrifice bunt.
Acosta has five sacrifices, and small ball is part of Harrison Jr.’s strategy.
“We don’t have guys crushing the ball, we don’t have guys with a bunch of home runs,” Harrison Jr. said. “We’ve got to create runs.”
Harrison Jr. tried to create another run in the fourth when he waved Stephan around third on a single to left by Burns. But the throw was on target and Stephan was out to end the inning.
The eighth inning was difficult to take. Carter Graham walked and Peyton Stovall singled with one out. But Ariel Almonte struck out swinging and John Michael Faile struck out looking.
The pitching trio of Nestor Lorant, Cody Adcock and Easton Sikorski struck out 13 TinCaps. But Lorant (0-4) couldn’t keep the ball in the ballpark on three favorable counts.
Rosman Verdugo hit an 0-1 pitch for his 10th homer and 1-0 lead in the second.
In the fourth, pinch-hitter Jacob Campbell hit a 1-2 pitch for his third homer. The ball hit above the 381 mark in left and Harrison Jr. argued that it bounced back off the fence, not the glass railing above the fence. Kai Roberts made it back-to-back on a 1-2 pitch for his first homer in his 81st at bat.
“He had a chance to put some guys away,” Harrison Jr. said. “The first homer to Verdugo was right into his hot spot. The second one I don’t think it went over the fence, but was two-strike hanging. And then the next guy was two strikes hanging. Just too much of the plate.”
The Dragons’ effort to play much better and win more in the second half will be as much about handling adversity as anything. Harrison Jr. was a three-sport athlete and understands the difficulty of baseball’s mental side.
“The amount of failure and how you deal with it says a lot about who you can be,” he said. “It’s big to figure out. There’s times where a game is going to be frustrating, and you got a fight or flight response, and there’s a play to win response versus play not to lose.”
Harrison Jr. wants his team to play with a mindset of taking on and being ready for every challenge.
“We can’t expect things to happen for us,” he said. “We have to go make things happen. We have to knock down doors and not wait for them to fall.”
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