Odd Flyers team: world beaters one day, next day world beaten
Inconsistency has plagued the Dayton Flyers baseball team this spring.
Dayton beat Ohio State 6-0 at Day Air Ballpark on April 12 in front of 3,859 fans, the largest crowd ever to watch the team play in Dayton, but then lost two of three games at Fordham over the weekend. The Flyers then beat Wright State 9-3 on Tuesday at Woerner Field, ending a 17-game losing streak in the series, only to lose 7-2 at Butler the following day.
The ups and downs have left Dayton with a 15-18 record and a 3-6 mark in the Atlantic 10 Conference with a month left in the regular season.
“We have a team that can accomplish anything we want to,” Dayton coach Jayson King said Thursday. “I truly believe that. I think there’s nothing that we can’t do. Yet we can beat anybody or lose to anybody, which is cool in some ways, and it’s bad in other ways. It just depends on which side of the fence you’re landing on. But I like the group that we have. We just need to be more consistent and play up to the level of talent that we have.”
Until Tuesday, Dayton’s last victory against Wright State came on March 15, 2009: 5-3 at UD. The teams played once or twice every year since until 2020 and 2021, two seasons affected by the pandemic.
The series returned this season with two games. The Flyers lost the first game 14-0 on March 8 at Nischwitz Stadium but won Tuesday when Cody Whitten allowed one earned run on three hits in six innings and Henry Strmecki hit a grand slam in the sixth inning.
“I’ve only been here for a short time,” said King, who was hired in June of 2017, “and we haven’t played them an awful lot. A lot of that stuff was before I got here, but obviously since I’ve been here, we haven’t been able to get anything done. I think anytime we’re getting wins at this point, it feels good, but I’d say there’s a little more to that one.”
The victory against Ohio State was also a first in the King era. The teams played only once in his first four seasons with Ohio State winning 6-5 in 2019. Dayton’s last victory in the series came in 2016.
Kenny Serwa started against the Buckeyes and allowed four hits in seven scoreless innings. Keagan Calero and Jose Martinez hit home runs.
“That one felt like it had a little more to it just because it was an event,” King said. “There were a lot of people there. We played
very well. The fans and the support and the amount of time people spent to make that feel like it did, that had an incredible vibe to it.”
It’s always challenging competing in the midweek non-conference games. It’s almost like two separate seasons happening at once. Dayton has a game at Kentucky next Tuesday and two more non-conference games against Northern Kentucky and Butler in May. It also has 15 A-10 games left, starting with three at home this weekend against Massachusetts, before the A-10 tournament, which starts May
25 at Fordham.
“I have a background in Division II,” King said, “and in Division II, every single game matters. Division I, unfortunately, it’s built a little different
in a lot of ways, especially for an Atlantic 10 team. We’re trying to play the play right and compete at a high level every single game we play yet still trying to be intelligent
enough to know that the big stuff happens by doing well on the weekends. Yet any team that’s worth anything is going to play every game like it’s important and
like it matters.”
Offense has been Dayton’s weak spot. It’s hitting .215 in nine A-10 games, the second-worst average in the conference, and has scored the second-fewest runs (42). Calero leads the team with a .275 average. He’s hitting .321 in nine A-10 games.
The pitching staff ranks eighth in the A-10 with a 6.43 team ERA. Ryan Steinhauer (1-1, 4.66) ranks third in the league with 27 strikeouts in three A-10 starts. Mark Manfredi (0-2, 3.64) ranks fifth in strikeouts (18).
“We haven’t done any particular thing to an extremely high level,” King said, “But some of those guys obviously are doing a very good job for us. I think we just need a few more guys to step up, and it’ll look a little different.”