Dragons rout 1st-place Fort Wayne, stay in the hunt
One of Sal Stewart’s goals since he joined the Dayton Dragons on Aug. 8 has been to adjust. For 19-yearolds moving up in the minor leagues, that’s part of learning to be a professional baseball player.
And, of course, players want to have big nights now and then. Stewart’s turn was Tuesday in his 24th game with the Dragons. He drove in three runs and hit his first homer as a Dragon to help his team stay in the playoff hunt with a 10-4 victory over first-place Fort Wayne at Day Air Ballpark.
“With the change in midyear, I was just trying to get comfortable in my at-bats here,” Stewart said. “I felt like I was hitting the ball hard, having good team at-bats. Sometimes that’s how it goes, you hit the ball right at people and you just got to continue to hit the ball hard. And I feel like that’s what I did.”
The Reds drafted Stewart, a third baseman, with a supplemental first-round pick last summer out of high school in Miami. He hit 10 homers and drove in 60 runs this season at Low-A Daytona before being promoted to Dayton.
“He’s fit in, he’s been a stud since he got here,” Dragons manager Bryan LaHair said. “He can play, he can hit, he can defend, he’s got a high baseball IQ, easy to work with, loves to work.”
Stewart’s double in the third inning put the Dragons up 1-0. His two-run homer put them up 5-1. But the Dragons weren’t finished.
Edwin Arroyo and Stewart started the seventh with singles and Allan Cerda walked. Then Ruben Ibarra did one of the things he does best. Hit home runs deep into the night. Ibarra’s grand slam, his 16th homer this season, put the Dragons up 9-1.
“Baseball goes our way, baseball goes against us sometimes and that’s just the way the game goes,” Ibarra said. “It’s a beautiful sport. That’s why it’s an uncontrollable thing.”
Mixed in with all those uncontrollable things that happen in a game, the Dragons do have a say in their destiny in this final week of the season.
The Dragons (65-62 overall, 32-29 second half ) trail the TinCaps (34-27) by two games in the East Division with five to play. The Dragons have to win four of the five to finish ahead of the TinCaps. That could be enough to win the second half and make the Midwest League playoffs but not necessarily. West Michigan (3327) is 1.5 games ahead of the Dragons and could win the division even if the Dragons finish ahead of the TinCaps.
“I don’t think we’re looking at the longevity aspect of it,” Ibarra said. “I think we’re just looking at one game at a time. There’s too many other missing puzzle pieces that we got to connect for us to make the playoffs and hope for and wish for, but they don’t matter. We can control what we can control here.”
The Dragons also benefited from Chris McElvain’s deepest and one of his two best starts since joining them in late June. McElvain (2-2) went six innings, allowed one run on two hits and a walk and struck out six.
LaHair likes the way his team is playing now. They have won three straight and are 5-2 since Aug. 29.
“They’re just playing, playing together, trusting one another, and like I said early in the year chips will fall where they fall,” he said. “We got five left, and we’ll try to give our best effort like we always do.”