Dragons drop early lead, fall to Lansing

The Lansing Lugnuts broke open a close game with seven runs over their last two offensive innings as they defeated the Dayton Dragons 11-4 on Wednesday night.

The Dragons had a chance late in the game to tie or take the lead. They had the tying run at second base with one out in the seventh inning and had the tying run at the plate with no outs in the eighth but could not deliver a big hit. Lansing took command with five runs in the bottom of the eighth.

The Dragons took an early lead. In the first inning, Dayton’s Carlos Jorge singled and moved to third on a single by Sal Stewart. Cam Collier lined a sacrifice fly to left field to bring in Jorge and make it 1-0.

Lansing scored two runs in the bottom of the first and added single runs in the third and fifth innings to take a 4-1 lead.

The Dragons took advantage of two walks and an error in the seventh to score two runs and make it 4-3. After Lansing scored two runs in the seventh, the Dragons again benefited from a Lansing error in the eighth leading to one run, but they trailed 6-4 going to the bottom half of the eighth.

The first five Lansing batters all drew walks in the eighth, and all eventually scored, as Lansing took an 11-4 lead and closed out the scoring.

Dragons starter Johnathan Harmon (0-2) lasted four innings, allowing three runs on six hits with no walks and five strikeouts to suffer the loss. Easton Sikorski surrendered three runs in 2 2/3 innings. Pedro Alfonseca had a rough night, allowing five straight walks to begin the eighth inning. He was charged with five earned runs in 1/3 of an inning without giving up a hit.

The Dragons finished with just three hits, all singles, by Jorge, Stewart, and Logan Tanner.