Dayton, OH – What a difference a day makes. The Dayton Dragons (2-4) got steam rolled 10-1 by the Lansing Lugnuts (4-2) in the opening game of the three game series on Monday night. Tuesday night, the Dragons got all the pitching they would need and just enough hitting to sneak by the Lugnuts 2-1 in a thriller at Fifth Third Field.
7,715 packed the stands to see the second start of the season of Dayton lefty Travis Wood (WP, 1-0) and the crowd was not disappointed. The Reds second round selection in the 2005 First Year Player Draft was as good as advertised, tossing 5.0 innings of 10 strikeout shutout baseball against Lansing . Amazingly Wood, who scattered four hits on the night, did not have a single one, two, three inning. Three different times against Wood, Lansing had runners in scoring position with less than two outs but did not score.
Chi-Hung Cheng (LP 1-1) matched Wood almost pitch for pitch in the first four innings of the game. The fifth would be the undoing of the Lugnuts lefthander who started the inning surrendering a solo homer to Eric Eymann (1), giving the Dragons a 1-0 lead. Dayton followed the Eymann home run with three consecutive singles. Gerardo Cabrera and Mike Griffin both picked up singles to left and the Dragons had first and second with none down. Paul Janish, picked up the fourth straight hit of the inning, another single to left that scored Cabrera and gave Dayton a 2-0 lead.
Russell Haltiwanger (ND) took over for Wood in the sixth and after giving up a lead off hit to Joey Metropoulos picked up a double play grounder to end the Lansing threat. Haltiwanger was perfect in the seventh and picked up the first two outs in the eighth before allowing a solo homer to dead center off the bat of Jacob Butler that cut the lead to 2-1.
Zac Stott (SV, 2) entered with two down and got Metropoulos to line out ending the eighth and struck out the side in the ninth to pick up his second save. On the night, Dayton pitching struck out 16, tying a franchise record, achieved six previous times.
Dayton and Lansing wraps up the three game series Wednesday night at Fifth Third Field with a 7:00 PM first pitch. 1410 ESPN Radio WING AM will carry the game live beginning with the pre game show at 6:30 PM. The game can also be heard live on the internet at
www.daytondragons.com RHP Carlos Fisher gets the start for the Dragons, while Lansing will counter with LHP Kristian Bell.