Dragons drop Loons

With Andrew Lambo and Alex Garabedian late scratches from the Loons’ starting lineup, the Dayton Dragons defeated Great Lakes Tuesday night at Dow Diamond by a score of 4-2.

Prior to the ballgame, Garabedian arrived at Dow Diamond under the weather and was removed from the starting lineup. Soon after, Lambo became unavailable to play due to a hip injury suffered late in Monday night’s 8-3 loss to the South Bend Silver Hawks.

With Great Lakes missing two of its leading hitters, Dayton was able to jump out to an early lead scoring first in the opening inning when Logan Parker’s RBI single gave Dayton a 1-0 lead. Parker is now hitting .341 with three homers and 11 RBIs this season against the Loons.

Dayton’s Jason Bour helped the Dragons open up a 4-0 lead on a two-run home run in the second, his first of the season, as well as an RBI double in the fourth.

The Loons tacked on single runs in the fifth and sixth innings. Great Lakes loaded the bases in the sixth against Dragons starting pitcher Luis Montano, but reliever Jeff Jeffords came on to allow only one of Montano’s runs to score as the Loons failed to manufacture any more runs in the inning. Jeffords retired all 12 batters he faced to end the ballgame.

Erik Kanaby led the way for the Loons with two hits in the contest. The Loons have scored 19 runs in their last nine games.

Montano pitched five innings allowing two runs and picked up the victory, upping his record to 8-5. Jeffords pitched four perfect innings while striking out a half-dozen in relief to pick up the save, his third of the season.

Given Kutz weathered an early storm off the bats of the Dragons to stick around to pitch seven innings for the Loons allowing four runs but was charged with the loss, dropping his record to 3-2.

The Loons and Dragons play game two Wednesday night at Dow Diamond. Game time is 7:05 p.m.