Silverio leads Loons to win

Garrett White, Cal Stanke, and Miguel Ramirez supplied the pitching, and Alfredo Silverio supplied the offense as his home run and three runs batted in helped the Loons pick up a 4-1 win over the Dayton Dragons Thursday night at Dow Diamond.

White, Stanke and Ramirez dominated as they combined to two-hit the Dragons over nine innings, with each hit coming off the bat of Dayton catcher Devin Mesoraco, who doubled in the second and singled with two outs in the ninth.

The Dragons opened the scoring in the second inning when Eduardo Perez’s fielding error allowed Mesoraco to score and give Dayton a 1-0 lead.

Things stayed quiet until the fifth when Silverio launched his eighth home run of the season to left field, a solo home run which tied the game at one.

In the sixth, Silverio delivered a one-out, two-run single to right field scoring Perez and Jaime Ortiz to break the tie and give the Loons a 3-1 lead.

Andrew Lambo added on an insurance run with an RBI single in the seventh inning to make it 4-1 Loons and finish the scoring in the ballgame.

The Dragons put together a threat in the ninth, reaching on a single by Mesoraco and a walk to Denis Phipps. The Loons then called on closer Miguel Ramirez who finished the job by throwing one pitch to get Mike McKennon to fly out to right field and end the ballgame.

After White pitched five innings, allowing one hit and one unearned run, Stanke pitched 3 2/3 quality innings allowing the other Dragon base hit and picked up the victory to improve to 2-0. Ramirez came on to record save number 19 on the season.

Juan Rafael picked up the loss after pitching six innings, allowing three runs to fall to 3-2 on the year.

The win was the first Loons victory at Dow Diamond since July 28 when they beat the Quad Cities River Bandits 6-2

The Loons and Dragons play the rubber game of this three-game series Friday night from Dow Diamond. Game time is 7:05 p.m.

Photos by Alex Baumgardner