MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com-Midland, Mich.—Cody Puckett lined a hit to left field to bring in Dave Sappelt from second base and break a 2-2 tie in the top of the eighth inning to lift the Dayton Dragons to a 3-2 victory over the Great Lakes Loons on Sunday afternoon. The Dragons have won four of their last five games and are 23-33 on the season. Great Lakes fell to 29-27 with the loss.

The game featured a rain delay in the first inning of one hour and 35 minutes. The delay cost the Dragons the services of their starting pitcher, J.C. Sulbaran, who warmed up before the rain started but never got to throw a pitch in the game.

Dragons reliever Andrew Bowman replaced Sulbaran on the mound when Great Lakes came to bat in the bottom of the first inning and was outstanding. Bowman tossed five no-hit innings, walking one and striking out seven.

The Dragons took the lead in the top of the second inning. Carlos Mendez started the rally with a single to left. Byron Wiley hit a ground ball to the right side that was fielded by second baseman Jaime Pedroza as he was moving to his right. Pedroza tried to flip the ball to second to get the force on Mendez, but his flip was wide of the bag. Mendez advanced to third on an error. Kevin Coddington lined a single to center to score Mendez, and one batter later, Yen-Wen Kuo blooped a singled to center to score Wiley and make it 2-0.

Jordan Hotchkiss replaced Bowman on the mound in the sixth and allowed one run on an RBI single to Pedroza to make it 2-1. The Loons tied the game in the seventh off Dragons reliever Junior Martinez on a run-scoring double by Esteban Lopez.
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Tied 2-2 in the eighth, Sappelt walked to start the inning and was sacrificed to second by Miguel Rojas. One batter later, Puckett lined a single to left that brought in Sappelt to give the Dragons a 3-2 lead.

Martinez and Steven Otterness combined to work a scoreless bottom of the eighth and Aguido Gonzalez came in to pitch the ninth for Dayton. Gonzalez struck out the first two batters of the inning before allowing a walk on a 3-2 pitch. But he followed that with his third strikeout of the inning to end the game and earn his sixth save of the year.

Martinez (1-0) was credited with the win despite allowing the tying run to score in the bottom of the seventh.

The Dragons collected eight hits by eight different players. All eight were singles.

The Dragons battle the Loons again on Monday at 7:05 p.m. at Dow Diamond. Oscar Castro (2-2, 6.59) will start for the Dragons against Nathan Eovaldi (1-4, 5.79). Castro is starting in place of all-star left-hander Matt Fairel, who will be skipped once in the rotation due to his high number of innings pitched this season.

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