Today’s game
Who: Bowling Green at Dayton Dragons
When: 7 p.m.
Radio: WONE-AM (980)
DAYTON — For openers, there was a purple-haired juggler on stilts welcoming fans at the main entrance.
And if you still couldn’t tell it was a special night, maybe the cavalcade of motorcycles ushering mascots Heater and Gem to the field was your tipoff. Or the pregame fireworks.
“They told us there would be a lot of fans, but we weren’t expecting motorcycles on the field,” Dayton Dragons second baseman Devin Lohman said after what became a 4-0 loss to the Bowling Green Hot Rods.
Speaking of the unexpected, there was also an eight-minute darkness delay during the top of the fourth inning when somebody forgot to turn on the outfield lights and the umpires halted play until they came on.
“I guess we’re going to see a little bit of everything in Dayton this summer,” said new Dragons manager Delino DeShields, whose team mustered three hits, all singles, against three Bowling Green moundsmen.
As night fell in the fourth, around 8 p.m., Dragons right fielder Juan Duran dropped a seemingly routine fly by Cody Rogers, who made it to third on the error with one out.
“I didn’t even realize those lights weren’t on,” DeShields said. “That’s not good. We had one set of lights on and another set off. That’s no excuse for a dropped fly ball, but I’ve never really seen that before at a ball field. That was a little different.
“I walked out and asked what the problem was. I still didn’t know the lights weren’t on.”
When play resumed, Rogers scored on a sacrifice fly for the only run that would matter.
Joe Eaglowski, the Dragons’ director of game operations and a former University of Dayton football coach, took the blame for the lighting fiasco.
He said the outfield lights are to be turned on as needed.
“We have new people and I didn’t come up and give them instructions,” Eaglowski said. “I was in the parking lot, and when I came back over the lights weren’t on. It won’t happen again.”
The Dragons, who averaged more than five runs per game in spring training, struck out 12 times. They put two runners on with one out in the ninth, but a double-play grounder ended the threat and the game.
Lost in the darkness of defeat was the brilliant pitching of starter Josh Smith, who fanned nine in six innings and took a no-hitter into the fifth before a leadoff homer by Nick Schwaner broke it up.
Many in the crowd of 8,058 stuck around for postgame fireworks, by which time the Dragons already had turned the page on a disappointing opener.
“I was looking forward to getting this day over,” DeShields admitted. “I knew (Thursday) was going to be difficult for the young guys. We’ll be fine.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2408 or smcclelland@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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