DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — Dayton’s Trey Faltine broke a scoreless tie with a two-run home run in the eighth inning and three Dayton pitchers combined to allow only three hits as the Dragons defeated the Fort Wayne TinCaps 2-1 on Friday night.
The game featured one of the top pitcher’s duels of the season. Neither team could push across a run until the Dragons came to bat in the eighth.
Justice Thompson singled through the right side with one out, and Faltine followed with a home run to straight-away center field to put Dayton in front.
It was Faltine’s first homer of the year.
“I was expecting a fastball there and I got it, and put a good swing on it,” said Faltine. “It happened to be me tonight and it could have been anybody. The first two games (in the series) obviously didn’t go the way we wanted them to go but it’s baseball, you just have to stay the course and good things will happen.”
Dragons starting pitcher Julian Aguiar was exceptional and has emerged as one of the league’s top pitchers.
He fired six scoreless innings, allowing just one hit with one walk and six strikeouts to lower his earned run average to a league-leading 1.62.
John Murphy, just called up this week from Low-A Daytona, made his first appearance with the Dragons to start the seventh inning.
He faced the minimum six batters over seventh and eighth and then recorded the first out of the ninth.
Jayvien Sandridge replaced Murphy and walked the first man he faced before allowing a run-scoring double to Jackson Merrill that brought Fort Wayne to within a run and put the tying run at second.
But Sandridge struck out the next two batters swinging to end the game. Murphy was credited with the win and Sandridge earned his first save.
The Dragons finished with eight hits. Blake Dunn and Austin Hendrick each had two.
The Dragons and TinCaps have now split the first four games in the series.
