Dragons overpower Lugnuts, 11-0

LANSING, Mich. – The Dayton Dragons (12-14) used home runs from Ruben Ibarra, Blake Dunn and Jack Rogers in tandem with stellar pitching to rout the Lansing Lugnuts (12-13), 11-0, on Saturday night at Jackson® Field™.

Dayton defeated Lansing in four of the first five games of the series, clinching a series victory.

Lugnuts pitchers did strike out 16 Dragons batters – six by Jacob Watters in four innings, five by Kumar Nambiar in two innings, four by John Beller in 1 2/3 innings and one by Mac Lardner in 1 1/3 innings – but the Nuts’ offense was held to a pair of walks and a pair of Sahid Valenzuela singles in defeat.

Dayton jumped on starter Watters early, scoring three runs in the first inning and adding an Ibarra three-run homer in the second inning.

A Dunn solo homer in the fourth increased the lead to 7-0, and Rogers followed an inning later with a three-run opposite-field blast off Nambiar for a 10-0 lead.

The Dragons closed out the scoring in the eighth with a Hayden Jones RBI single off Lardner.

Meanwhile, Dayton starter Julian Aguiar fired five scoreless innings, limiting Lansing to Valenzuela singles in the first and the fourth innings.

Aguiar was followed to the mound by Brooks Crawford, who issued a two-out walk to Daniel Susac in the seventh inning but nothing more in his three scoreless innings.

Vin Timpanelli pitched around a leadoff walk to Junior Pérez in the ninth to finish off Lansing’s fourth shutout loss of the year.

Nuts right-hander Blake Beers starts Sunday’s homestand finale at 1:05 p.m., opposed by Dayton right-hander José Acuña. Gates open at 12 noon on a Capital City Market Kids Day featuring Kids Run the Bases and the postgame Extra Inning with free ice cream, music and Big Lug at Capital City Market across Michigan Ave. For ticket information, visit lansinglugnuts.com or call (517) 485-4500.

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