DANVILLE — When you have been the Danville Dans manager for 10 seasons in 11 years, there are obviously some standard philosophies that carry over from season to season.
Eric Coleman believes that pitchers need to compete in the zone, baserunners should be aggressive, his team should always protect the house, having a winning record every week and no matter what happens, everything gets flushed at midnight.
Those basic rules for Danville Dans baseball were broken this past week.
First off, the Dubois County Bombers came into Danville Stadium on Friday night and pulled out a 7-5 victory.
After a 13-2 win on Saturday for Danville against the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes, the Dans suffered an 11-0 loss to the Lafayette Aviators on Sunday.
For the week, Danville had just two wins against four losses.
“It’s just the way things go,’’ said Coleman after Friday’s game. “We still have a good club.
“Obviously, we didn’t pitch the best tonight, but our outs were hard.’’
Pitching was also a problem on Sunday with three Danville hurlers combing for nine walks, while allowing 11 runs — 10 earned. While offensively, the Dans managed just four singles and a double. Sebastian Arguelles and Brenden Stressler each finished with 2 hits.
Missed opportunities in the first two innings on Friday night against the Bombers were a problem.
The Dans (9-7) hit into inning-ending double plays on first pitches in both frames to squash any chances to push across the game’s first run.
“It’s not a problem. Our guys were just being a little too overly aggressive,’’ Coleman said. “They made some really good plays tonight. The last time we played them, they made seven errors. They made the adjustments tonight and they got us.’’
Arguelles, who leads the Dans with 22 hits and a .393 average, was one of those players that hit into a double play.
The shortstop from Santa Barbara City College made up for in the fourth inning with a single, a stolen base and scoring his team’s first run and then in the fifth, his RBI single pulled them within 7-4.
“Sometimes, if falls, and sometimes, it doesn’t,’’ said Arguelles. “You just have to keep playing. Baseball is a game of failure, so you have to keep going.
“We had a lot of hard hit ball that were being caught. We just have to stick to our approach and they will fall — sooner or later.’’
Arguelles had one of the hardest hit balls in the ninth inning with a runner on first, his line drive was caught by Jace Druschel to end the game.
“We hit a lot of balls right at them,’’ Coleman said. “We also had a fly out to the wall, where the wind wasn’t blowing our way.
“We only had two strikeouts in 27 outs. We did a good job of putting the ball in play. Their second baseman (Druschel) killed us. He made a lot of good plays tonight.
The Dans seemingly bounced back well on Saturday night with a trip to Springfield.
Darryl Dillworth II, a outfielder from Folsum Lake College, had his best night of the summer, going 4-for-4 with two singles, two doubles and two runs scored.
Other offensive standouts for Danville included Michael Ryan, who was 2-for-2 with two RBIs and Arguelles was 2-for-4, while Graham Mastros had the game’s only home run and two RBIs.
That was more than enough offense for Abe Chancellor, who improved to 3-0, as he allowed just one run in five innings while striking out eight. Jacob Havern got the final six outs, including five strikeouts.
On Sunday, Lafayette leadoff hitter Grant Miller seeming set the tone, drawing four walks in five plate appearances and scoring three runs.
“We can’t worry about what happened last week, we have a doubleheader on Tuesday,’’ Coleman said.
Danville will host the Terre Haute Rex in a 6 p.m. doubleheader tonight at Danville Stadium. The second game is make-up from a rained out contest on June 8.
Each game will be seven innings and of course, it’s a Two-Buck Tuesday with $3 admission and $2 Busch Lights.
Despite the rough week, Danville (8-5) still holds a two-game lead in the Prospect League’s Central Division. The Terre Haute Rex are currently second at 6-7.