Arūnas Dankovskis

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• Born July 14, 1992

Biographical Information

Arunas Dankovskis has played in the Elitserien and for the Lithuanian national team.

He debuted for Lithuania's national team shortly before his 16th birthday, starting at short in the 2008 European Championship Qualifier. He was 2 for 8 with 3 walks, 2 runs and 2 RBI entering the finale. His three-run triple off Croatia's Jimmy Summers made it 5-4 in the 9th inning of the finale but he was stranded and Lithuania lost out on a chance to make the European Championship for the first time (through 2021, they had still not made it, with two more close calls). He attended the MLB European Academy in 2010. He was 0 for 10 with a walk and a RBI in the 2012 European Championship U21, but handled 15 chances error-free.

In the 2015 B-Level European Championship, he was 0 for 2 with a hit-by-pitch and a run. He was 0 for 4 in the 2018 European Championship Playoff and got hit by a Ryan Rupp pitch as Lithuania lost to Austria in a bid for one of the open spots in the 2019 European Championship. He fielded .909. That summer, he and fellow Lithuanian Kestas Vilimas went to Sweden to play for the Sölvesborg Firehawks. He hit .229/.389/.337 and fielded .816 at SS, which he split with Ben Johnson.

Back with the Firehawks in 2019, he batted .262/.340/.362 and stole 13 bases in 14 tries. He tied Elvis Hammarstedt and Joel Johnson for sixth in the loop in swipes, tied Victor Croneld for 8th in runs (25) and led third basemen in fielding (.909). The Firehawks won the title. He hit .385/.619/.385 with seven walks and seven runs in five games, fielding .769, as Lithuania won the 2019 B-Level European Championship. He was third in the event in OBP, tied for 7th in runs, tied for second in walks (one behind Ievgenii Poliakov), tied for fifth in assists (12) and tied Matthew Kozlak for the most errors.

At the 2019 European Championship Playoff, he singled off Israel's Joey Wagman his first at-bat and scored to put Lithuania up 1-0 but Israel came back to win and then took Game 2 as well, Dankovskis going 0 for 5 after that, as Lithuania once again just missed a spot in the European Championship. Their next hope came in the 2021 European Championship Qualifier, when he started at second base and hit leadoff for Lithuania. He was 4 for 8 with a double, two walks, two steals in three tries, four runs and three RBI in three games while making no errors but Lithuania lost out to Greece. He led Lithuania in OPS (22 ahead of Edvardas Matusevičius) and only Matusevičius had more runs for the team.