Canadians go a lousy 1-for-132 in NL

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The Northern League's lone Canadian, T-Bone Jeff Helps, dodges some inside heat during the fourth inning. (TREVOR.HAGAN@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

Some random musings from a hot and humid night at the ballpark:

Can you still call it the Northern League if there are hardly any actual northerners in it?

Ontario's Jeff Helps, who was guarding second base Thursday night at Canwest Park for the visiting Kansas City T-Bones, is the only Canadian in the six-team Northern League. That's one Canadian in a league with 132 ballplayers.

The Winnipeg Goldeyes are the leading culprit in the sudden dearth of Canadians in a league that always used to have at least a handful. For what is believed to be the first time in franchise history, the Goldeyes have not had a single Canadian play in a regular-season game for them this season.

The Fish, of course, have had some great Canadian ballplayers with them over the years, including Quebec's Max Poulin and Winnipeg's own Donnie Smith, whose number was retired earlier this week.

Poulin left the team after last season and was replaced at shortstop by American Wes Long.

Long, of course, was a brilliant pickup. He was one of the league leaders in hitting and fielding and the Goldeyes thrived with him in the lineup, going 27-12 until he was lost for the season to a broken ankle in late June.

And ever since, the Goldeyes have been a completely different baseball team -- and not in a good way. The Fish have gone just 6-11 in the 17 games they've played since losing Long -- but when you break down the numbers it's not for the reasons you might think.

As a team, the Goldeyes have actually been hitting better since Long went down -- .291 vs .289. And they're committing errors at roughly the same pace -- 19 through 17 games as compared to 41 through 39 games. And you cannot really fault Long's replacement at shortstop either -- Adam Frost has been hitting .302 and cranked the game-winning home run Thursday night, although his defence has certainly been shakier than Long's.

But the real reason the Goldeyes have gone south since Long went down would seem to have nothing to do with Long at all -- pitching. With Long in the lineup, the Goldeyes pitching staff had a shiny 3.82 team ERA. But since Long has gone down, that ERA has bloated to 6.45.

Go figure.

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The Goldeyes run a between-innings promotion in which they give away a lawn mower worth more than $300 to a fan if the Goldeyes can retire the other team in order that particular inning. Three batters, three outs, get it?

So how often could that happen in an independent league where the defence is porous and the pitching spotty? Well, that's what Toro and Tamarack Equipment thought too when they agreed to sponsor the promotion.

But Goldeyes pitchers have made them pay, dearly, this year.

With yet another 1-2-3 inning in the top of the fifth Thursday night, the Fish have now retired the side and given away the mower in five of the seven times they've staged the promotion this season.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Fish 1 T-Bones 0

The Winnipeg Goldeyes got a ninth inning walk-off home run by shortstop Adam Frost Thursday night to defeat the Kansas City T-Bones 1-0 at Canwest Park.

With the game still scoreless, Frost led off the bottom of the ninth inning and promptly cracked a rocket to centre field that just cleared the fence and gave the Fish the win. The hit was just the third of the evening off T-Bones starter Dustin Bolton, who was masterful through his first 105 pitches but was tagged with the loss because of the 106th.

Frost's homer was just his third of the season and came immediately after Goldeyes outfielder Kurt Crowell robbed T-Bones leftfielder Damian Rolls at the outfield wall to end the top of the ninth.

In what was a dandy pitchers duel, Goldeyes starter Andrew Cruse was also masterful, striking out eight through seven shutout innings. Cruse had some control issues -- he walked four and struck two batters -- but worked his way out of whatever trouble he did have.

The win improved the Goldeyes season record to 33-24 and puts them back into a tie for first place with Gary, which was idle.

-- Wiecek

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 24, 2009 C4