Wingnuts no match for Goldeyes

By Ashley Prest

It’s a good time to be on a winning streak for the Winnipeg Goldeyes.

The Winnipeg baseball club (46-31) stretched its streak to four games with a 7-1 win over the Wichita Wingnuts (45-33) on Thursday.

A crowd of 5,948 saw Goldeyes relief pitcher Brian Beuning pitch a three-inning save after rejoining the team earlier in the day.

Yurendell de Caster put an exclamation point on the victory in the bottom of the seventh inning when the second baseman crushed a three-run bomb.

"Right now, it’s time to play every team like it’s the playoffs. You have to play like you want to play forever, play every game hard like we are doing," said de Caster, who hit his eighth dinger of the season.

While Wichita is leading the Central Division, the Goldeyes are four games back of North Division-leader Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks and have a four-game lead for the wild-card playoff berth over the Kansas City T-Bones.

Winnipeg and Wichita will meet again tonight at 7 p.m. in the second game of the three-game set at Shaw Park. The Goldeyes are expected to send Ace Walker (6-3, 3.27) to the mound while the Wingnuts expect to counter with right-hander Josh Lowey (12-3, 2.94), who leads the league in wins.

In Thursday’s game, Zach Baldwin (2-1) got the win in just his second start of this season for the Goldeyes, going 5.2 innings and allowing just one run on five hits.

Wichita opened the scoring when first baseman Greg Porter’s sacrifice fly drove in his team’s first run in the top of the first but. The Goldeyes replied with a pair of their own for a 2-1 edge in the bottom of one. With bases loaded, designated hitter Jon Weber hit a single to score Price Kendall followed by centre-fielder Chris Roberson scoring on Luis Alen’s sacrifice fly.

The Goldeyes took a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning after they scored another pair of runs. Right-fielder Kyle Day’s single scored Josh Mazzola and then Day scored on a stand-up triple by third baseman Amos Ramon.

Diamond Dust: Shortstop Jose Duran missed a second straight game with a tweaked hamstring and was replaced by Kendall, who went 3-for-5 with two runs scored. Roberson also scored a pair...The Goldeyes wore their navy blue jerseys for a fourth straight game.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPAshleyPrest