Another narrow loss for Goldeyes

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This article was published 08/07/2019 (2312 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Goldeyes have a lot of work to do if they plan on playing September baseball.

The Fish were handed another tough loss against division rivals at Shaw Park on Sunday afternoon, losing 3-2 to the St. Paul Saints.

Sunday’s loss marks the 10th time this season the Fish have lost by two runs or less. Half of those games have been against in-division opponents.

In the American Association, only the top two teams in each division make playoffs. With the season nearly halfway over, the Fish need to clean up their act and fast.

Goldeyes manager Rick Forney said it all starts with generating offence.

“We need to get some people healthy and back on the field. The people we’re paying to hit, we need them to hit. We’re at that point. It’s not early in the season where you say, ‘You need a certain amount of at-bats so you can adjust,’ we’re past that. We’re paying them to hit, so we need them to do it,” Forney said.

“We also need to get better (at) starting pitching. There’s been some inconsistencies and we’ve got a hole or two in the bullpen as well. There’s areas that are still a work in progress, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

With a respectable 27-20 record, Winnipeg actually has third-most wins in the American Association — ahead of the Cleburne Railroaders and Kansas City T-Bones, the top two south division teams.

But Winnipeg’s winning record won’t matter if the Fish can’t get ahead of the first-place Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks or the second-place Saints. Currently, Winnipeg is four games back of the lead.

On Sunday, Winnipeg-born pitcher Ryan Johnson started for the Fish. The lefty took his fourth loss of the year, but kept the Goldeyes in the game, holding the Saints to just one earned run on five hits over five innings.

Relief pitcher Mitchell Aker gave up a home run to Saints’ outfielder Devon Rodriguez on Aker’s first throw of the day. St. Paul sealed the deal with one more run later that inning.

Although the Fish didn’t win, a big highlight of the game was relief pitcher Joel Bender’s time on the mound. He pitched his best game of the season for the Goldeyes, striking out six batters in three shutout innings.

The Fish begin a six-game road trip tomorrow, starting in Nebraska to face the Lincoln Saltdogs. They’ll travel to Minnesota next and play a three-game series with the Saints.

July is jam-packed with south division competitors for the Fish. Out of the 20 games left this month, 14 of them will be against south division teams.

But regardless of the division, Forney says that every single game is important for his team. The high level of parity across the league this year means Winnipeg should always be prepared for a tough match.

“I don’t think it gets any easier when you play Lincoln in Lincoln and Kansas City in Kansas City. They’re really good teams and have good pitchers. We played the south division a lot in the first bit and then a lot of in-division teams here in the past two weeks. One of the common occurrences is our inconsistency in offence. We don’t score enough runs consistently.”

With the Saints and Goldeyes each winning a pair of games so far this series, the rubber match at Shaw Park goes today. Lefty Kevin McGovern (6-3, 4.35) starts for Winnipeg. The first pitch is at 7 p.m.

devon.shewchuk@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @devonshewchuk