Hitting coach praises Fish for ‘character win’

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This article was published 24/05/2021 (1570 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On paper, the Winnipeg Goldeyes winning their home opener 5-4 over the Chicago Dogs last Friday at The Ballpark in Jackson, Tenn., doesn’t seem overly special.

But knowing the full story, it should be remembered as one of the team’s most impressive regular-season victories in franchise history.

After going 1-2 on the road in their season-opening series against the Sioux Falls Canaries, capped off with an 8-1 loss on Thursday, the Fish hopped on the bus to make the trip to Jackson — their home base for the time being as the Canada-U.S. border won’t allow the team to play out of Winnipeg.

They were barely out of Sioux Falls when the bus blew a back tire around one o’clock in the morning, forcing them to pull over. After several desperate phone calls, they were finally able to get a repairman out to replace the tire two hours later. It took another two hours for him to change the tire. What should’ve been a 12-hour bus trip ended up being over 16 hours. The Fish ended up getting to The Ballpark so late that the game had to be postponed an hour.

They also had to work overtime on the diamond as the game went to 10 innings, but the Goldeyes managed to catch at least one break that day as infielder Kevin Lachance won the contest by scoring from second base on a fielding error.

“That might’ve been the biggest character win I’ve ever seen on any team I’ve ever been with because of what this team went through the previous days. Honestly, I’ve been in baseball for over 30 years, and I didn’t even play, and I’ve never been as exhausted mentally and physically as I was after what happened to us on the bus,” said Goldeyes hitting coach Kash Beauchamp.

For the players and staff who were on the team last year, it wasn’t their first time running into bus troubles around Sioux Falls. Last July, the Goldeyes were 20 minutes outside of the South Dakota city when their front tire burst and the right side of the bus hit a guardrail — ultimately saving them from a serious accident.

“It’s something about Sioux Falls trips. (Luckily) we don’t go there again this year,” said Lachance, who has 10 hits in six games this season.

“But that was very crazy… At that point, you got to throw out your normal routine and what you would do in pregame and you just got to do whatever you can do to get ready for the game. It’s hectic and crazy, but in a way, it’s liberating in a sense as you don’t have your routines or anything to do pregame. You just get yourself ready and go out and play. It’s like you’re a kid again playing travel ball. You show up before the game, you get ready and you play. I think we kind of realized during the ride that it would be that situation and we all embraced that and were able to pull out a win.”

Despite their unexpected victory on Friday, the Goldeyes sit below .500 at 2-4. They’ve won the first game against both Sioux Falls and Chicago before going on to drop two the next two in each series. The Goldeyes will play their next nine on road, starting tonight when they open a three-game series with the Milwaukee Milkmen.

Considering how the Fish lost three key arms in the days leading up to the season, it’s no surprise to see them stumble a bit out of the gate. Mitchell Lambson, their most reliable starter in recent years, accepted a full-time job and moved on from baseball. They also lost two veteran pitchers with MLB experience in Ryan Dull and Josh Lucas as they inked last-minute deals to return to affiliated ball. The pandemic cancelled Minor League Baseball in 2020 but now it’s back up and running and teams are on the hunt for players.

“Major League Baseball is hammering the independent leagues for players to help fill out rosters… To have your No. 1 starter and your closer sign literally three, four days into spring training, it’s a huge blow,” Beauchamp said.

“You almost have to hope it’s happening to other clubs or it could really, really, affect you. We’re all going through this. All these teams are going through this. It’s a scramble for players and in all honestly, there doesn’t seem to be a good talent pool of players with experience to choose from right now. We’re having to depend on rookies. This is turning into a very young league very fast. For Major League Baseball, that’s great. For (independent teams) trying to win a championship, it’s difficult. The fact we lost our closer has cost us two games already. We’re trying to find a closer on the fly.”

Outside of their roster issues, playing in Jackson has been a positive experience for the Fish thus far. The 2020 Goldeyes were a travelling team based out of Fargo, N.D., and shared Newman Outdoor Field with the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. When the Fish were the “home” team in Fargo, they played to the sound of crickets. This year, The Ballpark in Jackson is all theirs as the city is currently without a team. For their game on Saturday, they had nearly 1,500 fans in the stands.

“By Winnipeg Goldeyes standards, that’s a blah crowd. But you talk about a team that hasn’t had any fan support in a whole year… Last year we were the whipping boys in the league. We didn’t have anyone pulling for us the whole year,” Beauchamp said.

“When we played the exhibition game (in Jackson) there were about 300 to 400 people there in the stands and they were all pulling for us and it was really refreshing, man. It gave us a boost, I’m not gonna lie. I had some juice because we had some people pulling for us.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31