Goldeyes struggling to stay out of cellar

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This article was published 25/08/2023 (803 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Goldeyes season wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Yet, here we are, nearing the finish line and a last-place standing in the 12-team American Association a possibility. The club’s 40-51 record (following a 7-5 win Thursday over the visiting Sioux Falls Canaries) leaves them with a hope and a prayer at a playoff spot with nine games left in the season, and on pace for their worst season since 2018 when they went 41-59.

The Goldeyes will play their final home game Sunday against the Kansas City Monarchs (1 p.m.) before hitting the road for the remaining six games on the schedule. The Fish aren’t dead in the water, sitting 3 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, but could be left with nothing to play for by the end of the weekend.

“From a record standpoint, disappointing,” Greg Tagert, speaking earlier this week, summed up his first year as the Goldeyes manager.

“For all of us, and I’m sure for (general manager) Andrew (Collier) and (owner) Sam (Katz) — I’m disappointed for them — but the disappointment for me is in terms of what my expectations are. I think the one thing that we’ve been on the same page about ever since I came on is the fact that you had an organization and a manager come together that both had a standard of success and expectations and when those aren’t met, it’s a huge disappointment.”

Tagert is in the first year of a two-year contract with the Goldeyes.

Compounding the dud of a season, perhaps, is the overwhelming anticipation that surrounded the club entering the year.

The Goldeyes celebrated their 30th anniversary and stamped the occasion by welcoming Tagert after longtime skipper Rick Forney left for a job closer to his home in Maryland with the York Revolution in the Atlantic League. The festivities continued throughout the year with legendary outfielder Reggie Abercrombie honoured for an outstanding career with his jersey retired in front of more than 5,000 fans at a jam-packed Shaw Park earlier this month.

Some sharp solo performances have largely been overshadowed by the club’s dull record, too.

Max Murphy, the league’s reigning most valuable player, returned for another season after suffering a gruesome injury in last year’s playoffs, to lead the league in homers (26) and rank second in RBI (82), as of Friday. Perhaps the only player who’s outdone the team’s fearless leader is rookie Dayson Croes, the 23-year-old who has set the league on fire in his first season of pro ball, pacing the AA with 126 hits while holding an absurd .364 batting average.

Other notables include local product Marc-André Habeck returning to baseball and suiting up for his hometown team after a two-year hiatus and fellow Canadian hurler Landen Bourassa’s late-season surge that has him tied for the league lead with 10 wins and two complete games pitched.

Indeed, a campaign that began with as much hype as any in recent memory got away from the club in a hurry.

“I think we’re a good team because we’ve shown it throughout the year, we’ve shown sparks of how good we can be when we go on winning streaks against other good teams,” Croes said. “I think it’s just been being consistent as a team, like sometimes our pitching does a phenomenal job and then as a team, we don’t hit, and then vice-versa.

“The No. 1 goal is winning. So, yes, having personal success, it’s nice, but I’ve talked about it with some of my teammates: OK, I go three-for-four but we still lose. Does that really matter? It’s just still a bittersweet feeling. Whether I go zero-for-four or three-for-four, all I want to do is win.”

Tagert suggested the team’s inability to win close games is a big reason for its standing. The club is 10-16 in one-run games, a telling stat for which teams make the playoffs each season.

“It’s always easy to say, ‘If we had done this differently,’ and you don’t manage as long as I have (without) looking back at everything I always do. That’s how you learn,” Tagert said.

“Just the nature of the game and the nature of the sport is some plans just did not work out and those were plans I would’ve done exactly the same way, whether it was pitchers we signed that are no longer here or the way the bullpen was constructed, the starting rotation was constructed, the lineup — those things are things I wouldn’t have done any differently, we just hoped for better results.”

Bourassa shed a more positive light on the season, noting the club has come on strong in the second half of the year, especially at home.

“We’re by no means finished at this point but a little bit underwhelming to be in the position that we’re in, but that’s just what happens when you give away as many games as we did in the first half,” he said. Bourassa got a mid-season jolt after being named — along with fellow pitcher Travis Seabrooke — to Canada’s national team for the World Baseball Softball Federation’s Americas Pan Am Games Qualifier in Argentina.

“Any season, when you get to this point in your career… every single year is an accomplishment no matter how it shakes down. Being able to suit up and stay healthy for a full season is such a big deal for everybody at this point.”

The Goldeyes opened a three-game series against the Monarchs on Friday and will be back in action Saturday (6 p.m.) at Shaw Park.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam

Joshua Frey-Sam
Reporter

Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He reports primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports. Read more about Josh.

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