Goldeyes out of any hope for American Association championship series

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This article was published 07/09/2020 (1878 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A season that began with so much promise is ending in disappointment for the Winnipeg Goldeyes.

The Goldeyes were leading the American Association in mid-August but went into a devastating tailspin, losing a franchise record 11 consecutive games to fall behind in the race for a playoff berth.

On Sunday, the hometown St. Paul Saints (28-29) beat Winnipeg (27-30) 7-3 at CHS Field.

The Fish loss to the Saints combined with Sioux Falls’ 11-9 win over the Chicago Dogs eliminated Winnipeg from contention.

The league’s only Canadian-based squad is playing its entire 60-game schedule on the road, owing to border and travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fish hitting coach Kash Beauchamp said Winnipeg’s feast or famine season was best illustrated by the circumstances around seven consecutive wins over Fargo-Moorhead in July followed by a seven straight losses to the Redhawks — part of the record 11-game skid — in August.

“They didn’t have their best roster on the field at the time and we did,” said Beauchamp via telephone Monday. “So, we were able to pretty much have our way with them while they were down and we were at our best. And then what happened when Fargo took us to the cleaners the next time we played them, right in the middle of the losing streak, we were not at our best.

“We were starting to get banged up a little bit. We had two hitters that were playing hurt and two others that had missed a few games and when you are not at full strength and you play another team that is, there’s a chance you’re going to get whitewashed and that’s exactly what happened.”

Winnipeg, which has lost 13 of its last 16 games, was idle Monday but will close out the regular season with a three-game series beginning Tuesday in Milwaukee.

The first-place Milkmen are slated to face the second-place Canaries in a best-of-seven American Association championship series beginning Sept. 12.

On Sunday, the Saints got a two-run homer from John Silviano in the second inning, a solo blast from Chuck Taylor in the third and a three-run shot from Chris Chinea in the fifth en route to a 7-0 lead.

In the seventh, RBI singles by John Nester and Jonathan Moroney cut the lead to 7-2. Winnipeg added another run in the ninth when Jordan George came home on a Moroney ground out.

St. Paul’s starter Mike Devine (4-3) got the victory, allowing two earned runs on five hits while striking out 13.

Mitch Lambson (4-4) was saddled with the loss, surrendering all seven runs. He also struck out seven.

“I will say this, throughout everything, none of these guys have quit,” added Beauchamp. “So many teams would shut it down and quit and given up and not played hard. I have seen zero signs of that. They’ve battled, they’ve never given up on games even though we were getting our brains kicked in.”

Beauchamp had high praise for Fish manager Rick Forney, who continued to work while mourning the death of his eldest son, David, in February.

“He should be the manager of the year in the league,” said Beauchamp. “I don’t care what our record is. I don’t care about anything but what Rick has done this year as far as building this team and managing this club, in my opinion he should be the unanimous manager of the year selection>specially based on losing David. I don’t know how he’s done it and done it so stoically.”

— staff