Goldeyes Sweep Sioux Falls with a Rout
Published on July 10, 2012 under American Association (AA)
Winnipeg Goldeyes News Release
It took one swing of the bat for the Winnipeg Goldeyes to sweep the Sioux Falls Fighting Pheasants right out of Shaw Park.
It took a second swing to make it a rout.
On Thursday night, in front 5,816 enthusiastic fans at the downtown ballpark in Winnipeg, Yurendell de Caster hit a grand slam home run in the fourth inning to turn a 4-2 Goldeyes lead into an 8-2 advantage. Then, in the sixth, Josh Mazzola hit a two-run bomb to make it 11-2 and although Sioux Falls scored a run in the ninth to make it an 11-3 final, the Goldeyes had plenty of runs to win the final game of this four-game series and sweep the Pheasants right out of Winnipeg.
With the victory, the Goldeyes won their fourth straight game and completed the first half of the 2012 season with a record of 30-20. They also remained in first place in the North Division of the American Association.
"The offense was really good tonight," said Goldeyes manager Rick Forney. "We've done some things the last couple of nights that we hadn't done in a while. We hit with men in scoring position and we just didn't get one hit with men in scoring position, we got multiple hits with men in scoring position. We had some good at bats, we pulled the ball and we got some runners from first to third on base hits. Those were all good signs. We did a lot of good things at the plate."
Sioux Falls opened the scoring with a run in the top of the first off rookie lefthander Rich Hawkins, but the Goldeyes jumped all over Sioux Falls starter - and former Goldeyes righthander - Mark Michael in the bottom of one.
Price Kendall led off with a double and scored on a single by Jon Weber. Weber went to third on a single by de Caster and then scored on a ground out by Luis Alen. De Caster eventually scored on a single by Kyle Day.
Sioux Falls made it 3-2 in the top of the second, but the Goldeyes answered with a run in the bottom of the second as Kendall was hit by a pitch, stole second and scored on a single by Weber.
In the fourth, the Fish put the game and the series to sleep. Kendall led off with a single, Ridge Carpenter doubled to put runners on second and third, Weber walked and de Caster hit a fastball from Michael off Waterfront Drive behind the leftfield wall. Suddenly it was 8-2 and the Fish were cruising.
Dan Barbero drove in the fifth run of the fourth inning to make it 9-2 and then, in the fifth, Day singled and Mazzola blasted waist-high fastball over the leftfield fence to make it 11-2.
The Goldeyes had 16 hits, the second-highest total of the season (17 on June 7 in Lincoln).
For the second straight night, Mazzola and de Caster were lights-out. Mazzola went three-for-four with a walk, a homer, a run scored and two RBI while de Caster went three-for-four with a walk, a grand slam, two runs scored and four RBI.
In the final three games of the series, Mazzola had eight hits, six runs scored and five RBI while de Caster had eight hits, four runs scored and seven RBI. Mazzola has raised his batting average from .273 to .299, while de Caster has raised his average from .318 to .347.
"I'm seeing the ball really well and I've made a couple of tweaks to my swing," Mazzola said. "It's just getting the at bats. I started slowly, but I knew all along that I'd start to hit."
Hawkins got the win (3-1, 6.17 ERA) while Michael (5-4, 5.88 ERA) suffered the loss.
The Goldeyes will have today off and then on Thursday will open a four-game series at Shaw Park with the St. Paul Saints. Matt Rusch (5-1 2.35 ERA) will take the ball for the Fish.
Game time is 7 p.m. and it can be heard live on TSN 1290 with Paul Edmonds calling the play-by-play.
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