Coming into their three-game set against the St. Paul Saints, the Winnipeg Goldeyes were 9.5-games out and many were already thinking it was a foregone conclusion that the Saints were going to win the American Association’s North Division for the second year in a row. Nobody seemed to have told the Goldeyes that however, as they have dominated the first two games of this series, including Tuesday night’s 7-1 victory that pulled them within 7.5-games.

The previous night’s contest was a back-and-forth affair that saw both teams put together big innings to take the lead. Tuesday night’s affair was nothing like that at all. The Goldeyes dominated this contest from the beginning, riding the arm of starter Edwin Carl to take control of this game from the beginning.

Carl breezed through the top of the first, and his offense gave him the lead in the bottom half of the inning. Adam Heisler was hit by an Eric Veglahn pitch to start the inning and he then stole second to put a runner into scoring position with just one out. Two batters later Reggie Abercrombie singled to put runners at the corners with two outs and newcomer Willie Cabrera gave his team the lead when he reached on an error to make it 1-0.

In the bottom of the third, Winnipeg doubled their advantage. Heisler started the inning by doubling and moved to third when Maikol Gonzalez followed with a single. David Rohm then took a Veglahn pitch and hit it to right. The ball was caught, but Heisler easily scored to make it 2-0.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Goldeyes took a commanding lead. Casio Grider drew a walk to start the inning, then stole second and moved to third on a ground out. A walk to Carlton Tanabe put runners at the corners with one out and Heisler followed with his second double of the game to score Casio and extend the lead to three.  Gonzalez then delivered a sacrifice fly to score Tanabe and Rohm sent home Heisler with a double of his own. Abercrombie then singled in Rohm to make it 6-0, and the Saints were simply not going to recover.

Through the first four innings Carl had a no-hitter going, but the Saints would finally get their first hit in the fifth and get on the scoreboard. Willie Argo drew a walk with one out and Tony Caldwell followed with a walk two batters later. With two on and two outs, Aaron Gretz produced the first hit of the game when he doubled into right, which scored Argo to make it 6-1.

The Goldeyes followed the pattern they had used the night before, scoring right away in the bottom half of the inning. Jacob Rogers walked and Gene Escat came onto relieve. He gave up singles to Grider and Tanabe to load the bases and Rogers scored when Gonzalez drew a walk. That made the score 7-1 which is how it would end.

Carl (5-5) evened his record, going 6.2-innings, allowing the lone hit, 5-walks and a single run. He struck out 3. The Winnipeg bullpen provided 2.1-innings of perfect relief.

Heisler finished 2-3 with 3-runs and an RBI. Abercrombie was 2-5 with an RBI.

The final game of the three-game set is Wednesday night. The St. Paul Saints will send Mark Hamburger (10-0, 2.75) to the hill versus Duke Von Schamann (5-4, 3.86). Game time is 7:00.

Boxscore

By Robert Pannier