Goldeyes drop opener

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/05/2015 (3254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Well, the season didn’t start the way the Goldeyes wanted, but the whole summer lies ahead and the American Association baseball season for Winnipeg has officially started.

The Fish dropped their season opener Thursday night, falling 4-1 to the Grand Prairie AirHogs to kick off a four-game series down in Texas.

As the score suggests, the meeting was mostly uneventful for the Fish. But veteran Goldeyes catcher Luis Alen snagged a sixth-inning single to set the franchise’s new hits record at 632. He would later score that lone run, on an RBI single from Josh Mazzola.

With that, the Goldeyes officially kicked off the 2015 season, debuting the roster of intriguing rookies and proven vets they’ll be running with — for now.

First, they had to make some changes. On the last day of camp on Tuesday, the Fish made their moves, trading first baseman C.J. Ziegler to the Lincoln Saltdogs for cash and cutting rookie pitchers Jon Fitzsimmon, Taylor Bratton (two of the three Canadians in camp) and Ben Bostick.

Losing the younger arms wasn’t a surprise, but moving Ziegler out was a big shift. The slugger was one of the most touted Fish pickups of the off-season, just one year removed from a smashing 2013 American Association Player of the Year campaign.

That said — here’s the rub — they’d signed him assuming last year’s Goldeyes star, first baseman Casey Haerther, had flown the coop for good to the Baltimore Orioles organization, which had bought his contract in January. But Haerther came back and, well, coaches just couldn’t find a way to fit ’em all in.

“We brought enough bats to camp to see what player was going to do what,” Goldeyes hitting coach Tom Vaeth said via telephone Thursday. “We just felt going forward that the guys we decided to keep were going to give us the best chance of success. This kind of works for both parties. C.J.’s going to get a chance to play every day.”

The thing about letting hitters like Ziegler go, of course, is they could come back to haunt you. There’s always that chance, Vaeth agreed; the Goldeyes will face Lincoln on the road in June, and then again at Shaw Park in the last series of the season. Either way, the Fish are happy with the position players they’ve got.

Like what? Oh, some of the newcomers stood out to Vaeth during the pre-season. There’s outfielder Adam Heisler, who Vaeth called “a lot stronger of a kid” than what Chicago White Sox minor league coach Pete Rose Jr. had told him, when the Goldeyes signed Heisler on his way out of that organization.

Infielder Casio Grider made a big impression on Vaeth from second base, where the 27-year-old former Los Angeles farmhand hasn’t spent a lot of time. Then there is the rookie, Brady Wilson, a West Virginia University alumnus who went undrafted by the majors, and fought tooth and nail to play pro ball at all.

“Anybody that goes to UWV comes up with a reputation of being a good hitter,” Vaeth said, with a quip. “I don’t even know if they practise defence at that school. They just hit. But he has the one thing you can’t teach, and that’s speed, and that’s an asset that at a lot of times at this level, you’re not afforded.”

Although Wilson won’t likely be in the lineup every night, “He’s going to be a valuable rookie for us,” Vaeth said. “We see him contributing in this club.”

Then there’s Aaron Baker. When the left-handed hitter arrived in Winnipeg, he hadn’t seen a live pitch in more than a year, not since the Baltimore Orioles organization let him go in 2014 spring training, and he took that season off to reconsider his future in pro ball.

Now, though, it looks like he might stick. He’s been working hard with Vaeth, smacked a couple of doubles during the Goldeyes’ handful of pre-season games and is recognizing pitches as they come in. “Everything kind of seems to be a step ahead, rather than a step behind,” Baker said about the process of shaking off the rust. “In a way it’s kind of like riding a bike… or maybe like riding a unicycle.”

Well, a little bonus for the Texan, if it helps build confidence: This opening series in Grand Prairie is just a 40-minute drive from his home in Denton. Not only does that mean his friends and family are in the stands, but he gets to sleep at home, in his own bed.

Heck, he even gets to drive his own car, a sporty little Audi S5 coupe — yeah, it’s not quite the Texas stereotype of a big ol’ truck, Baker laughed, but once he started hauling around the country playing minor league ball, he decided to downsize to something a little more compact.

So yeah, he was extra-pumped to play for realsies on Thursday night. “It’s a competitive game that means something,” he said. “There are many, many more games to come, but there’s just something that you don’t get from an exhibition game. It’s very exciting, and to be able to do it in my backyard makes it even more special.”

 

ON THE ALUMNI WATCH: Retirement is looking an awful lot like work for Brock Bond, the savvy hitter who led the American Association in on-base percentage (.448) with the Goldeyes last season. Earlier this spring, Bond announced his retirement from pro ball — and proceeded to sign with the Los Angeles Angels organization.

Now, Bond is playing with their AAA affiliate, and off to a decent start with a .214 average and .333 OBP in their first 12 games.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca