May 27: The Great Thing About Baseball - From Clunker to Masterpiece in One Day

Every time his Goldeyes lay an egg, Rick Forney frowns for about a minute. That’s all.

“Play lousy baseball one day,” says Forney, “and come back and play great the next. That’s the great thing about this game. When you play 96 games in four months, there is always tomorrow.”

And on Tuesday, the Goldeyes were proof of that theory. After losing a 4-2 stinker to the Gary SouthShore RailCats on Monday, the Goldeyes came out Tuesday and played an almost perfect game in a 5-2 win.

Bear Bay pitched a six-inning gem, the bullpen was solid, Cody Ehlers and Josh Asanovich homered and the defence was flawless as the Goldeyes improved to 7-3 on the season and remained in sole possession of first place in the Northern League.

What a difference a day makes.

“It all starts with your starting pitcher and Bear got off to a fast-paced start,” said Forney. “He came out, worked fast, threw strikes and got our defence back into the dugout quickly. It gets you into an offensive rhythm. When guys are out on the field for long periods of time, it can hurt your offence. Bear didn’t waste a lot of time. He gave us a great start.”

But it wasn’t just Bay. Goldeyes pitching was strong from start to finish.

“Our pitching was effective,” Forney said. “I let Bear go out to start the seventh just to stretch out his body and if he’d gotten the first out I probably would have left him in there, but we were only up 4-2 at the time and I wasn’t going to let him take the loss in that one.

“(Derek) Feldkamp did a great job in the seventh, (Chris) Homer is settling into that eighth-inning set-up role and Matt Davis closed it out again (Davis now has three saves). Just a great job all around.”

Bay allowed two runs on six hits through six innings. Davis allowed a two-out single in the ninth, the only reliever to give up a hit.

Meanwhile, Ehlers homered and drove in a pair as he went two-for-four. Kevin West went one-for-three with a walk, drove in a run and scored a run.

The Goldeyes will try to win the series Wednesday night. Gary ace Tony Cogan (1-1, 1.69 ERA) will take the mound for the visitors while Ben Pfinsgraff (1-1, 6.10 ERA) gets the call for the Fish.