July 11: Goldeyes Fall 5-3 to Gary in 15 Innings

Brent Metheny called it long. Of course, when you play 15 innings over five hours and 13 minutes, it truly is baseball at its longest.

“That’s the only way to describe it,” said Metheny, after the Goldeyes were beaten 5-3 in 15 by the visiting Gary SouthShore RailCats on Friday night. “That’s the only word for it: Long.”

With 6,587 outstanding Goldeyes fans looking on – and many stayed right until the bitter end – the Fish came back from a 3-1 deficit with two runs in the eighth, but just couldn’t get the important hits at the right time in extra innings to turn the game in the their favour.

“I thought it was a really well-played game,” said Metheny. “We went 15 innings and there wasn’t one error. That says a lot about the abilities of these two teams.

“The hitting struggled and that happens after a four-day layoff for the all-star break. We just couldn’t get the big hit when we needed it – including my strikeout with the bases load. But overall, both teams played well, I thought.”

Metheny had a rough night with runners in scoring position, but in the end, delivered one of the better efforts at the plate for the Goldeyes. He was two-for-six with a run scored, but was also stranded at third after a lead-off triple in the sixth.

Meanwhile, Kevin West went three-for seven, but struck out with Metheny at third. Juan Diaz went two-for-three with a homer, a run scored and two driven in, but was taken out of the game for a pinch runner in the eighth. No other Goldeyes had multi-hit games and two of the team’s better hitters, Josh Asanovich and Dee Brown, went 0-for-6 and 0-for-7 respectively.

“That was a really big win for us,” said Gary’s player of the game, leftfielder Jordan Czarniecki, who had two doubles and drove in the winning run in the 15th. “To come into Winnipeg and hang in there long enough to beat a team as good as the Goldeyes is a big deal for us.

“Now we’re only a few games out of first and our guys all believe that maybe we can catch Winnipeg.”

That certainly worries Metheny.

“It’s going to be a very tough second half,” he said. “When you’re in first place, people will be coming after you.”

The Fish and RailCats will play Game 2 of this three-game set tonight at 6:00 at Canwest Park.

“NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT”

It was one of the strangest plays most fans have ever seen. In fact, the same thing can be said for most of the players who were involved.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Metheny. “In fact, after it happened, I was waiting for the umpires to make some weird call, but they didn’t. I guess it’s just part of the game.”

“It” was a strange infield single by Brett Wallace in the top of the 14th of Friday night’s marathon match-up between the Goldeyes and RailCats.

Wallace, the RailCats catcher, had his bat sawed in two by a fastball from Goldeyes reliever Chris Homer. However, Wallace made contact and as the main piece of the barrel of the bat flew past the mound, the ball followed at a much slower pace. Just as Metheny went to bare-hand the grounder, the ball hit the chunk of bat and stopped dead. Metheny had no play and Wallace ended up with an infield single.

“If the ball hadn’t hit the bat, he would have been out,” said Metheny confidently. “I would have thrown him out. I could see the play unfold in front of me and I was about to make the play – a pick-up and a throw, all in one motion – but that’s when the ball hit the bat. There was nothing I could do.

“That guy must have had a very good four days off during the all-star break because the baseball gods were sure looking out for him.”