August 31: Forney: “Don’t worry about the bullpen, we need to start hitting.”

The Winnipeg Goldeyes took a 2-1 lead into the ninth inning Sunday afternoon at Canwest Park and, once again, the bullpen couldn’t seal the deal.

Chris Homer and Mark Michael combined to allow two runs on four hits in the ninth inning as the Goldeyes fell 3-2 to the Schaumburg Flyers in front of 6,895 at Canwest Park.

Still, Goldeyes manager Rick Forney is more concerned about his team’s slumping bats than its gasoline-loaded arms.

The loss, combined with Fargo’s 6-3 loss in Gary on Sunday, means that the Goldeyes and RedHawks will meet in the first round of the playoffs. Games 1 and 2 will be played Wednesday and Thursday in Fargo while Game 3 plus Games 4 and 5 (if necessary) will be contested back in Winnipeg at Canwest Park this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

It wasn’t a particularly good weekend for the Goldeyes. The team lost 4-1 on Saturday and 3-2 on Sunday – to the league’s fifth-place team – and picked up a grand total of only 12 hits.

On Sunday, the hosts had six hits. Dee Brown had three of them. Meanwhile, Cory Patton, Kevin West, Brent Metheny, Cody Ehlers and Mark Minicozzi combined to go 0-for-16.

Despite the bullpen’s problems on Sunday, Forney had only one big concern heading into the playoffs.

“The bullpen is fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about the bullpen. You don’t win many games with two runs on six hits. We have to start getting some hits. We have to get the bats going.”

Of course, the slumping bats might have had something to do with a pair of great pitching performances by Schaumburg starters Alain Quijano (Saturday) and Dustin Glant (Sunday).

Glant threw eight complete innings and allowed only two runs on five hits to earn the victory.

“I just wanted to finish the season on a bit of a high,” Glant told Shaw TV. “An 8-8 record looks a lot better than 7-9 and that’s all I was after today. Even when you’re out of the playoffs, you play hard and try to be the best you can be.”

Schaumburg, with no playoffs on the horizon, has played some pretty tidy baseball in the last two days while the Goldeyes, with the post-season starting Wednesday, have not been quite up to snuff.

Forney hopes that will change tonight when the Goldeyes and Flyers play the final game of the regular season at 7:00. Tom Lyons will get the start for Schaumburg while Ace Walker goes after his league-leading 12th win for Winnipeg.