May 22: Holliman Nearly Perfect, Bullpen Terrific as Goldeyes Win Their First of the Year

Mark Holliman smiled and said, rather matter-of-factly, “I felt pretty good out there.”
“Pretty good?” Pretty good would be a masterpiece of understatement.

After the Winnipeg Goldeyes lost their 2010 season opener 7-5 on Thursday night, Holliman took the ball from manager Rick Forney on Friday and went out and threw six and a third innings of two-hit baseball and earned the victory as the Fish shut out the visiting Lake County Fielders 3-0.

It was exactly the type of performance Forney expected from the 26-year-old Tennessean. Holliman, who has 65 starts at the Double A level and five at Triple A, beat up the strike zone on Friday night, struck out four and allowed only one runner to reach third base as Winnipeg evened its 2010 record at 1-1.

“It wasn’t too bad,” Holliman said modestly. “I felt pretty good out there. I did have good command of all my pitches. I threw the ball where I wanted to and I went in and out. Rick had me on a pitch count, I think it was about 85.

“I used every pitch I had tonight,” said Holliman whose four-pitch repertoire includes a fastball, curve ball, slider and change. “When you have four pitches, it will keep the hitters off balance and that’s all I tried to do tonight.”

Holliman threw 78 pitches, 47 for strikes, and after leaving the ball game got some assistance from his bullpen.

Zach Baldwin, on the same day he shot a five-under 67 at the challenging Quarry Oaks Golf Club, pitched an inning and two thirds of hitless baseball while the team’s new closer, Philip Roy, allowed only one hit as he shut it down in the ninth to record his first save.

Offensively, the Goldeyes pounded out 11 hits and got runners to third base on five separate occasions, but just couldn’t get enough clutch hits to blow the game wide open. As it was, the Fish got their first run in the bottom of the first on an opposite field home run by DH Juan Diaz, got another run in the fourth on a home run to left off the bat of shortstop Wes Long and then added an insurance run in the eighth when Jeremy Hamilton’s two-out single brought home Dee Brown from second.

“I got some very, very good defence behind me tonight, too,” Holliman said. “And the guys came out swinging the bats. We had, what, 11hits?

“Still, it was a close game and that’s when it’s really fun. Spring training is over and the games mean something now. It’s great when the games are close like that. It really gets your on your game. It’s great to to be competitive like that. It was fun out there.”

The Goldeyes and Fielders play Game 3 of this four game series tonight at Canwest Park. Corey Bass will start for the visitors while Chris Salamida goes for the Fish. Game time is 6 p.m.