Showing posts tagged “Carlos Hernandez”
Adam Sobsey ·
23 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
7 Comments
ESPN 2—And that’s that: the Durham Bulls took a 4-0 lead early, squandered it in the middle, and got help at the end to beat the Memphis Redbirds, 5-4, in 11 innings and claim the Triple-A Championship. It’s kind of amazing, really. (What’s really great is that the Bulls’ own Web site has the winning run in Memphis’s row in the linescore.) The Bulls, who are the first International League team to win the crown, are officially the best Triple-A baseball team in America, which by extension makes them the best team in the entire minor leagues. They could probably also take six of 10 from the Pittsburgh Pirates, if they had Winston Abreu—which they don’t, not anymore, but that’s for well after the jump.
Did you know, by the way, that 2009 is the Year of the Bull? A game report and some final thoughts follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Brandon Yarbrough, Calvin Medlock, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Jason Cromer, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Bateman, Julio DePaula, Memphis Redbirds, Michel Hernandez, Mitch Talbot, Oneli Perez, playoffs, Rashad Eldridge, Ray Olmedo, Sean Rodriguez, Triple-A championship, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
19 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—I missed more than two innings of last night’s 5-2 Bulls win over Charlotte. I spent half an inning in the visitor’s clubhouse as part of the crowded media contingent interviewing the Knights’ Jake Peavy (pictured) following his four-inning, 67-pitch outing against the Bulls, his second rehab start for the Chicago White Sox, and another two innings waiting for that interview. It was much like the game that rehabbing Tampa lefty Scott Kazmir started for the Bulls a couple of months ago, when we were whisked down into the bowels of the DBAP for a mid-game interview with a pitcher.
Both times, I was happy to do this—it’s not every day that you get to talk to one of the dozen or so best active pitchers on planet Earth—but I have to say that I got very antsy in the administrative lobby while watching the ballgame on a television feed as Peavy threw a supplementary bullpen session. All that did was make me wish I was seeing the action firsthand rather than on a screen. I suppose that my reaction means that, for better or worse, I’ve become more interested in the fortunes of the Durham Bulls than I am about pretty much any other baseball being played.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Akinori Iwamura, Carlos Hernandez, Carlos Torres, Charlie Montoyo, Charlotte Knights, Chicago White Sox, Craig Albernaz, Dale Thayer, Daniel Hudson, Elliot johnson, Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Henry Mateo, injury, Jake Peavy, Jeff Bennett, Joe Dillon, Jon Weber, Justin Ruggiano, Matt Joyce, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
17 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—Bulls’ manager Charlie Montoyo occasionally bemoans how much he’s forced to use his bullpen. It comes with the territory of managing a minor-league team, of course. Every parent club tends to be very, well, parental about its starting pitchers: limiting pitch counts, controlling innings pitched every year, giving extra rest to youngsters, etc. There is already chatter about how many more starts David Price will be permitted to make for Tampa before his workload is reduced; and in New York, Joba Chamberlain is getting extra days off between outings.
Starting pitchers are the child prodigies of baseball: rare and expensive, brilliant but sensitive, usually self-absorbed and easily disrupted, adept at something few mortals can even contemplate doing yet frequently unable to do it consistently themselves, the center of attention while they perform, sometimes arrogant or fussy, and often doomed to short careers. So they get babied.
In the case of Carlos Hernandez, a former hot prospect of the Houston Astros whom the Tampa Bay Rays are trying to rehabilitate at age 29, kid gloves have become essential. Hernandez has had a pair of major shoulder surgeries, and he was put back on a strict innings/pitch-count limit recently for fear of over-stressing his arm this year. Then the left-hander developed a mysterious wrist problem and has had to miss his last two starts, including last night’s.
That’s no big deal in the eyes of the front office—you want to protect your investment by whatever means necessary—but it is for Charlie Montoyo, who for the second time in five days had to fabricate a starter out of bullpen parts. A game like that is kind of like a bullfight with no matador: you can still kill the bull (or in this case the Yankee), but it will require much warier management of time and personnel, and the risk of someone getting gored is a lot higher.
Amazingly, the amalgamated-starter manufacture has worked swimmingly for the Bulls both times. On Tuesday, Calvin Medlock and Julio DePaula kept Gwinnett down for six innings before turning the game over to the Bulls’ late-inning mercenaries; but Jason Childers and Winston Abreu gave the game away. Then, last night at the DBAP, Medlock teamed with Joe Bateman (pictured)—who started his first game since 2004—to blank Scranton for five innings. Joe Nelson then played the Jason Childers role, sponsoring an unearned run (as Childers did on Tuesday) and then going Childers one better by chipping in an earned run of his own. It should be said in Nelson’s defense that the two hits he allowed were an infield trickler and an opposite-field bloop, and he was also cheated out of a pair of double plays: one on a blown call by the first base umpire, and the other on an error by Ray Olmedo. Nonetheless, Nelson departed with two outs in the seventh inning and the Bulls’ lead down from 5-0 to 5-2, i.e. from comfortable to sticky.
And then Winston Abreu came in. Abreu has been stepping on rakes all over the yard lately, allowing more runs in his last three appearances than he had given up all season before that, plus three home runs to the last eight batters he’d faced—after giving up just one homer all of 2009 before that. So there was every reason to be nervous when he spelled Nelson.
Abreu proceeded to retire the next seven Yankees in order for his 11th save of the year. The Bulls won, 5-2.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Austin Jackson, Calvin Medlock, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Cody Ransom, Desmond Jennings, Elliot johnson, injury, Joe Bateman, Joe Dillon, Joe Nelson, Justin Ruggiano, Kei Igawa, Matt Joyce, Russ Ortiz, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Shelley Duncan, sushi, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
16 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—This was one of those games that seemed like it was over early. In the third inning, down 1-0 on Juan Miranda’s second homer in as many nights (and hit to nearly the same place), five consecutive Bulls reached base against Scranton’s Kei Igawa before Igawa recorded an out. All five scored. No one scored again until the eighth, and in the mean time, the Bulls’ 5-1 lead seemed like 15-1.
That was because of Jeremy Hellickson (pictured). The young right-hander, who had beaten the Yankees at Scranton just over two weeks ago with six three-hit, shutout innings, was even better last night. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine him pitching much better against the Yankees’ sluggers. He allowed only two hits, both solo homers. He threw 108 pitches, 72 for strikes, and produced an eye-opening 21 swings-and-misses (11 of which came in his first 33 pitches). Nearly all of those whiffs were on Hellickson’s changeup, which the Yankees never came close to solving. The changeup was so good last night that Hellickson barely even bothered with his curveball, which he threw just a handful of times and which wasn’t very effective. Fastballs and changeups, fastballs and changeups. By the end of Hellickson’s outing, his excellent control had widened home plate umpire Derek Crabill’s strike zone, and the young Iowan was getting called strikes on anything close to the plate and around the knees.
When Hellickson departed, he received the loudest ovation I’ve heard for a player at the DBAP this year. “He earned it,” manager Charlie Montoyo said. And so he did. Reliever Jason Childers came on and nearly blew the game for Hellickson, but Dale Thayer gathered up the live wires Childers left dangling and snuffed them out. The Bulls won, 5-4.
Hellickson’s performance might have been even better had he come out of the game at the logical point. But Montoyo needed more from him, and it cost Hellickson a run—and almost cost the Bulls the game.
Meanwhile, a spaghetti junction of injuries, trades, demotions, slumps and collisions made this an especially busy night in the postgame clubhouse. Many loose ends to tie up, from the game itself and the extra-curricular surroundings. All of that follows. Length advisory.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Austin Jackson, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Craig Albernaz, Dale Thayer, Damaso Marte, Desmond Jennings, Elliot johnson, injury, Jason Childers, Jeff Bennett, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Dillon, John Rodriguez, Juan Miranda, Justin Ruggiano, Kei Igawa, Matt Joyce, Michel Hernandez, New York Yankees, Reegie Corona, Rhyne Hughes, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Shawn Riggans, Shelley Duncan, Xavier Hernandez, Yurendell de Caster
Adam Sobsey ·
10 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—After the Syracuse Chiefs squelched the Bulls on Saturday night, holding them to two unearned runs and four hits, manager Charlie Montoyo was disgusted by his team’s hitting. “Our approach wasn’t good,” Montoyo said, which is managerspeak for something like, “we really stunk.” But he also insisted that his team would keep working.
Whatever they did on Sunday before they trounced Syracuse, 11-5 behind Andy Sonnanstine (pictured), they should keep doing it. You have to go back to June 27 to find a game in which the Bulls scored that many runs; in fact, they hadn’t scored more than seven in a game since July 12, nearly a month ago. That was also the last day on which the Bulls had beaten anyone by more than four runs. In Sunday’s romp, they set a season high with 18 hits. Chris Richard hit his 20th home run, Jon Weber whacked his 40th (!) double, and the Bulls batted .375 with runners in scoring position. They scored eight of their runs with two outs. Power hitting, clutch hitting, hits strung together (in one stretch, 10 of 13 straight batters hit safely), a pair of bunt singles, only five strikeouts (two after the second inning): this was a show of total, explosive force.
After the game, the first question posed to Montoyo was: “Did you take extra batting practice today?” His response: “We didn’t take extra batting practice.” What did the Bulls do, then, to manufacture such an outburst? “Just show up and play,” he said.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Add new tag, Andy Sonnanstine, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Dale Thayer, Desmond Jennings, Elliot johnson, Joyce Carol Oates, Ross Detwiler, SBG, Syracuse Chiefs, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
7 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—Here are a few sentences I shouldn’t have written, but did anyway the other day, after the Bulls lost their second straight game to Indianapolis:
“The Bulls lead the league in home runs but haven’t hit one in 19 innings. They’ll hit a bunch soon, I promise. Dale Thayer will reel off a few scoreless appearances in a row.”
The idea there was that, in order for the Bulls to start winning again, those things would have to happen. Well, the Bulls have won two in a row since then, and they’ve done it by hitting exactly one home run (a solo shot by Chris Richard on Tuesday) and getting another ragged outing from Dale Thayer, who has allowed five runs in his last 9 1/3 innings.
I guess I should have cut straight to the two sentences that followed the ones I ought to have deleted:
The Bulls will drive in a bunch of runners in scoring position. And Jon Weber will keep hitting doubles, just like he did again last night.
Guess what? I’m not entirely a quack after all. The Bulls went 4-8 last night with RISP (and are 8 for their last 20 over their last two games), and Jon Weber hit yet another double. He upped his league-leading total to 38. And so the Bulls ducked a late rally last night and beat the Syracuse Chiefs, 5-3. With Gwinnett’s loss at Toledo, the Bulls have first place all to themselves again.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Craig Albernaz, Dale Thayer, Daryle Ward, Jason Childers, Joe Bateman, Justin Ruggiano, Reid Brignac, Shawn Riggans, Syracuse Chiefs, The Roodge, Winston Abreu, Xavier Hernandez
Adam Sobsey ·
1 Aug 2009, 4:00 AM ·
1 Comment
Some late-breaking news first. Two significant additions to the Bulls’ roster: Desmond Jennings (pictured, right), who is one of the top prospects in the Rays’ organization, has been promoted to Durham from Double-A Montgomery. The 22-year-old Jennings was hitting .316 for the Biscuits with a .395 OBP and an .881 SLG. He had 25 doubles, eight triples, eight homers and 37 steals there, with 48 walks and 52 strikeouts. No word yet on a corresponding move off of the roster. One thing is almost certain, though: Jennings will make the Bulls better.
From the other direction, veteran reliever Joe Nelson has been demoted to Durham from Tampa. Nelson, 34, was acquired as a free agent during the off-season. He hasn’t been awful by any means, but he hasn’t been especially good either. The folks at DRaysBay are wondering if Nelson’s demotion means that Andy Sonnanstine will return to the major-league club. Makes sense to me: Sonnanstine has pitched well for Durham, and he probably has little left to prove in the minors. Nelson is sure to be the first guy recalled in the event of an injury. He, like Jennings, improves the Bulls.
All of those late moves overshadowed the Bulls’ 3-1 win at Scranton.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bulls on the Move, Calvin Medlock, Carlos Hernandez, Desmond Jennings, Doug Bernier, Elliot johnson, Fernando Perez, Francisco Cervelli, Indianapolis Indians, Jason Childers, Jeff Clement, Joe Bateman, Joe Nelson, Ray Sadler, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees
Adam Sobsey ·
26 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—”Technically, it’s not a doubleheader,” someone said in the press box during the first game of what was unquestionably a doubleheader on Saturday. The argument there was that a day-night twinbill is really just two separate games that happen to be played on the same day. In an official minor-league doubleheader, the two games are played consecutively, and are shortened to seven innings each.
Try putting that sophistry over on the Durham Bulls and the Norfolk Tides, who got about two hours of “rest” (i.e., stuffing their faces, checking their Facebook accounts, peeling off their uniforms and putting on new ones) in between games on a steamy 90+degree day at the DBAP. It was a doubleheader, and frankly I’d rather play them back-to-back than try to find something to occupy the awkward time between. However you prefer it, Bulls’ manager Charlie Montoyo was visibly exhausted in the clubhouse after the second game ended, about nine hours after the first one began. The first game went to the Bulls, 5-3 (it was the Tides’ first loss in a doubleheader game this season; they had been 8-0); the Tides claimed the second, 8-4.
And right around the narrative midpoint of the long day’s journey into night, a strange and unexpected thing happened, right before before Game Two. During the National Anthem, which was sung by a man and woman in well-manicured harmony, the microphone malfunctioned. After some on-again-off-again teasing, the device stopped working altogether, and there were a few awkward seconds while we watched the two singers do something that looked very much like lip-syncing, only on mute.
Then the large crowd (almost 10,000) began to sing. At first this was weird, because no one sings “The Star Spangled Banner” anymore. But after a few moments, it actually grew quite affecting: The impromptu rendition had the quiet poise and concord of a peace demonstration, except of course that Francis Scott Key’s song is actually a glorification of war and promotes anything but peace. Nonetheless, there we were, filling in the blanks left open by broken technology. It was almost touching.
And it was also appropriate, because the whole day was about filling in blanks.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, doubleheader, Fish or No Fish, James Houser, Jason Childers, Matt DeSalvo, Norfolk Tides, Reid Brignac, Rhyne Hughes, trade
Adam Sobsey ·
21 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
Durham Bulls’ broadcaster Neil Solondz must have used the word “depleted” at least eight times last night to describe the current state of the Durham bullpen. After the team played 29 innings of baseball over the last two nights, there were only three marginally rested relievers available to manager Charlie Montoyo in the first game of the Bulls’ lone visit to the Indianapolis Indians this season.
Unfortunately, the Bulls’ starter came into the game already depleted. The Tampa Bay Rays’ front office has decided that the left arm of Carlos Hernandez, who is just a couple of years off of major shoulder surgery (his second such operation since 2002), needs to be treated more gently. For the rest of the season, he’ll be restricted to five innings or about 75 pitches per start, whichever comes first, a regression to early-season limits.
Depleted or not, then, the bullpen would have to suck it up on Monday night in Indianapolis—and perhaps more than they might have guessed. Hernandez struggled with his control, running deep counts to a number of hitters and walking a couple of batters early, and he was finished after 3 2/3 innings with the Bulls trailing 2-0.
Wouldn’t you know it, Calvin Medlock was heroic in relief, tossing 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball. Medlock needed 21 fewer pitches than Hernandez to record just one out less. His only mistake was a hanging slider to Brian Bixler, who bixled it out of the park for a fifth-inning solo home run. Joe Bateman followed Medlock with a scoreless eighth. All in all, it was a very effective performance by the “depleted” bullpen.
It turned out to make no difference.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Calvin Medlock, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Ian Snell, Indianapolis Indians, Joe Bateman, John Jaso, Matt Joyce, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, Tagg Bozied
Adam Sobsey ·
7 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
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I don’t know why it took me until now to see the obvious symbolism of a team named the Bulls, but in assessing last night’s rip-snorting 6-1 win over Charlotte, I suddenly got it. The Bulls have now won 10 of their last 12 after losing 12 of 14: they are a team that is nearly always charging ahead or in full retreat. And in taking four of five games from the Knights in the annual intrastate, Fourth-of-July-weekend, home-and-home series, they dropped their North Carolina rivals deeper into last place in the International League South division, 10 1/2 games behind the front-running Bulls—who trail Scranton/Wilkes-Barre by percentage points for the best record in the entire league.
The Bulls have now belted 28 homers in their last 13 games, a pace that would surely set a record if they kept it up for an entire season. Overall, the hitting has carried the team lately; the Bulls have allowed 62 runs in those 13 games, or about 4.75 per game, which is neither great nor terrible. (Twenty-two of those came in just two games, it should be said.) Still, neither-great-nor-terrible is good enough by plenty when your team leads the league in homers and doubles, and is second in walks and slugging percentage.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Andy Sonnanstine, Carlos Hernandez, Charlotte Knights, defensive indifference, Elliot johnson, John Jaso, Ray Olmedo, SBG
