Showing posts tagged “Desmond Jennings”
Adam Sobsey ·
22 Sep 2009, 12:00 AM ·
4 Comments
You can still watch a few highlights of the Bulls’ dramatic championship-clinching win over Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre on the team Web site. Those clips drive home (so to speak) just how crazy the last inning really was. Justin Ruggiano’s diving catch of Reegie Corona’s sinking slice down the left-field line was not only great per se; it also saved the game, because the ball was ruled fair (but was it fair?) by the umpire. At the end of that play, though, second baseman Ray Olmedo made a poor relay throw to first base in an attempt to turn a game-ending double play, a throw he shouldn’t have attempted at all under the circumstances. He was fortunate that after the ball sailed well to the left of first baseman Joe Dillon, it bounced straight off the railing where it was picked up by pitcher Julio DePaula, who was properly backing up the play and made a quick recovery of the ball in foul territory.
To top things off, DePaula himself nearly blew the game, catastrophically, on the very last play: Doug Bernier’s bouncer back to the mound was easy enough for DePaula to field, and you could understand his excitement in running the ball all the way to first base himself rather than make an easy toss to Dillon. But DePaula decided to make a big puddle-jump onto the bag, and the hop-step he indulged in slowed him down so much that Bernier, hustling all the way, nearly beat DePaula to first base. As it was, DePaula won the race by about three quarters of a step, but it was a scarily close play. Had Bernier been safe due to DePaula’s grasshopper insouciance, the game would have been tied. As it was, the Bulls are champions. (Champions! It’s really extraordinary, when you think about it, after all that.)
A few more notes follow on the game, the season, and the final ballgame to come. If you’re deplaning here, one thing to take away with you: Tyler’s, the pub/eatery right by the DBAP, is hosting a viewing party (the game will be televised nationally on ESPN 2) of Tuesday night’s Triple-A championship game between the Bulls and the Memphis Redbirds, an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals and winner of the Pacific Coast League. Game time is 7:00 p.m. and it will be a lot of fun to watch it right by the ballpark, surrounded by Bulls fans, in a place that serves something like 712 different beers. Come on out, and do drop by my table to say hello, to buy me a beer or to pour one over my head. I’ll be the guy with black (going gray) hair, the black button-down shirt, the blue jeans, the bandanna, and Heather.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Allen Craig, Calvin Medlock, championship, David Freese, Desmond Jennings, Governor's Cup, Heath Rollins, Jaime Garcia, Jeremy Hellickson, John Jaso, John Rodriguez, Juan Miranda, Julio DePaula, Justin Hoffpauir, Justin Ruggiano, Memphis Redbirds, playoffs, Ray Olmedo, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Triple-A championship, Tyler Greene
Adam Sobsey ·
17 Sep 2009, 11:43 PM ·
6 Comments
Hot off the radio, sportsfans: The Durham Bulls have just beaten the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, 3-2 in 12 innings, to claim the Governor’s Cup, their first since 2003.
The bottom of the 12th was a sweaty-palmed affair after the Bulls plated the go-ahead run on the top of the inning on a double by John Jaso. Durham closer Winston Abreu, the most dominant pitcher in the league, came on seeking his third save in as many nights. He issued a four-pitch leadoff walk to Juan Miranda, discovered a bloody popped blister on his finger, and left the game.
Julio DePaula came in, making his third appearance in as many nights. DePaula is the only Bull to have been on the active roster all season long. He got Cody Ransom to fly out to left field on the first pitch he threw. Then he walked John Rodriguez. It was the 11th walk of the night allowed by Durham pitchers. The next batter, Reegie Corona, sliced a looper down the left-field line. Justin Ruggiano chased after it and made a diving, game-saving catch. The Roodge threw into the infield, where Ray Olmedo fielded the ball and tried to double Rodriguez off of first—but his throw was wild. Both runners advanced. Ruggiano crouched in left field, in pain. In the previous inning, Desmond Jennings, who had tied the game in the eighth inning with a slump-breaking, two-out, two-run single, had apparently injured himself a little bit on a big swing. He stayed in the game. The Bulls were going down, man by man, before our eyes ears.
With two outs now, the tying run was on third and the winning run on second. Doug Bernier, one of those pesky slap hitters, stepped in. He got ahead 2-1, then DePaula evened it at 2-2. Bernier hit a comebacker toward the mound. DePaula speared it. Rather than risk a throw, he ran the ball to first himself, stepped on the bag for a 1u putout (it brought to mind a funky 1u putout he made earlier this season when he ran down a man in the shortstop hole), and with their only wire-to-wire player taking the final out into his own hands, the Bulls were champions of the league. They’ll play in the Triple-A Championship game in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night, against the winner of the Pacific Coast League championship series between Memphis and Sacramento.
I’ll be back with more later, perhaps not until tomorrow. But for now: Congratulations, 2009 Bulls, from Triangle Offense and the Independent Weekly. It’s been a helluva season.
Baseball, Durham Bulls Cody Ransom, Desmond Jennings, Doug Bernier, Governor's Cup, John Jaso, John Rodriguez, Juan Miranda, Julio DePaula, Justin Ruggiano, playoffs, Ray Olmedo, Reegie Corona, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, The Roodge, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
11 Sep 2009, 4:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—The luck bubbles were still blowing for the Durham Bulls in the first inning of last night’s 5-2 loss to the Louisville Bats. They had gotten a healthy spray of good fortune in Game One: four errors by the Bats, which helped score three Durham runs (plus, the Bulls’ three errors didn’t figure in any of Louisville’s four runs); and some well-placed, softly struck hits. The Bulls’ eight runs on Wednesday were somehow rather bubble-like—transparent, hollow, unmemorable—but they still won the game.
And in the first inning last night, the Bulls were lucky before anyone came to the plate: rehabbing Reds right fielder Jay Bruce was out with a sore groin. Then, both Desmond Jennings and Rashad Eldridge reached on infield singles, the latter when his dribbler down the third base line hit the bag. The third man to hit was Joe Dillon, and with the count 2-1, Charlie Montoyo put on a hit-and-run. Dillon’s little grounder found the precise first-base hole it needed to, and Jennings scored. Eldridge scored, too, on Matt Joyce’s subsequent double-play ball. Four batters, two runs.
Those were the only runs they’d get. The luck ran out. Or rather, it kept running, but it kept running in the way that water keeps running even after the hot water tank runs out. The proof of that was in the sixth inning. We cut to that soon after the jump.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Ben Jukich, Charlie Montoyo, Desmond Jennings, Elliot johnson, Enerio Del Rosario, Joe Dillon, John Jaso, Louisville Bats, Luck, Maximo Del Rosario, Mitch Talbot, momentum, pilaf, Rashad Eldridge, risotto
Adam Sobsey ·
4 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
4 Comments
It has happened twice in the history of major-league baseball. Rennie Stennett of the Pittsburgh Pirates did it in 1975—with someone else’s bat, no less—and Wilbert Robinson did it, too, way back in 1892, when balls were made out of the hides of woolly mammoths and bats from the tusks. Seven hits in a nine-inning game. You probably won’t see this happen again in your lifetime. And you probably aren’t even very old.
Who knows about the International League, which has been around for 126 years? But I’d be willing to bet that Desmond Jennings etched his name into its record books and will stay there for a very long time. He came up seven times last night. He hit six singles and a double.
This is one of those records that requires you to be extraordinarily lucky and very, very good. (In Jennings’s case, being very, very fast didn’t hurt, either.) The beauty of it was that Jennings did it without overswinging: he hit three ground-ball singles up the middle; two more grounders that were knocked down by the shortstop, who was helpless to throw out the speedy Jennings; a solid line-drive to left; and then an opposite-field drive into the gap for a ninth-inning double. “I just went up there hacking,” he is reported to have said. Yeah, sure, Desmond.
It’s a very good thing, in retrospect, that the official scorer at Charlotte’s ballpark had reversed a call earlier, when he charged Knights shortstop Justin Fuller with an error on one of Jennings’s infield grounders. According to Bulls broadcaster Neil Solondz, Fuller had no chance to throw out Jennings. (I believe Solondz’s exact words were “You’ve gotta be kidding me” when the scoreboard flashed E.) A couple of batters later, you could dimly hear the scorer announce the error-to-hit change in the background. Had he not done so then, you’d better believe Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo would have been on the phone to the press box, in high dudgeon, immediately after the game. Fortunately for everyone involved, it didn’t come to that.
Oh: guess how many hits the entire Knights team had? Seven.
Oh, also, before I forget—because, believe it or not, there is so much to report tonight that losing track isn’t unthinkable—the Bulls clinched a playoff spot with a resounding 14-3 win over the Bristol Sox Charlotte Knights.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bulls on the Move, Button Gwinnett, Calvin Medlock, Charlotte Knights, Chicago White Sox, Dale Thayer, Desmond Jennings, Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Jason Childers, Joe Bateman, Joe Nelson, Jorge Julio, Justin Ruggiano, Louisville Bats, Rashad Eldridge, record, Reid Brignac, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Sean Rodriguez, seven hits in a nine inning game, strikeouts, Team USA, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
3 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
And just like that, right after a pair of ugly losses at home to their division rivals, the Bulls got healthy last night against the desperately depleted Charlotte Knights, 9-0. I didn’t recognize any of the last four names in the Knights’ lineup; they were all callups and patches on a roster that has been gutted by the parent club and Team USA. Gone are Joshes Fields and Kroeger, Tyler Flowers, Ehren Wassermann and especially Carlos Torres. Goodbye, fields, goodbye flowers and towers. We shall run roughshod over your abandoned realm (or something like that).
Doubt and resentment recently set in over at WDBB about the Rays’ lack of interest in supporting the Bulls; but the future for les taureaux is bullish compared to their cross-state rivals. The Bulls currently have six players who have been in the majors this season, including a seasoned catcher; they have not one but two closers; they have the franchise’s all-time home run leader; and they have two of the hottest prospects in baseball—plus they’re about to get a middle infielder who has 29 homers this season. There is no reason to panic, and probably also no excuse for the Bulls to lose even one of the three games down at Fort Mill. But on the other hand we’ll be seeing Calvin Medlock and His Flying Bullpen Brothers on Thursday night, so why indulge in predictions?
Desmond Jennings, basking in the glow of his Southern League MVP award—you know you’re having a good year when you can miss the final month of the season and still win the hardware—had the big stat night for the Bulls, with a homer, a triple, two walks, a hit-by-pitch (retaliation? I didn’t hear the broadcast, can’t say), and two stolen bases. His .898 OPS with the Bulls is actually higher than his Double-A mark of .881. It seems only a matter of time before he makes B. J. Upton expendable in Tampa.
Chris Richard, the aforementioned home run king of Durham, also had a nice night, belting his 24th homer and adding three singles, knocking in four runs. Justin Ruggiano had a pair of doubles. Jason Cromer tossed six scoreless innings to earn his seventh win and lower his ERA to a team-leading (among starters) 2.33. In his last 18 1/3 innings, he has allowed only three runs.
And Winston Abreu, trotted out in the ninth inning in order to stay sharp (I guess), struck out the side in order. Consider him sharpened. Abreu has not allowed a hit in his last 11 2/3 innings. He has 19 strikeouts and just two walks in that stretch. He’s completely automatic right now, and so good that you wonder how it could be possible that he was knocked around in the majors with Cleveland before the Rays welcomed him back to the flock. Gwinnett closer Luis Valdez was named the International League’s All-Star reliever, and I would love for someone to try to look me in the eye and tell me that Valdez deserves the award over Abreu. Because he has 26 saves? Even though he needed 36 save opps to get them? Please. Some stats are only indicators of context, not performance, and saves are one of them. People who looked at Valdez’s saves total and gave him the award based on that one number are lazy and narrowminded.
Elsewhere, Syracuse won and Gwinnett lost. The Bulls lead the Braves by a game in the division race; their wild card lead held at 4.5 games over the Chiefs (Braves and Chiefs? what is this, Indian summer?). Durham’s magic number for clinching a playoff spot is 2: any combination of Bulls victories and Chiefs losses sends them to the post-season. The Chiefs have played one game fewer than the Bulls, but they will make up their earlier rainout against Lehigh Valley. Even if the Bulls lose four of their final five games, Syracuse will still have to win all six of theirs. But why tempt fate? A couple more wins over Charlotte, which may have to consider changing its name from the Knights to the Russe, will begin a chorus of “Hell to the Chiefs.”
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Charlotte Knights, Chris Richard, Desmond Jennings, Gwinnett Braves, Jason Cromer, Luis Valdez, Syracuse Chiefs, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
1 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—The weather changed abruptly yesterday. At game time Sunday we were still in the sweaty languor of late summer, but the heat and sun fell out of the sky overnight. The season that replaced them on Monday wasn’t so much autumnal as alien—as if the primer-gray clouds, the unsettled breeze and the melancholy dampness had been imported from a British Isle, or Soviet-bloc Europe.
And the Bulls’ meteorology changed, too, with the same suddenness. Not only did their seven-game winning-streak come to an ugly end in a sluggish, poorly-played (by both teams) 8-6 loss to Gwinnett, but the date, August 31, marked the beginning of Bull-poaching season. Five players—a full rundown of them below (well, almost full; you’ll see)—left the DBAP for Tampa Bay after last night’s loss. It was less meteorology that hit the Bulls’ clubhouse than a meteor, which decimated the squad. Or, put another way, if September has come to take the sun and heat out of the sky, then its accompanying major-league roster expansion has swiped some of the stars, too.
And that’s not all. Two more Bulls, Jason Childers and Jon Weber, are off to join Team USA for the Baseball World Cup, to be played in Europe later this month. (Why doesn’t the IBAF schedule this tournament two weeks later? Then the minor-league season would be over, and none of the players on Team USA—all of whom are in Double-A and Triple-A—would have to miss the playoffs.) Childers and Weber have been near the front of the Bulls’ charge to the brink of the post-season—the Bulls have a one-game lead in the IL South Division, and a 4.5 game lead in the wild card race with seven left to play—but they won’t be here to help push the team across the threshold.
More’s the pity, because both of those stalwarts had a chance to help the Bulls notch one more victory last night, and both came up short. How that happened, and what happens next to the Bulls, follows.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays 10000 Maniacs, Andy Sonnanstine, Baseball World Cup, Bulls on the Move, Charlie Montoyo, Desmond Jennings, Fernando Perez, Gregor Blanco, Gwinnett Braves, Jason Childers, Jeff Bennett, Joe Nelson, Jon Weber, Montgomery Biscuits, MVP, Paul Phillips, Rayner Oliveros, Shawn Riggans, Team USA, Trapper John M.D., Wade Davis, Winston Abreu
Mike Potter ·
31 Aug 2009, 8:47 PM ·
Comment
Former Carolina Mudcats southpaw Travis Wood has been named the Southern League’s pitcher of the year in a vote by the league’s field managers, radio broadcasters and print media.
Wood is joined on the SL’s post-season All-Star team by former Mudcats teammates Juan Francisco at third base and Todd Frazier as the top utility man. All three of the former Mudcats are now playing for the Louisville Bats, who are poised to win the International League’s West Division.
Montgomery Biscuits center fielder Desmond Jennings, who now plays for the Durham Bulls, was named the circuit’s most valuable player while Ever Magallanes, who has skippered the Birmingham Barons to the dominant best record in the league, was named manager of the year.
Matt Young of the Mississippi Braves was named the league’s best hustler. Continue reading »
Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Birmingham Barons, Blake Lalli, C.J. Retherford, David Cook, Desmond Jennings, Ever Magallanes, Ezequiel Carrera, Greg Halman, John Ely, Juan Francisco, Louisvile Bats, Matt Peterson, Matt Young, Mississippi Braves, Pedro Ciriaco, Stefan Gartrell, Todd Frazier, Travis Wood, Tyler Flowers
Adam Sobsey ·
30 Aug 2009, 6:00 AM ·
5 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—You’ve probably heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which “states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”
If you apply the Infinite Monkey Theorem to baseball, you’ll get something like the Durham Bulls’ 10-9, 14-inning win over Gwinnett last night. It’s unlikely that a monkey will type Hamlet, but it’s also inevitable, in infinite time. And it’s also unlikely that last night’s game should ever happen, but last night’s game did happen. You could look it up.
“No, I’ve never seen anything like it,” was the first sentence out of Charlie Montoyo’s mouth afterward, before anyone had even asked him a question.
It would take me an infinite number of words to describe everything noteworthy about the doings at the DBAP on Saturday night (and, in fact, a bit of Sunday morning; the five-hour game ended at about ten past midnight). Although I don’t mind claiming that I am not a sportswriter who would ever, ever succumb to fatigue—I am a veritable dog with a bone, or better yet a monkey with an infinite number of bananas (and if you read that last clause carefully, you found the syntactical giveaway: I’m not a sportswriter)—as I say, although I don’t mind claiming indefatigability, which is an eight-syllable word, the Bulls have another game fairly soon, and at some point between now and then I have to sleep, eat, exercise, and, uh, type. Like a monkey.
And in case you need more monkey stuff, consider that last night’s ballgame featured mascot antics from something called Reggy the Purple Party Dude (he looks like a Sesame Street character who has somehow started growing french fries out of the top of his head). He monkeyed around in the first inning with a fake first-base coach, later with the umpire and Wool E. Bull, and then with “his inflatable nine-foot monkey,” which was both exactly what it sounds like and also inhabited somewhere in its recesses by a person. During one mid-inning caper, a banana figured heavily, along with spray cans of that fake shaving cream stuff that is actually string; and although I know that this is a family Web site, the fact is that the whole Reggy act, including the “his inflatable monkey” scenes and (especially) the fake-first-base-coach antics, played uncomfortably like the preparatory scenes of very, very, very specialized pornography targeted at an extremely specific fetish market I would prefer not to know anything about.
And also, the game was full of monkey wrenches.
I’ll give you all I’ve got if you click Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Andy Sonnanstine, Aristotle, Barbaro Canizares, Brandon Jones, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Desmond Jennings, Deunte Heath, Diory Hernandez, Douglas Adams, duct tape, Elliot johnson, extraneous innings, F.O.B., Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Infinite Improbability Drive, Infinite Monkey Theorem, Inflatable Monkey, injury, Joe Bateman, Joe Nelson, Jon Weber, Julio DePaula, Michel Hernandez, monkey, Olympic Rings, Ray Olmedo, Reggy the Purple Party Dude, Reid Brignac, Wade Davis, walks, Wes Timmons
Adam Sobsey ·
29 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
Maybe we misspelled his name when we Googled him
There’s often not too much to say about
11-2 routs like last night’s. The Bulls took an early lead and then systematically enlarged it, unimpeded by a 54-minute rain delay that ended starter Wade Davis’s night early. One night after tying the Bulls’ Triple-A franchise record for career homers, Chris Richard broke it. Matt Joyce and Elliot Johnson added round-trippers of their own (the
Tides have been out-homered 39-6 in their last 30 games!), the Bulls racked up 16 hits off of five Norfolk pitchers, the last of whom was second baseman Brandon Pinckney, and your local news is coming up next, thank you for staying up with us.
It was the Bulls’ fifth straight win, which kept them even with Gwinnett (who won at Charlotte) atop the International League South Division. Guess who comes to Durham for a four-game series on Saturday?
So the romp was a mere setup for the showdown we’ve all been waiting for, and as such was secondary to its surrounding weather, a complex and unpredictable collision of fast-approaching fronts and precipitations that will pass over the DBAP very soon. Details follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Andy Sonnanstine, Brandon Chaves, chokers, Chris Richard, Desmond Jennings, Gwinnett Braves, Jake McGee, Jason Childers, Jeremy Hellickson, John Halama, Jon Weber, Mitch Talbot, Norfolk Tides, playoffs, Ray Olmedo, Scott Kazmir, Team USA, trade, Wade Davis, wild card
Adam Sobsey ·
26 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
I had plans last night and stopped listening to the Durham Bulls’ radio broadcast with the Bulls leading Syracuse, 5-0, in the seventh inning. Matt Joyce hit a grand slam in the first inning and Bulls’ starter Jeremy Hellickson was cruising, having allowed just a single baserunner. The Bulls seemed well on their way to an easy win on getaway day.
I should have known better. Hellickson allowed a two-out, three-run homer to Seth Bynum in the bottom of the seventh—long balls are his one obvious weakness so far—and gave the Chiefs life. The Bulls added a run to their lead in the next inning on a passed ball, but not before Syracuse outfielder Justin Maxwell got ejected, the second time he’s been tossed from a game versus the Bulls this year. According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, his ejection had to do with the last out of the seventh inning, on which Maxwell grounded out to third base and protested the call at first. Manager Tim Foli joined him in the dispute and in the clubhouse. Must have been a fun argument to watch. I hope I never make Justin Maxwell mad.
Sometimes ejections light a fire under a team, and in this case Jason Childers had a gasoline can with him when he came on to replace Hellickson in the eighth inning. With a 6-3 Bulls lead, Childers faced four batters and retired none of them. It went: triple, double, single, single, Dale Thayer. Thayer got charged with a blown save when he allowed a game-tying sacrifice fly to Daryle Ward. (This is, by the way, a ridiculous rule. All Thayer did was retire all three men he faced in order, but it’s he, rather than Childers (who put the man on third base), whose stats take a hit.)
Anyway, the Bulls scored three more runs in the top of the ninth. Shawn Riggans had a two-run double and Michel Hernandez added his third sacrifice fly in two days. Winston Abreu, suddenly Sandman again, eliminated a one-out walk with a double play, and this one goes in the win column, 9-6. Deep breath.
The Bulls now have a 3.5-game lead over Syracuse in the wild-card chase. A couple of quick notes follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Dale Thayer, Desmond Jennings, Golgafrincham, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Jason Childers, Jeremy Hellickson, Justin Maxwell, Matt Joyce, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, Shawn Riggans, telephone sanitizers, Tim Foli, Winston Abreu
