Showing posts tagged “Fernando Perez”
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 ·
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
Adam Sobsey ·
31 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
6 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—Yesterday I threatened to need an infinite number of words to describe Durham’s surreal, 10-9, 14-inning win over Gwinnett. Today, I could do it in two: Jeremy Hellickson. The 22-year-old Iowan, who has been excellent since his callup from Double-A Montgomery in July, had his best start of the season and led the Bulls to a 4-0 win over the Braves, extending the Bulls’ division lead to two games.
In eight sterling innings, Hellickson (pictured) allowed just one hit—a sixth-inning single by Brian Barton—walked Gregor Blanco twice, and struck out 12. On a night when the entire Durham bullpen was exhausted from its 14-inning slog on Saturday, Hellickson not only rested them but put his clamps on the game right from the get-go, serving notice by striking out the side in the first inning.
That was actually the easy part. You’ve probably seen countless highly touted young flamethrowers blow hitters away for a few innings and then melt down. Truly mature pitchers are steady, and as effective at the end of their night as at the outset. We’ve seen Hellickson break down a few times right at the end of his starts, allowing late homers just before departing. But last night, when Gwinnett got a two-out baserunner in the eighth inning, Hellickson’s last, he marooned the man there. (Not a single Brave reached second base.) That was a sign of maturation from a kid who seems already well beyond his years. His equanimity, his poker-faced ease, and his quiet resolve are as much the reasons for his success as his raw material.
Details on the best pitching performance by a Bull this year follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bulls on the Move, Calvin Medlock, Charlie Montoyo, Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Heath Rollins, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Bateman, Jon Weber, Rayner Oliveros
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 ·
25 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
The Syracuse Chiefs took a 2-0 lead over the Durham Bulls early in last night’s game, and Bulls broadcaster Neil Solondz noted that the Bulls had done the same in Sunday’s game before the Chiefs rallied to win, 3-2. You got the sense that he was hoping the Bulls might reverse the stream and visit the same comeback on Syracuse. Sure enough, the Bulls tied the game with two runs in the sixth, then won it in the eighth, by that same 3-2 score, on Michel Hernandez’s second sacrifice fly of the night.
This was a big win for the Bulls. They dropped Syracuse 2.5 games behind them in the wild-card chase; elsewhere, both Norfolk and Toledo lost and each team fell five games back; and Gwinnett lost both games of a doubleheader at home to Charlotte. That pulled the Bulls to within 2.5 games of the Braves for the South Division lead. Plenty can happen between now and Saturday, when the Braves visit the DBAP for four games, but if the Bulls can stay close, it’ll be a critical series. If nothing else, the Bulls can add another important game to their wild-card lead on Tuesday if they can beat Syracuse again. They can also earn their first series win in their last six.
Game details and notes follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Andy Sonnanstine, Chris Richard, Fernando Perez, Jeremy Hellickson, Justin Ruggiano, Michel Hernandez, Shawn Riggans, Syracuse Chiefs, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
21 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—Out here in (oh, just go ahead and call it the) blogosphere, we were getting a little restless after the Bulls got crushed by the Charlotte Knights on Wednesday, 8-1. The team seemed flat and dull, listless and [adjective of your choice]. And when Charlotte scored a run in the top of the first inning last night with a bloop single that was so shallow it was actually fielded by Bulls’ third baseman Ray Olmedo, you couldn’t help but think, and now here comes the bad luck, too.
The Bulls took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second inning, but they got help in the form of a bases-loaded walk (to John Jaso) and left the pasture F.O.B., failing to get a hit with the sacks packed. In the top of the third, the Knights tied it 2-2 when Olmedo made two errors (16, 17) on one play.
And then the Bulls loaded the bases again in the bottom of the third inning. Here’s how they did it: walk, strikeout, flyout, walk, walk. Two outs, three on, zero hits. The Bulls seem to fail routinely in this situation lately. Jaso steps to the plate. With runners in scoring position this year he’s 10/73, which is tragically bad—it seems he needs bases-loaded walks to succeed when it counts. But what I haven’t bothered to look up is Jaso’s average with the bases loaded.
Later, after Jaso rips a bases-clearing, three-run double to the base of the left-center field wall, I will look up that stat, and discover that he is now 4/8 with nine RBIs when the bases are loaded. It’s now 5-2, Bulls. That’s plenty for Jeremy Hellickson and a pair of relievers. Reid Brignac adds a two-out, two-run single in the fifth, and the rout is on. The Bulls win, 10-2. After the game Charlie Montoyo says, “I’ve never been so relaxed in the ninth inning.” It’s the Bulls first easy win in a week and a half.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Akinori Iwamura, Charlie Montoyo, Charlotte Knights, F.O.B., Fernando Perez, Jeff Bennett, Jeremy Hellickson, John Jaso, Jon Weber, Ray Olmedo, Reid Brignac, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, Typewriter Tip Tip Tip, walks
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 ·
18 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—A few days ago, Bulls right fielder Matt Joyce lost a fly ball in the lights, but finally spotted it just in time to make the catch. After the game, he talked about the helpless feeling that overcomes an outfielder when that happens, and he recalled a similar play in the majors last year, when he lost a ball hit by the Twins’ Joe Mauer in the notorious Bermuda Triangle of the Minneapolis Metrodome’s lights and ceiling. He happened to spot it at the very last moment and leaped to spear it for an out. Fortunately, it seems like more often than not, the ball eventually emerges from the white-out and gets caught.
In the fifth inning of last night’s 9-3 loss to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, the Bulls were already in a deep hole, down 7-0. But somehow the game seemed closer than that. Bulls starter Jason Cromer had struggled from the very first batter of the game, getting tagged for three runs in the first inning, but he actually didn’t look all that bad over the next three-plus innings. Although he had trouble hitting his spots, and kept working long at-bats, he might have gotten through the fifth without allowing any more runs to score but for some bad luck and some worse fielding (partly his own). Instead, he gave up an unearned run in the second inning and another in the fourth. But after that, he recovered and retired the next six Yankees. By the end of five innings, he had thrown 99 pitches, and it was the perfect time for Charlie Montoyo to take him out of the game.
But it was quite obvious that Cromer was staying in. Why? Because the Durham bullpen is once again ragged with overuse, and Montoyo has been forced to ride his starters a little longer than usual. On Friday night, Montoyo felt compelled to leave Andy Sonnanstine on the mound to get battered for 11 hits and seven runs in five innings. The next night, he left Jeremy Hellickson in for an extra couple of batters in another bullpen-preservation attempt, and it cost Hellickson a run when he allowed a home run to John Rodriguez. Then, on Sunday, Carlos Hernandez missed his second straight start with a wrist injury, and Montoyo had to call on reliever Joe Bateman for a 54-pitch, 3 1/3-inning spot start; after Bateman, three other relievers burned up ample pitches to close out the game.
So when Cromer ran into immediate first-inning trouble last night, we in the press box were already wondering aloud how Montoyo would manage his pitching staff for the rest of the evening. It was clear that Jason Childers, Julio DePaula and Dale Thayer were available, but I felt compelled to add that if the game got out of hand, we’d see Craig Albernaz, the Bulls’ little-used fourth(!)-string catcher. Montoyo had revealed in a side comment a few nights ago that Albernaz might have to do some mop-up work in support of the short-handed bullpen (Jeff Bennett, recently demoted from Tampa, hasn’t arrived in Durham yet); and although he said that with a a smirk on his face, I could tell that what he didn’t want to have to admit was that he wasn’t really kidding.
So: Cromer takes the mound again in the top of the sixth on Monday, trailing 5-0, and I’m thinking, uh-oh.
What I couldn’t have known was that I should perhaps have been thinking uh-oh on someone else’s behalf.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Bullpen, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Craig Albernaz, Elliot johnson, Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, halfro, Jake Peavy, Jason Childers, Jason Cromer, Jeff Bennett, Jon Weber, Jonathan Albaladejo, Josh Towers, Julio DePaula, Justin Ruggiano, Matt Joyce, Russ Ortiz, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Yurendell de Caster
Adam Sobsey ·
15 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees have some big dudes on their team. Shelley Duncan: 6-foot-5, 225 pounds. Chris Stewart: 6-foot-4, 210 (that’s really tall for a catcher). Their starter last night, Ivan Nova: 6-foot-4, 210. They have another starting pitcher who is 6-foot-8, 250, and two relievers who between them are nearly 13 feet tall and weigh 520 pounds. And these are all official, listed weights. You probably know what that means.
The Bulls, by contrast, got littler. Rehabbing second baseman Akinori Iwamura, who made his first appearance last night, is 5-foot-9, although he is deceptively stout at 200 pounds. Iwamura’s presence temporarily pushed Henry Mateo to left field. The Zampano-like Jon Weber (5-foot-10, 190; only one of those numbers is correct) usually plays there, but Mateo is much slighter. He’s listed, rather optimistically, at six feet tall. If that’s his actual height, and if Ray Olmedo, who played third base on Friday, is 5-foot-11, then I am pleased to discover that I’m 6-foot-2 and never realized it all these years. Cool!
The size contrast between the Yankees and the Bulls showed last night in more ways than one. For one thing, it seemed appropriate that the Sumo wrestling diversion between innings ended in the season’s first tie; you just couldn’t ignore those two fat-suited contestants. But the main evidence of the weight on the field was the score, and it wasn’t anything like a tie: the Yankees flattened the Bulls, 9-5. Durham fell two games behind Gwinnett, which beat Pawtucket.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Akinori Iwamura, Andy Sonnanstine, Austin Jackson, Bulls on the Move, Calvin Medlock, Charlie Montoyo, Damaso Marte, Fernando Perez, Ivan Nova, Jeff Bennett, Joe Dillon, Jon Weber, Jonathan Albaladejo, Juan Miranda, Matt Joyce, Michel Hernandez, Ray Olmedo, Reid Brignac, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, triple play, Winston Abreu, Xavier Hernandez, Zach Kroenke, Zampano
Adam Sobsey ·
13 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
That ringing in your ears is the postman at the door, and the Bulls keep neglecting to answer. Actually, check that: the Bulls keep leaving the door open for the Gwinnett Braves, who respond each time by charging through it. For the second straight night, Durham took a one-run lead into the ninth inning; for the second straight night, their closer—Winston Abreu on Tuesday, Dale Thayer on Wednesday—let two runs score. Last night’s version was a 2-1 loss. Thayer had Gwinnett down to its final strike before giving up a game-winning, two-run single to Brandon Jones, who had the game-winning homer off Abreu the previous night.
So much about the tune is familiar. The Bulls left 11 men on base and were 2-13 with runners in scoring position; they had 13 baserunners but scored just a single run. Starter Jason Cromer had another excellent outing (it’s becoming almost routine for him), tossing six scoreless innings but getting no run support, as usual. He’s come away with a no-decision in nearly half his starts, even though all but one have been win-worthy. The first two Bulls to bat in the seventh inning reached on errors (both by Braves reliever Vladimir Nunez), but Reid Brignac botched a sacrifice bunt attempt—or so I gather from the play-by-play game recap—and the Bulls ultimately failed to score. Justin Ruggiano struck out again—nothing new there; he’s second in the league—but this time he went postal on home plate umpire James Thomas and was ejected for arguing balls and strikes (well, really just strikes, since he was probably happy with the balls). That forced Ray Olmedo and his .627 OPS to come in and hit cleanup in Ruggiano’s place. As it happened, Olmedo led off the sixth inning with a double. Jon Weber followed with a walk, but guess what? The Bulls failed to score.
Which is to say: the postman kept ringing, but it was the Bulls who couldn’t deliver, and they returned this victory to sender. The best position they can hope to be in when they return to Durham on Friday is a game behind Gwinnett. If they lose to rehabbing Braves stalwart Tim Hudson on Thursday, they’ll be three games back with North Division leader Scranton/Wilkes-Barre coming to the DBAP for a four-game wraparound weekend series. Yikes.
Meanwhile, more roster moves are in the mail. Details follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Brandon Jones, Bulls on the Move, Chad Bradford, Dale Thayer, ejection, Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Jason Cromer, Joe Dillon, John Meloan, Justin Ruggiano, Michel Hernandez, Mitch Talbot, Postman Always Rings Twice, R.J. Swindle, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, Shawn Riggans, Winston Abreu
