Showing posts tagged “Kei Igawa”
Adam Sobsey ·
17 Sep 2009, 4:00 AM ·
2 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—Fans who came out to see the last home game of the Durham Bulls’ 2009 season—2,480 of you, officially—got a bit of a bonus. Last night’s 4-1 Durham win was basically two separate games: first, a three-inning tune-up for a pair of recuperating starting pitchers, followed by the real deal, when the two teams’ tenured players faced off for six taut innings of playoff baseball. With the win, the Bulls put themselves on the brink of a championship they haven’t won since 2003.
The entire game was played in a steady mizzle, and it seemed appropriate that the last game of the year saw the same sort of weather that has hung over the Triangle all season long: gray, moist, heavy, moody. Not a fun evening for a pair of rehabilitating starters to get their work in, but that’s what they did. The Bulls have to be grateful that Scranton/Wilkes-Barre starter Ian Kennedy was on a low pitch limit. He faced nine batters and retired them all, striking out six of them. Kennedy, who is coming back from an aneurysm in his pitching arm, threw 43 pitches, 28 for strikes, and had the Bulls totally mastered from the get-go. He struck out the side swinging in the first, making Joe Dillon look stupid on a changeup for the last strike of the inning. He got Sean Rodriguez looking in the second inning, on a fastball that was more or less right down the middle. He had Justin Ruggiano chasing sliders after that.
The story was different for the Bulls’ starter, Mitch Talbot.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Charlie Montoyo, Chris Nowak, Doug Bernier, Eric Duncan, Ian Kennedy, Jason Cromer, Joe Bateman, Julio DePaula, Kei Igawa, Luck, Mitch Talbot, Rashad Eldridge, Ray Olmedo, runner's interference, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
15 Sep 2009, 1:00 AM ·
2 Comments
This one is a tad easier than previewing the Bulls’ first-round series against the Louisville Bats. Before that series, Durham and Louisville hadn’t played each other in nearly two months, which is about two years in Triple-A time. The Yankees, on the other hand, visited the DBAP August 14-17, and although both teams have seen plenty of changes since then, anyone who attended some or all of those games will recognize the visitors when they return on Tuesday night.
And the visitors will recognize the Bulls’ starting pitcher. Right-hander Jeremy Hellickson has already faced Scranton/Wilkes-Barre twice this season, and he’s done very well both times. He went 7 1/3 against them on August 15, struck out seven, and allowed only two hits. Unfortunately, those two hits were both solo homers, by Juan Miranda and John Rodriguez, who remain the two most dangerous hitters in the Yankees’ lineup. The two lefty power bats have hit 33 homers between them this season. Back on July 30, Hellickson pitched six inning of three-hit, shutout ball at Scranton.
His opponent tonight will be Romulo Sanchez, a very large, hard-throwing right-hander who is probably not to be confused with Humberto Sanchez, even though Sanchez is a Yankees pitcher who is also very large, right-handed, and hard-throwing. Together, they are about 13 feet and 550 pounds of Sanchez. The difference between them is that Romulo, despite his mid-90s fastball, has low career strikeout numbers (although they’re higher this year), and Humberto has high ones. Also, Humberto is a reliever, and is recovering from years of injuries. The Bulls hitters, who are a fairly selective bunch, will need to be patient against Romulo, who has walked 34 hitters in 64 Triple-A innings this season. That’s a very poor rate.
Game Two and beyond follows. I also highly recommend Chad Jennings’s Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees blog, which has head-to-head matchups and is much more thorough overall than my preview.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Anthony Claggett, FNG, Governor's Cup, Humberto Sanchez, Ian Kennedy, Ivan Nova, Jason Cromer, Jeremy Hellickson, John Rodriguez, Juan Miranda, Justin Ruggiano, Kei Igawa, Matt Joyce, Mitch Talbot, Paul Phillips, playoffs, Romulo Sanchez, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Sean Rodriguez, Winston Abreu, Zach Kroenke, Zach McAllister
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 ·
14 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
Leave it to the Bulls to get their only win of this grim series against the Braves by overcoming a two-time major-league All-Star. Rehabbing Atlanta pitcher Tim Hudson wasn’t anything like the victim in last night’s 9-5 Durham win, but he didn’t shut the Bulls down either, permitting five hits and two runs in four innings before departing after reaching what I assume was a predetermined pitch-count limit. The Bulls then sloshed around for a while before finally deciding to unload on Gwinnett closer Luis Valdez, whom they bombarded for six runs in the ninth inning and handed his eighth blown save. Had they lost, the Bulls would have staggered home after a sweep at the hands of the Braves, two games back of the division lead. As it stands, they return just a game back, and coming off another electrifying comeback win. No matter how or when or for how long they struggle, this team never quits. You have to give them credit for that.
A few notes follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bronson Arroyo, Bulls on the Move, Dale Thayer, Gwinnett Braves, Jason Childers, Joe Dillon, Joe Nelson, Jon Weber, Jonny Gomes, Kei Igawa, Luis Valdez, Tim Hudson
David Fellerath ·
11 Sep 2008, 9:12 AM ·
Comment
Perhaps it’s because Dan Johnson (and Fernando Perez, Justin Ruggiano et al.) are in Tampa now, but the Bulls have fallen behind two games to none in the best-of-five International League finals against the Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre Yankees. In Pennsylvania last night, the Bulls lost 1-0 in a 13-inning pitching duel.
Tonight, the teams take the field at Durham Bulls Athletic Park at 7:05 p.m. In a clash of multimillion-dollar pitching prospects, Jeff Niemann starts for the Bulls while the Yankees’ dubious $20 million investment, Kei Igawa, starts for the visiting nine.
Baseball, Durham Bulls Dan Johnson, Jeff Niemann, Kei Igawa
