Showing posts tagged “Lehigh Valley IronPigs”
Adam Sobsey ·
19 Jun 2009, 2:03 AM ·
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DBAP/ DURHAM—After the Lehigh Valley IronPigs completed a four-game sweep of the Bulls last night—Durham’s fifth straight loss—the postgame musical selection was Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son.” The Bulls’ Director of Media Relations, Matt DeMargel, assured me that the song was played at random, offering as evidence a computer touch screen of choices available to the sound guy following a loss (e.g. “That’s Life”). No “Wayward Son” was on it.
Still, it was an appropriate song to play after a glum 6-2 loss (perhaps our machines are smarter than we are, after all). The Bulls looked lost, incapable, tired: Wayward. They were charged with two errors (one controversial) but misplayed at least three other balls that cost them runs. They walked six batters. They grounded into three double plays and went 2-12 with runners in scoring position. They put the leadoff man on in six of the first seven innings but scored just one run in that stretch. And they made yet another senseless baserunning gaffe.
Remarkably, though, in the first inning it looked for all the world like the Bulls’ losing streak was going to be over.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls baserunning, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Nowak, Jon Weber, Kansas, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Lollygaggers, Matt DeSalvo, momentum, Ray Olmedo, Reid Brignac, RISP
Adam Sobsey ·
18 Jun 2009, 3:03 AM ·
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DBAP/ DURHAM—Henry Mateo’s hot hitting earned him a promotion to the leadoff spot in manager Charlie Montoyo’s lineup on Tuesday, and he rewarded Montoyo’s choice by going 4-5 and raising his average to .360. Mateo was in pole position again on Wednesday afternoon—another heavy, gray, sodden day in Durham—and he led off the bottom of the first inning with a grounder to the right side that Lehigh Valley’s burly first baseman, Andy Tracy, couldn’t get to. But second baseman J. J. Furmaniak gloved it near the outfield grass and threw to Kyle Kendrick, the pitcher, who hurried over to cover first base. Mateo, hustling all the way, dove into the bag.
It’s been widely discussed, but the general consensus is that diving or sliding into first base is a bad idea (here’s an inelegant but useful summary of the argument). It looks like a hustle play and you get sexily, mannishly dirty doing it, but it slows you down, for one thing, and it’s also a great way to get hurt, for another.
Guess what? Henry Mateo was out at first. Guess what else? He got hurt. Guess what other else? It wasn’t even a result of diving head-first into the bag: he pulled his hamstring legging out the play, and the Bulls hottest hitter had to leave the game, which they wound up losing to Lehigh Valley, 4-0 in 11 innings.
When teams are going good they find ways to win, and when they’re not they find ways to lose. The Bulls had no business winning on Monday or Tuesday, and they didn’t (although through sheer force of will they made like they might win anyway). On Wednesday, however, they should have won, and they had to find, by my count, at least four ways to lose—and they did. Let us count them:
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Andy Tracy, baserunning, Chad Bradford, Charlie Montoyo, Dale Thayer, Henry Mateo, I Am Psychic, James Houser, Jason Cromer, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Ray Olmedo, Ray Sadler, Rhyne Hughes, RISP, Wheel of Fortune
Adam Sobsey ·
17 Jun 2009, 2:47 AM ·
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Slump? What's a slump?
DBAP/ DURHAM—The final tally would make an ugly football score, and it’s an even uglier baseball score, especially when the home team loses. The Bulls have dropped six of seven, including three by scores of 13-5, 8-1, and now 16-8. They have had two three-game losing streaks in those seven games after having zero three-game losing streaks over the first 61 games of the season. I can’t retrace for you all of the steps that led to Tuesday’s ugly loss—although I’m going to try (and fail, sorry)—for the simple reason that there are many more than 16.
And in case you think there is panic in the Bull City, you should have seen the look that flashed across Charlie Montoyo’s face when he was asked by a reporter, “Do you dare use the word ’slump’?” after the loss last night. It was the look of a slightly offended person. “Slump for who?” he shot back, meaning something like a cross between, “Slump? What slump?” and, “Maybe you’re the one slumping here.” Then: “Call it whatever you want [since you're the one who's the writer].” And then he quickly started talking about tangible details, like the bad pitching of the last few games and the reassuring fact that “we keep fighting back,” which the Bulls did again on Tuesday before drowning in their bullpen’s sorrows. And when asked whether the endlessly proliferating roster changes were the problem, he demurred, decisively, saying only that it bothers him when he has to leave relief pitchers in game longer than they should be in the game because “we don’t have anybody else.”
Charlie Montoyo knows his job. The Triple-A roster will change constantly; you play all the guys you have at your disposal, and when it’s over you do it again the next day. Every day you can win. And every day you can lose. To the men who play and manage this game, there’s no such thing as a slump (and so, by extension, no such thing as momentum either?), despite appearances to the contrary. Would you believe me when I say that the Bulls almost won this game that they wound up losing, badly? It happened, more or less, on one pitch.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Alex Jamieson, baserunning, Charlie Montoyo, Craig Albernaz, Henry Mateo, James Houser, Joe Bateman, Jon Weber, Jorge Julio, Justin Ruggiano, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, momentum, Reid Brignac, Rhyne Hughes
Adam Sobsey ·
16 Jun 2009, 12:37 AM ·
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DBAP/ DURHAM—You’ll often hear baseball folks talk about “getting into the other team’s bullpen.” The sooner you can drive the opponent’s starter from the game, the better your chances of putting up crooked numbers against the relievers: as is often noted, relievers are usually relievers because they aren’t good and/or durable enough to be starters. Even great, converted-in-late-career closers like Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz would, I’m sure, rather have spent their whole tenures starting games; they moved to the bullpen out of necessity, i.e. to keep their arms from falling off.
The Bulls made it easy for Lehigh Valley to get into their bullpen in Monday night’s 8-5 loss (which wasn’t as close as the score suggests): Durham starter Carlos Hernandez had to sit out with back spasms, and so the relief corps was in it from the first pitch to the last. For most of the night, it wasn’t pretty.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Bull Durham Theater Company, Bullpen, Carlos Carrasco, Carlos Hernandez, Dale Thayer, Dewon Day, John Jaso, Jorge Julio, Julio DePaula, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, momentum, Waiting for Lefty, Wool E. Bull
Adam Sobsey ·
25 May 2009, 2:03 AM ·
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The Bulls beat Lehigh Valley, 6-2, at Coca-Cola Field yesterday to take three of four from the IronPigs this weekend. That was also the score of the Bulls’ win in the first game of the series, so the Bulls must be sleeping well in their motel rooms in Rochester, NY, content with their symmetrical victory. The Bulls play the Red Wings less than twelve hours from now in a Memorial Day afternoon tilt. Carlos Hernandez, coming off his best start of the year, takes the mound for Durham. If the Red Wings’ rotation hasn’t changed, the Bulls’ hitters will enjoy seeing Jason Jones again today. They teed off on him last Tuesday afternoon at the DBAP.
It’s remarkable that the Bulls put up six runs against Lehigh Valley yesterday. With Reid Brignac up in Tampa (more on that below) and Chris Richard getting a much-needed day off—one assumes it was scheduled and not injury-related—Durham fielded perhaps its lightest-hitting lineup. The 6-9 hitters are now hitting a combined .216 with a collective OBP under .300 and a combined SLG of .324.
So Charlie Montoyo needed a couple of his boppers to show up, and they did. Justin Ruggiano—OK, we’ll call him the Roodge today, despite two more strikeouts—hit a solo home run, and Jon Weber added a three-run job in the top of the ninth to put it away and secure Wade Davis’s fifth win. Davis pitched 6 2/3 innings and allowed only a single unearned run, although it came via his own error on a pickoff throw. He struck out two and walked two while lowering his ERA to 2.66. Relievers Randy Choate and Joe Bateman decided to make things interesting in the bottom of the ninth, loading the bases with no outs, but despite walking two batters Bateman wriggled out of the jam with just one run scoring.
Newly-acquired infielder Henry Mateo played shortstop and batted second, just as Brignac had been doing before his promotion. Mateo went 0-5 with three strikeouts. Ray Sadler whiffed three times, too. The Bulls fanned 12 times.
Perhaps the biggest Bulls news today came from Florida. Tampa second baseman Akinori Iwamura suffered an apparently severe knee injury when he was taken out by a hard slide while trying to turn a double play against the Marlins. If Iwamura is gone for a while, which seems almost certain, then Brignac will probably stay in Tampa as a reserve infielder unless the Rays decide to go out and get a veteran (do you think they wish they hadn’t traded Adam Kennedy?). Brignac had been keeping Pat Burrell’s place warm, but with Iwamura out, another Bull may get promoted—probably Matt Joyce or Ruggiano. That promotion, unlike Brignac’s, should be a very short one unless yet another Ray is injured. In any case, look for more changes soon in Durham.
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Henry Mateo, injury, Joe Bateman, Jon Weber, Justin Ruggiano, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Randy Choate, Ray Sadler, Reid Brignac, The Roodge, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
24 May 2009, 3:04 PM ·
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From Bluefish to Bull: Henry Mateo was signed for today's game
Somewhere around the bottom of the eighth inning last night in Allentown, PA, Chris Richard must have heard that Shelley Duncan had hit two more homers for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, raising his league-leading total to 14. Richard may also have been informed that the Bulls, playing by then in a patchwork state of astounding lineup weirdness, were trailing the Lehigh Valley IronPigs by a run. He may even have asked what an IronPig is, and received in return from his teammates blank and helpless stares.
So Richard stepped to the plate after Joe Dillon was hit by a pitch and hit a two-run homer to give Durham a 5-4 win. Richard’s homer was his 11th of the season. It was the Bulls’ eighth win in their last 11 games.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Alex Jamieson, Bridgeport Bluefish, Bulls on the Move, Chris Richard, Craig Albernaz, Henry Mateo, Jason Childers, John Jaso, Jon Weber, Julio DePaula, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Ray Olmedo, Tony Illegitimate, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
22 May 2009, 11:55 PM ·
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Other than Chris Richard’s three-run home run, his 10th—he now has the second most in the International League—the Bulls hitters couldn’t do much tonight, and Mitch Talbot got roughed up in a 5-3 loss at Lehigh Valley. Talbot permitted thirteen baserunners in five innings, and was probably fortunate that only a third of them scored. Ten IronPigs were left stranded, and not even Eumaeus could bring them home (there, I’m a book critic).
With Reid Brignac gone to Tampa, Ray Olmedo played shortstop, and Joe Dillon took over at second base, a position he had previously played in 62 games over 12 seasons in professional ball. Close enough, I guess. It’s probable that a Biscuit will rise from Montgomery to Durham soon.
Meanwhile, in Tampa tonight, Dale Thayer got his first major-league save in his inaugural appearance. Thayer pitched three innings in relief of Andy Sonnanstine, and allowed a meaningless ninth-inning run in the Rays’ 15-2 rout of their Citrus Series rivals, the Florida Marlins. The official scorer gave Thayer a judgment-call save, which is permitted by league rules if the reliever pitches at least three innings, finishes the game, and is effective in the scorer’s eyes. Thayer even got an at-bat, grounding out to the pitcher to end the top of the ninth. He didn’t strike anyone out and gave up too many fly balls, but still, three good innings are three good innings.
Brignac came into the game at shortstop when manager Joe Maddon cleared the benches late, and went 1-2 with a single and a run scored.
Although both newly-minted Rays did well tonight, there’s every reason to think they’ll be back in Durham soon enough once everything gets sorted out in Tampa (and particularly, in Brignac’s case, when interleague play ends). Nonetheless, it was nice to see them do well immediately after their call-ups.
When will they be sent down again? The answer to that question got muddied today.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Andy Sonnanstine, Bulls on the Move, Chris Richard, Dale Thayer, David Price, Jason Isringhausen, Joe Dillon, Joe Maddon, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Mitch Talbot, Ray Olmedo, Reid Brignac, Scott Kazmir, Troy Percival, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
22 May 2009, 12:32 PM ·
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Near the end of my last post I suggested that James Houser (pictured, left) was under a bit of pressure to rebound from his last start, in which he was thrashed by Louisville. He was also taking the hill after a string of four straight sterling starts (that was alliteration: there, I’m a book critic) by his cohort in the Durham Bulls rotation.
Result? Houser threw four no-hit innings to start off the Bulls’ 6-2 win at Lehigh Valley. The IronPigs play in Allentown, PA, that Billy Joel-famous Rust Belt town that is apparently still so diffident that it prefers to call its baseball team by another name.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Brad Komminsk, Follow us on Twitter!, James Houser, Jeanmar Gomez, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Matt Joyce, perfect game
