Showing posts tagged “Louisville Bats”
Adam Sobsey ·
14 Sep 2009, 4:00 AM ·
1 Comment
After the Bulls lost on Saturday at Louisville to set up a two-men-enter-one-man-leave Game Five in their International League division playoff series, manager Charlie Montoyo was philosophical. “I don’t feel pressure because the worst thing that can happen is that I will see my family the next day,” Montoyo said. “I preached that to my players. We had the best division this year in the league and it took 83 wins to win the division. So just to get to this point and to be playing a fifth game against a good team like Louisville is just awesome. It’s awesome for my club.”
You could also read that assessment as a secret hope for a loss on Sunday, which would have ended the long, hard road that has been the Bulls’ 2009 season. Montoyo could hardly be blamed for harboring a desire to have done with it all: his family has had an unbelievably trying year, he misses them terribly, and his team has been thoroughly picked over by the Tampa Bay Rays’ front office, leaving him with a patchwork lineup, bullpen and (especially) rotation, which features just two bona fide starters. On Saturday, one of the replacements, just-up-from-Montgomery Rayner Oliveros, was bombed, lasting just one full inning in what ended up a 10-7 loss. (All 10 runs were allowed by three pitchers who came into the game with a grand total of six combined Triple-A appearances.)
On Sunday, Montoyo sent Paul Phillips to the mound. Phillips is yet another newbie, called up just over a week ago. He throws hard and throws strikes, and he did that again against Louisville for five innings yesterday, getting credit for an unlikely win as the Bulls survived the Bats, 5-3. It was the fourth time in the last 12 seasons that the Bulls have knocked the Bats out of the playoffs in the first round, and the third in the last seven. The Bats haven’t beaten Durham in the playoffs yet.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Alex Montoyo, Charlie Montoyo, Ebstein's Anomaly, Governor's Cup, Justin Ruggiano, Louisville Bats, Luck, Paul Phillips, playoffs, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Sean Rodriguez, The Roodge, Winston Abreu, Yonder Alonso
Adam Sobsey ·
13 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
We got the slugfest we were due for, and the Bulls’ first homer of the series as well (by Michel Hernandez, of all people—his first as a Bull this year and his second overall); but the Bats lived up to their name and outhit Durham, 10-7, on Saturday night. The win forced a fifth and final game of the divisional series.
Both starters fared poorly—Durham’s Rayner Oliveros and Louisville’s Tom Cochran were gone by the third inning, having allowed 11 runs between them in just 3 1/3 innings combined. The difference in the game was probably the two guys who followed them. The Bulls’ Heath Rollins allowed three runs on four hits, including Danny Dorn’s sixth-inning home run, in 4 2/3 innings; by contrast, the Bats’ Lee Tabor threw four scoreless innings of two-hit ball in relief of Cochran. By the seventh inning, it was 8-6, Louisville.
The Bulls mounted rallies late, but they managed only one run during the seventh and eighth innings, when they had two hits and two walks, plus a pair of errors on Louisville pitchers to help move runners around the diamond. The final Durham reliever, Mike Wlodarczyk, surrendered two more runs to Louisville in the eighth to provide the final three-run margin.
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Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Camilo Vazquez, Heath Rollins, Lee Tabor, Logan Ondrusek, Louisville Bats, Michel Hernandez, Mike Wlodarczyk, Paul Phillips, Rayner Oliveros, Tom Cochran
Adam Sobsey ·
12 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
6 Comments
Luck. Did it even itself out last night in the Bulls’ achingly difficult, teeth-gnashing 4-3 win at Louisville? The Bulls scored all four of their runs in the fourth inning with help from two walks and two singles that might easily have been outs: they weren’t hit hard. Down 4-1, the Bats chipped away, scoring a run on a Yonder Alonso homer in the sixth inning off of Jason Cromer (it was disputed by Justin Ruggiano, who claimed that the ball hadn’t cleared the wall but had been interfered with by a fan), and then getting a pair of cheap infield hits by Todd Frazier and Juan Francisco to push across their third run in the seventh off of Joe Bateman, who pitched well and can be faulted only for a leadoff walk, really. The rest was just rotten luck. Note, however, that Cromer, who has earned the nickname “The Strandman” from the folks at Draysbay, allowed none of the seven men who reached against him to score, save the two guys who hit homers. Over 115+ Triple-A innings, opponents are hitting .155 against Comer with runners in scoring position. With RISP and two outs, .085. Wow.
Julio DePaula did a good job of stranding a leadoff single in the eighth. In the top of the ninth, Justin Ruggiano singled (it was his third hit of the game) and took off for second on a pitch to Elliot Johnson, which Johnson hit to center field. Chris Heisey came on and made a good running catch; he fired to first to nail Ruggiano for an (un)lucky double play. That twin-killing loomed large when Michel Hernandez followed with a double to right that might have scored Ruggiano from first. Henry Mateo then smacked a line drive near first base, and Yonder Alonso made a nice grab to end the inning. Luck.
Winston Abreu came on in the ninth and fanned Heisey and Jay Bruce on six pitches. He got Frazier down in the count 0-2 before Frazier reached on an infield single, his second in two innings. Then Juan Francisco fell behind 0-2 before he reached on another infield single, his second in two innings, dribbling one down the first base line and simply getting lucky that it was timed so that he managed to elude Joe Dillon’s tag.
It seemed as if fortune was simply favoring Louisville. Chris Valaika stepped in—and he, too, had had an infield single the night before in Durham, driving in the Bats’ fifth run—but this time Abreu finished the job, getting a swinging strikeout from Valaika and earning a save while giving Cromer a well-deserved win. The Bulls are a victory away from winning the series.
If they’re to win it on Saturday, they’ll have to do it behind Rayner Oliveros, who has made all of two appearances for Durham, one good, one eh, since his callup from Double-A Montgomery in late August. Oliveros spent over four months in the Southern League this season, but missed pitching in the Biscuits’ series against the Mudcats, several of whom are now with Louisville. So he’s as blind as the Bats are.
Lest that seem totally unfair, which it is, consider the Bats’ counter-move: Tom Cochran, a 26-year-old lefty (better against righties, oddly) who has made all of three appearances for Louisville, two good, one eh, since his callup from Double-A Carolina in late August. Not too long ago, Cochran was pitching for the Worcester (MA) Tornadoes in the independent Canadian-American Association. Cochran spent almost three months in the Southern League this season, but missed pitching in the Mudcats’ series against the Biscuits, two of whom are now with Durham.
In other words, take your pick. The Bulls have played five games at Louisville this season, and all five of them have been decided by a single run. One went 13 innings, another went 16. Here’s my only prediction: after hitting no home runs in the first three games of the series, the Bulls—who led the league in homers this season—will hit at least one on Saturday. And here’s something I won’t predict but will suggest: Saturday could be a slugfest. (Hey, that rhymed!) The game is at 6:05 p.m.
Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Chris Denove, Jason Cromer, Joe Bateman, Juan Francisco, Julio DePaula, Justin Ruggiano, Louisville Bats, Luck, Rayner Oliveros, Todd Frazier, Tom Cochran, 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 ·
10 Sep 2009, 4:00 AM ·
Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—Only one thing about the Durham Bulls’ 8-4 win over the Louisville Bats last night made it seem like a playoff game: the size of the crowd. The attendance, 1,809, must have been the smallest of the year to date, and that’s about normal for a playoff game at the DBAP. It’s as if fall comes along and snatches four out of every five spectators from the stands. You can pretty much sit anywhere you want for the most important games of the season each September. Not sure if it’s the playoffs? Just cock your head and listen to the unsettling silence all around you, occasionally disrupted by the home plate umpire saying “Ball Two!” so loudly that you’re startled by it.
But the fans who came were into the game in a way that regular-season crowds at the DBAP rarely are, and their intensity made up for their fellow citizens’ abandonment of their team. It was fun to watch the game with them. They cared. They were in it. The Bulls rewarded them by taking a 1-0 lead in this best-of-five series.
But they did it in a game full of bad baseball. Yes, there was clutch hitting and good fielding, another double-digit strikeout game by Jeremy Hellickson, and a fine performance by his counterpart, the Bats’ highly regarded left-hander Travis Wood. But both starters’ performances had substantial flaws, as well; there were seven errors (and could easily have been an eighth—games at the DBAP have lately been plagued by poor glovework); there were three errors by Sean Rodriguez alone; a total meltdown by a Bats reliever; a lot of pitchers struggling to get ahead in the count and hitters failing to make them pay for it—and also pitchers getting ahead in the count and then failing to finish off hitters, who did make them pay for it. The Bulls took a comfortable lead into the ninth inning, but for a moment, it suddenly looked to be in grave danger, and a game that should have been over-and-done managed to get sticky at the end.
And for the first three innings, it barely seemed like we were watching an official game at all. When Juan Francisco creamed a Jeremy Hellickson fastball off the Triangle Orthopedics sign way out in left-center field for a two-run homer, you felt like you were watching a big strong young prospect take batting practice. “Wow,” you said to yourself, “that kid can really hit.” The ball thwacked off the sign with a resounding crack and landed back on the outfield grass. Justin Ruggiano trotted over to it as though he was just out there shagging flies.
But in fact it was 2-0, Louisville, in Game One of the playoffs. Bats, of course, are nocturnal, and dusk was fading to dark when Francisco hit his homer. But apparently, your late-inning Bulls are creatures of the night, too. They awakened in the middle innings, first needing some tapping on the shoulder from the Bats, who should have let sleeping Bulls lie.
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Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Charlie Montoyo, Federico Baez, Jeremy Hellickson, Juan Francisco, Louisville Bats, Mitch Talbot, playoffs, Ray Olmedo, Sean Rodriguez, Travis Wood, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
8 Sep 2009, 12:39 PM ·
3 Comments
Triple-A baseball teams are subject to a variation on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the one you may have run across in the movie The Man Who Wasn’t There or in the play Copenhagen. Basically, it says that you can’t determine both the velocity and position of a particle at the same time. It’s possible that we’re really talking about the Observer Effect here, or possibly Schrödinger’s cat, or even quantum superpositions. All I can say is, don’t do what I did; don’t go look them all up, because the next thing you know you’re lost in something very like the Uncertainty Principle yourself: you think you know what you’re looking for, and then as soon as you think you’ve found it, it turns into something else. Eventually you wind up desperately lost in a terrible, mountainous region, overrun by wild beasts and full of tar pits, known as Verschränkung. Just don’t go there, kids.
Instead, do what Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo does before each series—or rather, don’t do what he doesn’t do: pay any attention to the opposing team’s record, or to what happened the last time the Bulls played them. Montoyo has said several times this year that all he looks at is how they’ve been playing the last couple of weeks.
That’s because, as you probably know if you’re a Bulls fan, minor-league teams change constantly. The last time the Durham Bulls played the Louisville Bats was July 19 at Louisville. Thirty-two players saw action in that game, and only half of them remain on the teams’ rosters. Both starters, each team’s leading home-run hitter, four of Durham’s five pitchers that night, the league’s Most Valuable Pitcher (Justin Lehr) and the Bats’ leadoff man: all gone.
So take the following preview as a thought experiment, a la Schrödinger’s cat—until Wednesday at 7:05 p.m., when the cat (the Durham Bulls) actually goes into the box (the DBAP) with the flask of poison (the Louisville Bats) and the radioactive substance (Jeremy Hellickson’s first pitch, let’s say). Then we’ll see if the beast lives or dies.
If my colleague Mike Potter, who for most of the season has covered the Reds’ Double-A affiliate, the Carolina Mudcats, feels inspired to chime in, the cat will get at least partway out of the bag/box: more than half of the current Bats’ roster has seen time in Zebulon this year.
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Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Ben Jukich, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Heisey, Chris Nowak, Chris Richard, Jason Cromer, Jay Bruce, Jeremy Hellickson, John Jaso, Logan Ondrusek, Louisville Bats, Mitch Talbot, Paul Phillips, playoffs, Sam LeCure, Schrodinger's Cat, Sean Rodriguez, Travis Wood, Uncertainy Principle, Yonder Alonzo
Mike Potter ·
8 Sep 2009, 10:31 AM ·
1 Comment
Former Carolina Mudcats slugger Yonder Alonzo, who is now with the Louisville Bats of the International League, was named Southern League hitter of the week for the final week of the regular season.
Right-hander Matt Torra of the Mobile BayBears was the pitcher of the week.
Alonso (pictured), the seventh pick in last year’s June draft out of Miami, led the league with a .458 average, 11 hits, four doubles, a .536 on-base percentage, five extra-base hits and six runs scored. He was second in slugging percentage at .750.
Monday’s game against the Mississippi Braves was not the last chance to see Alonzo play in the Triangle this season. Louisville will be taking on the Durham Bulls in the first round of the Governors’ Cup Playoffs, with Games 1 and 2 in the best-of-5 series on Wednesday and Thursday nights at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
ACC, Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Louisville Bats, Matt Torra, Mississippi Braves, Mobile Bay Bears, Southern League, Yonder Alonzo
Adam Sobsey ·
7 Sep 2009, 8:00 PM ·
4 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—I thought it was cute that second baseman Henry Mateo was penciled in at first base in this afternoon’s season finale, a 4-3, 10-inning loss to Norfolk. Mateo had played there once before, on August 23, although he moved back to his natural position at second base when rehabbing Akinori Iwamura left the game early, as scheduled. It seemed like it was just for kicks that Mateo was playing there again today, like a way for Charlie Montoyo to say thanks for filling the hole for us this season. Mateo was signed out of the independent Atlantic League in May, and he came on like gangbusters, batting well over .300 for more than a month and holding down the fort at second base. He wound up at .277 and looked shakier in the field as the season progressed, but there’s no question that Mateo did something for the Bulls that they badly needed: he showed up and played every day.
And so it was fun when the diminutive infielder had to leap for a tall throw from the pitcher in the sixth inning, and funner still when he ended the eighth inning by diving to grab a line drive and then polishing off an unassisted double play after the Tides’ Jonathan Tucker broke too far from first base.
Turns out it’s not so cute. It was Joe Dillon’s day off, and Chris Richard, the guy who you would call the Durham Bulls’ first baseman if someone asked you who played that position, was called up to Tampa. In the afternoon opener of a day/night doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, Rays’ first baseman Carlos Pena had two fingers broken when he was hit by a pitch from C. C. Sabathia. Richard (pictured, top) was headed to the airport shortly afterward—and by shortly, I mean, like, minutes, and he may get into Game Two tonight in the Bronx if he can get there on time. Maybe the NYPD will clear a lane of the Triborough Bridge for him.
This is why major-league clubs employ older players like Richard: so that when there’s a catastrophe upstairs, you’ve got a guy who can immediately fill in and isn’t going to be cowed by Yankee Stadium or the fastballs A. J. Burnett throws in it. Now, Carlos Pena is leading the American League in homers, so Richard is certainly a major downgrade. But he’s a well-trained left-handed hitter with good power, going to a ballpark famously generous with its right-field homers; and on top of that, Richard is an easy guy to get along with in the clubhouse. He fits right in at first base, where he is a very good defensive player.
He also hasn’t played in the major leagues since 2003, and that was only 27 at-bats. So, you know, we’ll see.
Richard is 35 years old, the oldest player on the Bulls’ roster. Although it’s a blow to lose him on the eve of the playoffs, he’s a guy you feel good for when he gets a chance like this (admittedly, it’s a muted positive, given that it comes as a result of a bad injury to a star player). Charlie Montoyo was so happy for Richard that he wasted no time after the game in telling us about the promotion. We asked him a question about Mitch Talbot, who was in the dugout yesterday, and Montoyo answered it in one word (”yes”) before jumping to the news about Richard. “I was really happy to tell Chris Richard he was going up. That guy’s been with me for three years now, and he’s been one of my leaders.”
And now that leader is gone.
Some brief notes follow, before I return tomorrow with more on the upcoming playoff series against Louisville.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bulls on the Move, Carlos Peña, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Nowak, Chris Richard, Elliot johnson, Henry Mateo, Jason Cromer, Joe Bateman, Joe Nelson, Louisville Bats, Mike Wlodarczyk, Mitch Talbot, Norfolk Tides, Rashad Eldridge, walks
Mike Potter ·
7 Sep 2009, 5:52 PM ·
Comment
FIVE COUNTY STADIUM/ZEBULON One last trip across Wake County for the Carolina Mudcats’ rainy season finale.
And the team just got hot too late.
David Bell’s club comes into its 139th game on a seven-game winning streak, despite the depletion of the team for much of the second half. Early on in the half there were players who absolutely had to go to Triple-A after making mincemeat of the Southern League, while over the past couple of weeks the Cincinnati Reds have been bolstering their Louisville roster in preparation for the Governors’ Cup Playoffs.
Louisville is at Durham in the first round on Wednesday and Thursday, so if you’re going to be suffering from Mudcats withdrawal it’s a last chance to see a whole lot of Carolina’s best 2009 players this season. SL All-Stars Travis Wood, Todd Frazier and Juan Francisco are playing for the Bats as is Chris Heisey, who was simply the best player in the league this year.
In case you’re interested, I’m scheduled to cover those games for the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The game starts 36 minutes late because of rain. And they’ve shut down the Italian sausage, so I’ll be having chicken on the last getaway day. The Braves win 5-0 to make that long bus ride home seem a little shorter. Everybody is on fast forward today as game time is 2:01.
Mississippi doesn’t take long to get started, as Jon Owings launches Jeremy Horst’s first pitch of the game out of the yard about 20 feet inside the left-field foul pole.
The score stays right there until the seventh, when the visitors strike for two.
Brandon Hicks leads off with a double to right, scoring on Greg Creek’s one-out double to left. Creek then comes home on Travis Jones’ two-out single to right.
Mississippi scores another in the eighth, as Chris Anderson slaps a leadoff double to left, followed by pinch-hitter Stephen Marek’s single to left and a ground ball from Owings to score the run.
The Braves get their last one in the ninth off Josh Beal, as Hicks leads off with a homer to left.
After the game Mudcats slugger Yonder Alonzo (pictured) gets the call to Louisville for his Triple-A debut. That makes for 17 current Bats who played at least part of the season for Carolina. Continue reading »
Baseball, Carolina Mudcats, Durham Bulls Arizona Fall League, Birmingham Barons, Brandon Hicks, Chris Anderson, Chris Heisey, Cincinnati Reds, David Bell, Greg Creek, International League, Jeremy Horst, Jon Owings, Josh Beal, Juan Francisco, Korey Feiner, Logan Ondrusek, Louisville Bats, Mississippi Braves, Peoria Saguaros, Phillippe Valiquette, Sean Watson, Southern League, Stephen Marek, Todd Frazier, Travis Jones, Travis Wood, Zack Cozart
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
