Showing posts tagged “Matt DeSalvo”
Adam Sobsey ·
8 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
6 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—And by “wonder-full,” I mean full of wondrous things. If you’re one of those quick-and-dirty types who stops reading at the jump, let me dispense with the summary:
The Bulls battled back from a 6-2, sixth-inning deficit. They scored three times in sixth inning and twice in the eighth inning and took a 7-6 lead into the ninth against Syracuse. Joe Nelson, the fifth Bulls pitcher, came in to save the game, but he put two men on with a single and a walk. With two outs and a full count on Justin Maxwell, he threw a fastball that tailed back toward the middle of the plate, and Maxwell tattooed it. His long, high drive sailed over the Blue Monster—just foul, it appeared to us, up in the press box. But home plate umpire Fran Burke, the only one of the three officials with a straight-on view of the play, called it fair.
Things went nuts. The Bulls all argued. Charlie Montoyo charged out of the dugout to join them. We watched two replays in the press box, both of which seemed to show the ball crossing in front of the screen that extends from the foul pole—which would indicate a foul ball. Charlie Montoyo implored the umpires to watch the replay on the big screen behind them. They didn’t. The call stood. Montoyo was so mad, he threw not only his hat but also the photos of his kids that he keeps in his back pocket. He went into ultra-argue mode, which is manager-code for Eject Me Now, Please. Crew Chief Kevin Causey complied and ejected him. Montoyo, as if only now realizing just how mad all of this had made him, then had to be held back by one ump while he yelled at another. Finally he departed, but not before picking up the photos he’d thrown. A fan threw beer on the field and was escorted from the ballpark. After the game, which the Chiefs won, 9-7, Bulls’ General Manager Mike Birling had a brief, heated exchange with with one of the umpires.
And that was only one exciting sequence in a game full of them.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Anthony Michael Hall, Baltimore Orioles, Bulls on the Move, catcher's interference, Charlie Montoyo, ejection, Elliot johnson, F.O.B., Fran Burke, Greg Zaun, injury, Jack Spradlin, Joe Nelson, John Hughes, John Jaso, John Meloan, Jorge Julio, Justin Maxwell, Justin Ruggiano, Kevin Causey, Matt DeSalvo, Matt Joyce, Reid Brignac, Rhyne Hughes, Shairon Martis, Shawn Riggans, Sixteen Candles, Syracuse Chiefs, Winston Abreu, Zechry Zinicola
Adam Sobsey ·
31 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
In one chapter of Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis’s absorbing account of his foray deep into the world of competitive Scrabble, Fatsis narrates the history of the game and its painstaking design by an obsessive tinkerer named Alfred Butts. Butts spent years fussing with the board layout, the premium-square arrangement, and the calibration and distribution of points and tiles. Fatsis concludes:
Perfection isn’t arrived at overnight, and the more I play, the more Alfred’s game seems perfect. I think he was like Alexander Cartwright’s Knickerbocker Base Ball Club laying the bases ninety feet apart or James Naismith setting the height of his peach baskets at ten feet.
I thought of Fatsis’s praise of Butts’s exacting design for Scrabble while listening to bits and pieces of yesterday’s doubleheader between the Durham Bulls and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees (the teams split, 6-2 Durham in Game One, 8-2 Scranton in Game Two). When the two games are played consecutively in a minor-league twinbill, as they were Thursday when the Bulls and Yankees made up Wednesday’s rainout, they are shortened by rule to seven regulation-innings each. That truncation may not sound like much of a big deal, but there are a couple of problems with it. First off, it treats the players like they’re not fully mature and can’t handle a major-league twinbill. I’d be willing to wager that most minor leaguers can probably handle a pair of nine-inning games better than many big-league veterans.
Second, baseball games are supposed to be nine innings long. The reasons are ineffable, but there’s something wrong with a ballgame that only goes seven innings. You don’t get enough development, enough structure. The team that jumps out to an early lead seems almost sure to win; the game never evolves properly, rewarding sprinters over marathoners—and if there’s one thing that sets baseball apart from most other sports, it’s in the patience and endurance that must accompany not only each game but the whole season, which unfolds day by day for almost half the year. In a seven-inning game, if you’re losing after two turns of the order, it’s already getting almost too late. A baseball game needs nine innings in order to play itself out fully. Seven innings is just too short.
Things other than length were also wrong with Thursday’s doubleheader.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Dale Thayer, doubleheader, Jeremy Hellickson, John Jaso, Jorge Julio, Matt DeSalvo, Ray Olmedo, Scrabble, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Stefan Fatsis, Victor Martinez, Word Freak
Adam Sobsey ·
26 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—”Technically, it’s not a doubleheader,” someone said in the press box during the first game of what was unquestionably a doubleheader on Saturday. The argument there was that a day-night twinbill is really just two separate games that happen to be played on the same day. In an official minor-league doubleheader, the two games are played consecutively, and are shortened to seven innings each.
Try putting that sophistry over on the Durham Bulls and the Norfolk Tides, who got about two hours of “rest” (i.e., stuffing their faces, checking their Facebook accounts, peeling off their uniforms and putting on new ones) in between games on a steamy 90+degree day at the DBAP. It was a doubleheader, and frankly I’d rather play them back-to-back than try to find something to occupy the awkward time between. However you prefer it, Bulls’ manager Charlie Montoyo was visibly exhausted in the clubhouse after the second game ended, about nine hours after the first one began. The first game went to the Bulls, 5-3 (it was the Tides’ first loss in a doubleheader game this season; they had been 8-0); the Tides claimed the second, 8-4.
And right around the narrative midpoint of the long day’s journey into night, a strange and unexpected thing happened, right before before Game Two. During the National Anthem, which was sung by a man and woman in well-manicured harmony, the microphone malfunctioned. After some on-again-off-again teasing, the device stopped working altogether, and there were a few awkward seconds while we watched the two singers do something that looked very much like lip-syncing, only on mute.
Then the large crowd (almost 10,000) began to sing. At first this was weird, because no one sings “The Star Spangled Banner” anymore. But after a few moments, it actually grew quite affecting: The impromptu rendition had the quiet poise and concord of a peace demonstration, except of course that Francis Scott Key’s song is actually a glorification of war and promotes anything but peace. Nonetheless, there we were, filling in the blanks left open by broken technology. It was almost touching.
And it was also appropriate, because the whole day was about filling in blanks.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, doubleheader, Fish or No Fish, James Houser, Jason Childers, Matt DeSalvo, Norfolk Tides, Reid Brignac, Rhyne Hughes, trade
Adam Sobsey ·
25 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
Jeremy Hellickson, pitching recently for the Montgomery Biscuits
DBAP/ DURHAM—First things first: great to be back at the ballpark! When I walked into the DBAP last night, I suddenly felt like I hadn’t been there in months. It had actually been three weeks, but the feeling I had was evidence of the dailiness of the baseball season. You play almost every single day for five months in class AAA, and three weeks off seems like a really long time. Not only had I been gone that long, but the Bulls themselves hadn’t played a game at the DBAP in two weeks.
And so, if last night’s game was rather like the beginning of a new season, it seemed appropriate that it was started by a new pitcher. Jeremy Hellickson was called up from Double-A Montgomery, where he had been something close to dominant in 11 starts. (He missed seven weeks with a shoulder strain.) The 22-year-old Iowan was quite good, picking up the win with six innings of two-run ball. Three innings of shutout relief by John Meloan and Jason Childers, who earned his first save, and home runs by Justin Ruggiano and Chris Richard, supported Hellickson. All in all, it was an old-fashioned, best-of-times sort of game, and the 4-2 win over Norfolk pushed the Bulls back into first place, half a game up on the Tides. Gwinnett beat Lehigh Valley to remain a game back.
The fun part of the standings-switcheroo was when Bulls’ manager Charlie Montoyo, asked after the game how it felt to get the division lead back, replied, “We did?” He’s so focused on each game, and on developing his players, that the aerial view little interests him. The extent of his schedule-awareness is that the Bulls have four more games in the next three days against Norfolk; the rest is for fans and journalists to worry about.
More on Hellickson’s performance, and a few notes, after the jump.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Jake Arrieta, Jason Childers, Jason Cromer, Jeremy Hellickson, John Meloan, Justin Ruggiano, Matt DeSalvo, Norfolk Tides, The Roodge
Adam Sobsey ·
20 Jul 2009, 4:00 AM ·
3 Comments
If you were feeling uncharitable, you could pin the Bulls’ 7-6, 13-inning loss at Louisville last night on catcher John Jaso: he struck out four times (the Bulls K’d 17 times overall), the last in the 12th inning against Bats’ infielder Michael Griffin, who had been sent to the mound to pitch in emergency relief. Worse, Jaso struck out looking against the non-pitcher, with the go-ahead run on second base; he didn’t even go down swinging. An inning later, Jaso allowed the winning run to score when former Bull Wes Bankston bulled into him on a play at the plate, knocking the ball loose from Jaso’s glove.
But if you’re feeling avaricious—or, to look at it more generously, if you’re handing out leaflets of blame free of charge at the corner of Bull and Blog—why stop at Jaso’s shortcomings? Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Charlie Montoyo, Elliot johnson, extraneous innings, golden sombrero, John Jaso, Jorge Julio, Louisville Bats, Luis Bolivar, mariachi, Matt DeSalvo, Matt Joyce, Michael Griffin, Ray Olmedo, strikeouts, Wes Bankston
Mike Potter ·
9 Jul 2009, 11:47 PM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/DURHAM It’s the finale of the short three-game homestand between the Durham Bulls and the Gwinnett Braves, and since each has won one it’s the “rubber game” of the series.
It’s my last night in a three-game callup to pinch-hit for Adam.
The Bulls lead the International League’s South Division by a scant one game over the second-place Norfolk Tides, and a Norfolk win plus a Durham loss would put the league’s only Virginia team in first place by percentage points.
Good news for Bulls reliever Dale Thayer (pictured), who has been selected to the IL roster for the Triple-A All-Star Game to replace Pawtucket phenom Clay Buchholz and will be headed to baseball’s biggest game of that day for the second straight year. No explanation on why Buchholz isn’t going, but from where I sit the legitimate ones are either an upcoming stint on the DL or an impending promotion.
Anyway, he’ll be joining teammate Reid Brignac for the festivities on Wednesday night in Portland.
There’s a great crowd in the house for a non-weekend night.
The buffet is chicken tenders and fries and the media contingent is still a big larger than usual since Bob Sutton of the Burlington Times-News is in the house.
And baseball sometimes fools you. Gwinnett leads 8-1 going into the ninth and it ends up 8-6 as Chris Richard strikes out with the bases loaded to end the game. Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Andy Mitchell, Atlanta Braves, Barbaro Canizares, Bobby Brownlie, Brandon Jones, Charlie Montoyo, Charlotte Knights, Charlotte Thayer, Chris Burke, Chris Richard, Clay Buchholz, Dale Thayer, Dave Brundage, Gwinnett Braves, Haley Thayer, International League, J.C. Holt, James Houser, John Jaso, Jonny Venters, Justin Ruggiano, Kelly Johnson, Lisa Thayer, Lucas Harrell, Matt DeSalvo, Mike Birling, Norfolk Tides, Pawtucket Red Sox, Reid Brignac, Reid Gorecki, Rhyne Hughes, Wade Davis, Wes Timmons
Mike Potter ·
8 Jul 2009, 11:29 PM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/DURHAM Game 2 of the Durham Bulls’ short three-game homestand, all against the Gwinnett Braves, and again I’m back at my old stomping grounds pinch-hitting for Adam for a second night.
The Bulls are on a pretty good roll, and could actually take first place in the entire International League with a victory tonight. Former Bull Antonio Perez (pictured), who is not swinging the bat well at .179, is in the ninth spot in the order for Gwinnett. But you can’t tell he’s been struggling tonight, as he goes on to get four hits in a 7-6 Braves win.
The press box seems to be about half as full as it was Tuesday night for Andy Sonnanstine’s start for the Bulls, except that we learn regular official scorer Brent Belvin is for some reason on his way to China. Belvin’s sub is Kyle Serba, veteran N.C. Central sports information director who has been there so long he’s in the university’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Tonight the menu is Eastern N.C. barbecue with all the “fixin’s.” I get one plate without the bun. I’ve been getting lighter lately and want to keep it up.
Anyway, it’s time to play ball.
And the Bulls have no trouble generating offense off Tony Armas in the first. Henry Mateo draws a leadoff walk before Reid Brignac doubles to left center. Matt Joyce’s double to right scores both runs, and with one out Chris Richard singles to right to make it 3-0.
They have a chance to add to it in the second inning, but when Brignac hits a two-out single to write he’s cut down at second before Ray Olmedo is able to score from second. Continue reading »
Durham Bulls, N.C. Central, Tampa Bay Rays Add new tag, Andy Sonnanstine, Antonio Perez, Atlanta Braves, Barbaro Canizares, Bobby Brownlie, Brandon Jones, Brent Belvin, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Clint Sammons, Dave Brundage, Gwinnett Braves, Henry Mateo, International League, J.C. Holt, Jason Childers, Jason Cromer, John Jaso, Jon Weber, Kelly Johnson, Kyle Serba, Mariano Gomez, Matt DeSalvo, Matt Joyce, Norfolk Tides, Ray Olmedo, Reid Brignac, Reid Gorecki, Rhyne Hughes, Tony Armas, Wes Timmons
Adam Sobsey ·
5 Jul 2009, 5:40 AM ·
2 Comments
Carlos Torres is armed and dangerous.
To recap the Buck Showalter Theorem and modify it to the Triple-A season: You can count on losing about 50 games a year and winning about 50, regardless of how you prepare; it’s what you do with the other 44 that determine whether you’re playoff-bound or a cellar dweller. It’s easy enough to categorize Durham’s
11-2 loss at Charlotte last night by glancing at Matt DeSalvo’s pitching line in the box score: the Durham starter was tagged for nine runs in just 2 2/3 innings; this one was lost early. Each of DeSalvo’s last four starts has been poor, and you can’t help wondering if the current membership of the International League (Hitters’ Division) has now seen enough of his application for readmission and has initiated rejection proceedings. The 29-year-old has to start showing some new and consistent efficacy, like his teammate Jason Cromer has, in order to show the Rays that there’s anything interesting left there. But although DeSalvo assured the Bulls of defeat last night, the game might have been over before it even began.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Buck Showalter, Carlos Torres, Charlotte Knights, Chris Richard, James Houser, John Meloan, Matt DeSalvo, Reid Brignac
Adam Sobsey ·
29 Jun 2009, 2:42 AM ·
Comment
Catching is hard enough on the human body as it is. You have to put on all that heavy, oppressive gear, squat on those aching knees, take foul tips off the fingers and shoulders, crab around for balls off the plate and in the dirt, leap up and down constantly to make high-pressure throws, and run down the line on every infield grounder to back up first base—not to mention, you know, have guys throw baseballs at you as hard as they can. It’s also your job to suggest what sort of baseball they should throw: Fastball? Splitter? Curve? Rose-breasted grosbeak? And by the way, you also have to get your act together and hit a few times each game, too.
So I’ve been having sympathetic pains on John Jaso’s behalf. The Durham Bulls’ catcher has not only done all of the regular duties behind the plate, he has also now caught every single pitch of three extra-inning games in the Bulls’ last six contests. And these weren’t nice little nine-inning ties tidily resolved in the 10th: two have gone 13 innings, and one went 15. These were long, complicated epics, replete with minor characters killed off early, unexpected reversals unexpectedly reversed, great heroism and great failure, scenes of tremendous, lightning-bolt excitement, and even cavernous stretches of yawning boredom.
And the Bulls have won two of these wars of attrition, both on enemy territory, the latest a seesawing 8-7 victory at Columbus. With the win, the Bulls also happen to have first place all to themselves.
Just another day for the Bulls, no?
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Chris Richard, Columbus Clippers, Dale Thayer, Jason Childers, Joe Bateman, John Jaso, Jorge Julio, Julio DePaula, Justin Ruggiano, Luck, Matt DeSalvo, Neil Solondz, Paul Auster, Rhyne Hughes, The Roodge
Adam Sobsey ·
24 Jun 2009, 1:29 AM ·
2 Comments
I arrived home last night around 11:00 expecting to check the box score and game summary and post a few thoughts about whatever outcome I found there—but what I found was that the Bulls were still playing baseball in Toledo. They were in the 12th inning and fifth hour of action at Fifth Third Field, yet another new-old retro park that is named for a bank but reminds me a little of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, as if the Toledo stadium’s awkward moniker had something to do with a compromised and fussy legal ruling.
In any case, I tuned into the broadcast (which now has ads—did someone in the advertising dept. read my post during the Bulls’ previous road trip?) not long after Rashad Eldridge walked with one out in the top of the 12th inning off of reliever Ryan Perry, just demoted from the majors. Eldridge stole second and moved to third when catcher Dane Sardinha’s throw glanced off of Eldridge’s helmet and went into center field. Chris Nowak flied out to Brent Clevlen in what sounded like medium or perhaps even shallow-ish center field. Apparently Clevlen has a good arm, because Charlie Montoyo made the conservative choice and held Eldridge at third. According to the account of Bulls’ broadcaster Neil Solondz, Eldridge would have scored had he tagged up and went home: Clevlen’s throw was off-line. The Bulls didn’t score in the inning.
After the teams exchanged scoreless frames, Toledo won, 11-10, in the last of the 13th off of Dewon Day, in Day’s second inning of work. (Day was the seventh Durham pitcher of the night.) Clete Thomas singled to lead off and scored on an opposite-field double by Jeff Larish. Thomas and Larish, who have each spent ample time in the majors over the last two seasons, including this one, accounted for nine of the Mud Hens’ 16 hits and scored seven of the team’s 11 runs.
So, a wild one: the sort of game that you can’t really be upset about losing, since both teams had tons of chances, pitched poorly, pitched well, made errors, had big hits, had big chokes, and were probably exhausted long before it was over. The Bulls, don’t forget, endured an 11-hour, overnight bus ride just to get to this game after finally snapping an eight-game losing streak behind Scott Kazmir in a ballyhooed, high-intensity game at the DBAP on Monday night.
So is it uncharitable to pick at sore spots in Tuesday’s game, then? Yes, it is, but it has to be done. And to be fair, I will also shine the light on some of the bright ones.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Chad Bradford, Charlie Montoyo, Clete Thomas, Jason Childers, Jeff Larish, Joe Bateman, Jon Weber, Jorge Julio, Justin Ruggiano, Matt DeSalvo, Matt Joyce, Rashad Eldridge, Ray Sadler, Rhyne Hughes, SBG, Toledo Mud Hens, Winston Abreu
