Showing posts tagged “Mitch Talbot”
Adam Sobsey ·
23 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
7 Comments
ESPN 2—And that’s that: the Durham Bulls took a 4-0 lead early, squandered it in the middle, and got help at the end to beat the Memphis Redbirds, 5-4, in 11 innings and claim the Triple-A Championship. It’s kind of amazing, really. (What’s really great is that the Bulls’ own Web site has the winning run in Memphis’s row in the linescore.) The Bulls, who are the first International League team to win the crown, are officially the best Triple-A baseball team in America, which by extension makes them the best team in the entire minor leagues. They could probably also take six of 10 from the Pittsburgh Pirates, if they had Winston Abreu—which they don’t, not anymore, but that’s for well after the jump.
Did you know, by the way, that 2009 is the Year of the Bull? A game report and some final thoughts follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Brandon Yarbrough, Calvin Medlock, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Jason Cromer, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Bateman, Julio DePaula, Memphis Redbirds, Michel Hernandez, Mitch Talbot, Oneli Perez, playoffs, Rashad Eldridge, Ray Olmedo, Sean Rodriguez, Triple-A championship, Winston Abreu
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
Mike Potter ·
15 Sep 2009, 11:06 PM ·
4 Comments
DBAP/DURHAM Well good evening sports fans from beautiful Downtown Durham, where I am in what has become my regular spot covering the Governors’ Cup Finals ever since the Bulls joined the International League in 1998.
The Bulls are taking on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees in the opener of the best-of-5 series for the title for the second straight year, after losing the series in four games in 2008. It is only the fourth rematch in Governors’ Cup Finals history and the first since 1997.
Durham is in the Governors’ Cup Finals for the third straight season and the seventh time in its 12 seasons in the league. The Bulls won back-to-back championships in 2002 and ‘03.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has been in the playoffs four times since 1992, with its only championship coming last season.
The series winner advances to the one-game Triple-A National Championship Game on Sept. 22 in Oklahoma City.
Tonight I - who covered the Bulls for The Incredible Shrinking Herald-Sun from May of 1985 to May of 2009, when they decided to start sending my former salary to the hard-working suits in Kentucky - am pinch-hitting for Adam Sobsey, who has been covering the team all season for Triangle Offense. Don’t worry, folks. Adam, who is expected back for Game 2 on Wednesday night, misses a good one as the Bulls win a 4-1 pitchers’ duel for ace Jeremy Hellickson (pictured).
I am also, incidentally, covering for the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader.
There is, by Triple-A standards, a veritable media crush in the press box. By the time I fight through a traffic jam on West 40 to get to the park from Brier Creek, all the mashed potatoes that went with the glorified Salisbury steaks on the buffet are gone. Hello, kettle chips.
But enough about all that. Hard-nosed Carolina Hurricanes forward Erik Cole fires a solid ceremonial first pitch and it’s time to play ball!
The Bulls get to SWB’s Romulo Sanchez for a run in the first. Henry Mateo draws a one-out walk, takes third on Joe Dillon’s single to left and scores on Sean Rodriguez’s two-out single to left.
Durham adds to its lead in the sixth. Mateo leads off with a bunt up the third-base line, with Sanchez firing the ball past first and down the right-field line. Mateo winds up at third with a hit, an error on Sanchez and a fielding error on right fielder Colin Curtis on the play.Dillon then singles to right to make it 2-0 and chase the starter.
Matt Joyce continues the rally with a double to right off Zach Kronke, followed by a one-out intentional walk to Justin Ruggiano. Then with two out, Michel Hernandez strokes a two-run single to center to make it 4-0.
John Rodriguez, who played in Durham last season, gets the Yankees on the board in the seventh by blasting Hellickson’s two-out, 1-1 offering over the wall at the 375 mark in left center. Julio DePaula replaces Hellickson.
And that’s where the score stays, as DePaula and Winston Abreu shut the door.
Wednesday’s Game 2 will be the last game of the season in Durham, with the remainder of the series at PNC Field in Moosic, Pa.
Here’s what they said …
Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo: “Hellickson has been outstanding all year long. We knew we didn’t have much room for error tonight. Michel got a big hit for us in the sixth. He’s been swinging the bat good. When Joe (Dillon) was on third base, I told him (Hernandez) was going to do something good.”
Hellickson: “We were in a few tough spots. … I just bear down in those situations - throw good strikes and make good pitches. I had a better fastball tonight. I don’t think I mixed it up as much. Everything felt good though, I just had a better command of my fastball tonight.”
Dillon: “This team is a great team and we have been all year long. We got another great pitching performance from Hellickson.”
What does it all mean?
That the Bulls are two wins away from their third Governors’ Cup.
Stars of the game
1. Hellickson, for allowing one run in 6 2/3 innings.
2. Hernandez, for the two-run single in the sixth.
3. Rodriguez, for his homer and a single.
Play of the game
Hernandez’s two-run single in the sixth.
On deck
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at Durham, Wednesday, 7:05 p.m.
Ian Kennedy (R, 0-0, 0.00) vs. Mitch Talbot (R, 4-4, 4.47)
Baseball, Carolina Hurricanes, Durham Bulls Charlie Montoyo, Colin Curtis, Erik Cole, Henry Mateo, Ian Kennedy, International League, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Dillon, Julio DePaula, Justin Ruggiano, Matt Joyce, Michel Hernandez, Mitch Talbot, Romulo Sanchez, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, Winston Abreu, Zach Kronke
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 ·
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
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
Adam Sobsey ·
7 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—There’s a tacit understanding among ballplayers regarding season-ending series. If the postseason is all settled, the deal is this: the pitchers throw strikes, the hitters swing at them; you avoid long at-bats; you avoid injuries, too, by staying out of collisions on the basepaths; you try to decide games quickly and painlessly—and with a bonhomie that revolves around mutual good sportsmanship.
Cut to last night at the DBAP, home of the IL South Division Champion Durham Bulls. After three innings, the game was on a brisk 90-minute pace. The two starting pitchers had combined to throw just 57 pitches. Only one man had reached base, Justin Ruggiano, and he was thrown out (on what looked like a bad call) trying to stretch his liner off the Blue Monster into a double. We were cruising, coasting, flying toward the finish line. When Sean Rodriguez hit his first home run as a Bull, a solo shot in the fifth inning (which I predicted when he stepped to the plate!), it felt like that might turn out to be the only run of the game.
It wasn’t. The Bulls fell behind, tied it up, and won 3-2—and wouldn’t you know it, even with the suspense drained out of the regular season, they did it in dramatic fashion.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bob McCrory, Charlie Montoyo, Craig Albernaz, FNG, I Am Psychic, Jason Cromer, John Jaso, Justin Ruggiano, Mitch Talbot, Norfolk Tides, Paul Phillips, Ray Olmedo, Sean Rodriguez, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
29 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
Maybe we misspelled his name when we Googled him
There’s often not too much to say about
11-2 routs like last night’s. The Bulls took an early lead and then systematically enlarged it, unimpeded by a 54-minute rain delay that ended starter Wade Davis’s night early. One night after tying the Bulls’ Triple-A franchise record for career homers, Chris Richard broke it. Matt Joyce and Elliot Johnson added round-trippers of their own (the
Tides have been out-homered 39-6 in their last 30 games!), the Bulls racked up 16 hits off of five Norfolk pitchers, the last of whom was second baseman Brandon Pinckney, and your local news is coming up next, thank you for staying up with us.
It was the Bulls’ fifth straight win, which kept them even with Gwinnett (who won at Charlotte) atop the International League South Division. Guess who comes to Durham for a four-game series on Saturday?
So the romp was a mere setup for the showdown we’ve all been waiting for, and as such was secondary to its surrounding weather, a complex and unpredictable collision of fast-approaching fronts and precipitations that will pass over the DBAP very soon. Details follow.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Andy Sonnanstine, Brandon Chaves, chokers, Chris Richard, Desmond Jennings, Gwinnett Braves, Jake McGee, Jason Childers, Jeremy Hellickson, John Halama, Jon Weber, Mitch Talbot, Norfolk Tides, playoffs, Ray Olmedo, Scott Kazmir, Team USA, trade, Wade Davis, wild card
