Showing posts tagged “SBG”
Adam Sobsey ·
11 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
2 Comments
Too bad the Bulls don't have this guy.
A rough loss for the Bulls after the ride down from Durham. Personally, I think that if I were a ballplayer I would rather have left Monday morning than overnight it on the team bus. Gwinnett’s only about six hours away. But as Charlie Montoyo is fond of saying: No excuses. The Bulls didn’t play especially well in
last night’s 6-3 loss to Gwinnett, especially when it came to two fundamentals: taking advantage of opportunities, and limiting same for the other team. They ran themselves into a pair of fly-ball double plays (Jon Weber committed his second S.B.G. in as many games); they had 12 hits and 17 baserunners but scored only three times, stranding 10 and going 1-8 with runners in scoring position; they failed to capitalize on a pair of fielding errors by the Braves; and they committed two errors of their own—in the same inning—after which Joe Nelson came in from the bullpen and started escorting Braves around the bases.
But as always, the never-say-die Bulls fought back. Down 6-2, Elliot Johnson (who committed one of the errors and ran into one of the double plays, but also made a couple of fine plays at third base) led off the ninth inning with a solo home run. Four batters and one pitching change later, the Bulls had the bases loaded and one out, and the lead run was stepping to the plate. But Matt Joyce and Chris Richard struck out—both on check swings, both on sliders from Braves closer Luis Valdez, who had blown a save against the Bulls at the DBAP way back in the first week of the season.
Jeremy Hellickson pitched quite well for the Bulls, working out of one tight spot and leaving having allowed only a two-run homer by Omar Infante, who is on a major-league rehab assignment. Apparently, Gwinnett Manager Dave Brundage found out only a couple of hours before the game that Infante was joining the team. Needless to say, the new acquisition paid immediate dividends. Hellickson took the loss, but he should have departed after seven innings down just 2-1. Instead, the errors and the bullpen doomed him.
Some game notes follow the jump.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Elliot johnson, Gwinnett Braves, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Maddon, Joe Nelson, John Jaso, Lost Son of Havana, Luis Tiant, Roger Angell, SBG, strikeouts, walks
Adam Sobsey ·
10 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—After the Syracuse Chiefs squelched the Bulls on Saturday night, holding them to two unearned runs and four hits, manager Charlie Montoyo was disgusted by his team’s hitting. “Our approach wasn’t good,” Montoyo said, which is managerspeak for something like, “we really stunk.” But he also insisted that his team would keep working.
Whatever they did on Sunday before they trounced Syracuse, 11-5 behind Andy Sonnanstine (pictured), they should keep doing it. You have to go back to June 27 to find a game in which the Bulls scored that many runs; in fact, they hadn’t scored more than seven in a game since July 12, nearly a month ago. That was also the last day on which the Bulls had beaten anyone by more than four runs. In Sunday’s romp, they set a season high with 18 hits. Chris Richard hit his 20th home run, Jon Weber whacked his 40th (!) double, and the Bulls batted .375 with runners in scoring position. They scored eight of their runs with two outs. Power hitting, clutch hitting, hits strung together (in one stretch, 10 of 13 straight batters hit safely), a pair of bunt singles, only five strikeouts (two after the second inning): this was a show of total, explosive force.
After the game, the first question posed to Montoyo was: “Did you take extra batting practice today?” His response: “We didn’t take extra batting practice.” What did the Bulls do, then, to manufacture such an outburst? “Just show up and play,” he said.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Add new tag, Andy Sonnanstine, Carlos Hernandez, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Dale Thayer, Desmond Jennings, Elliot johnson, Joyce Carol Oates, Ross Detwiler, SBG, Syracuse Chiefs, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
3 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—I had a bunch of really nice tomatoes that I got at the farmers’ market on Saturday, and on Sunday afternoon I made a sauce out of them that I planned to poach some fish in on Monday. Maybe some Spanish Mackerel. The sauce had mint in it, some young garlic, a little fresh cayenne. Simple, but really tasty.
After I was done with the sauce, I went to last night’s ballgame at the DBAP. When I got there, I realized I’d left my voice recorder thingy at home. Oh, well.
In the fourth inning of the game, I had one of those uh-oh moments.
The Indians had jumped on Durham starter Wade Davis—they hit three homers and two doubles off of him—and led 4-0 after three innings, but the Bulls began the last of the fourth with three straight singles off of the highly regarded Indianapolis pitcher Brad Lincoln. Two of those hits were little loopers, but of course loopers count. With the bases F.O.B., Chris Richard flew out to shallow center field for the first out of the inning. To the plate stepped Rhyne Hughes, the Bulls’ hottest hitter over the last ten games.
Here’s the uh-oh moment: Hughes hit a towering fly ball to deep left-center field. From where we sat in the press box, it looked very obvious that the ball would at least hit the Blue Monster if not clear it, and Hughes would either have a three-run double or a grand slam. But Justin Ruggiano, who had been on first base, must not have seen the ball well, because he hung around between first and second waiting to see the outcome of Hughes’s hit.
The ball hit high off the Monster in left-center field—had it been hit about 15 feet to the right, it would have avoided the Monster and been a homer—and Hughes had a double, extending his hitting streak to 10 games (which matches the longest by a Bull this season). Reid Brignac and Jon Weber scored, but Ruggiano had to stop at third base. It was 4-2 now, but it should have been 4-3. Elliot Johnson struck out and John Jaso grounded to third, Ruggiano was stranded, and the inning was over.
I thought to myself, I hope that doesn’t end up the difference in the game.
Guess what? It was the difference in the game.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Chris Richard, Desmond Jennings, F.O.B., farmers' market, Henry Mateo, Indianapolis Indians, Jon Weber, Jorge Julio, Jose Tabata, Justin Ruggiano, Mario Brothers, Media Pass, Neil Walker, Reid Brignac, Rhyne Hughes, SBG, Tagg Bozied, tomato sauce, voice recorder, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
30 Jul 2009, 5:30 AM ·
2 Comments
The Bulls were rained out at Scranton on Tuesday
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, who play in none of the three places implied by their name, have had 12 games postponed this year. Some of those postponements came on sunny days: the drainage system at PNC Park in Moosic, PA is superannuated and ineffective; after wet weather passes, the field is sometimes still too wet to play on. A lot of people have been
pretty mad about it.
On Wednesday night, though, rain was the culprit. The folks in Scranton, along with help from the New York Yankees, have been working to jerry-build a temporary fix until a major overhaul of the ballpark can be done during the offseason; and so the upshot is that one can only hope that Thursday’s doubleheader, which is scheduled to begin at 1:05 p.m., actually takes place. If it does, a pair of the Bulls’ three starting Aitches will pitch: Jeremy Hellickson (who was slated for Wednesday) and Carlos Hernandez. Gwinnett and Norfolk both won last night, and crept to within 1.5 and 3 games of the Bulls, respectively, in the International League South Division.
A few notes follow:
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bette Davis, Craig Albernaz, Dale Thayer, doubles, Elliot johnson, Gwinnett Braves, Matt Joyce, Norfolk Tides, rainout, Reid Brignac, SBG, Shawn Riggans, Shelley Duncan
Adam Sobsey ·
29 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
There was so much to report on the game-inside-the-game after Monday’s home win by the Bulls over Norfolk that I completely neglected a key part of the big picture. Although I noted that Elliot Johnson replaced Henry Mateo at the top of the order, I failed to recount what Johnson did there: he went 3-4 with a homer, a double and a walk, and was basically the player of the game for the Bulls.
(I must digress here briefly for an I Am Psychic moment. On Monday night, I totally called Johnson’s homer off of Norfolk’s David Pauley. His first inning single was sharply struck, and Pauley then left a number of pitches up in the zone during his first time through the Bulls’ lineup. Johnson is good at getting his hands up on top of high fastballs, and I had a feeling he’d come up next time looking for one from Pauley. Before his third-inning at-bat, I said, “Johnson’s gonna hit a home run here.” One pitch later, pow: Pauley threw the high fastball and Johnson clubbed it over the right field wall. Alas, no one had heard my prediction, but Dave Levine, seated to my left, can back me up, because I was so worked up about it that I practically bashed a hole in the press box desk. Kids, I am psychic. Believe me.)
After Johnson shined in Monday’s game, I asked Charlie Montoyo about the decision to promote Johnson to the leadoff slot. Montoyo responded that it had more to do with giving Mateo a chance to break out of his prolonged slump than it did with rewarding Johnson, who in the week or so prior to Monday’s game had gone a decent but not awesome 10-33 with two homers and two doubles, but only four walks and an uncomfortable 12 strikeouts. Still, he was a better candidate to lead off than Mateo, who hasn’t looked consistently good in over a month. And after Johnson’s stellar Monday, Montoyo gave us a wry look and said, laughing, “Maybe Johnson’s leading off now.”
Turns out he wasn’t kidding. Johnson was in the pole position again against Scranton on Tuesday night, and played left field. (With Justin Ruggiano out on personal leave while he and his wife have their first child, Johnson may see another game or two there.) The switch-hitting utility player responded by hitting like a corner outfielder, belting two home runs, one from each side of the plate. The second, off of rehabbing Yankees reliever Damaso Marte, gave the Bulls a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning. Johnson is in full Eedge mode.
One out later, Matt Joyce followed Johnson’s home run with another one, a long screamer that gave the Bulls insurance. They won, 4-2. Both Gwinnett and Norfolk lost, so the Bulls are up two games and three and a half, respectively. They have the second-best record in the International League, just half a game behind Louisville. Don’t look now, but they’ve won three straight and five of six.
A few notes follow:
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Andy Sonnanstine, Charlie Montoyo, Dale Thayer, David Pauley, Edward Albee, Elliot johnson, Henry Mateo, I Am Psychic, Jason Childers, Matt Joyce, Norfolk Tides, SBG, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, The Eedge, walks
Adam Sobsey ·
24 Jul 2009, 3:30 PM ·
1 Comment
The Bulls finally come home tonight
A laggard post about the Bulls’ trip-ending,
10-inning, 4-3 loss last night at Indianapolis. The delay owes at least a little to the fatigue that comes from trying to cover a team that hasn’t played a home game in two weeks: you just lose focus a bit.
It would be easy to pin last night’s loss on a key player move: closer Dale Thayer was promoted to Tampa (more on that below), for whom he promptly pitched a fine inning of scoreless relief. Too bad nobody gave a rat’s a**.
Without Thayer, the Bulls’ late-inning solution was Julio DePaula and Joe Bateman. Even though it’s Bateman who has struggled with control (25 walks in 39 innings pitched), DePaula’s wildness struck the big blow in the eighth inning. With one out and the Bulls leading 3-2, he walked consecutive hitters, one of them batting .182 in AAA with only two walks in over 40 at-bats to that point. Bateman came on and gave up a game-tying bloop single. He then added a hit batter in sympathy with DePaula’s location problems, but escaped further damage.
In the 10th inning, though, still tied 3-3, Calvin Medlock relieved and allowed the go-ahead run on an errant toss that was either scored a wild pitch or a passed ball, depending on whether you believe Neil Solondz’s game wrap or the Minor League Baseball recap (safer to go with the former). Either way, the pitch wasn’t a strike, and the Bulls’ relievers gave this one away by simply missing targets.
But the hitters helped, too, tallying 13 hits but scoring only three runs. The game recap also contains a suspicious-looking home-plate-to-second-base double-play grounder by Jon Weber that has visions of an SBG dancing (or perhaps limping) in my head; but I didn’t listen to the game, so I’ll hang fire. Suffice it to say that there were plenty of chances, and that the Bulls didn’t capitalize on them. When a team is struggling, which the Bulls are—they went 2-6 for the road trip—yesterday’s is the sort of game they often seem to have: pretty good pitching (Andy Sonnanstine was sharp in his return, going six innings and allowing two runs), pretty good hitting, decent fielding; all of it good enough to lose.
Don’t forget, though, that the Bulls haven’t played at DBAP since July 9, a two-week stretch awkwardly divided by the All-Star break. This is a disjointed time and a disjointed team: lots of traveling, some unexpected player moves, and you never know who’s going to start the next game.
Speaking of that, youngster Jeremy Hellickson makes his first-ever Triple-A start tonight at at the DBAP (I repeat yesterday’s message, only in all caps: BE THERE). Hellickson is a highly regarded 22-year-old pitcher, and if the trade rumors win out and Wade Davis is dealt as the July 31 waiver-deadline approaches, Hellickson becomes the No. 1 pitching prospect in the Rays’ organization. As I said, be there tonight, not only because Hellickson’s on the mound, but because the opponent is Norfolk, whom the Bulls trail by just half a game in the International League South division.
Other things, mostly to do with pitching:
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Andy Sonnanstine, Calvin Medlock, Dale Thayer, Gwinnett Braves, Indianapolis Indians, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Bateman, Julio DePaula, Justin Ruggiano, Norfolk Tides, SBG, trade, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
22 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
2 Comments
I didn’t have a chance to listen to the Bulls’ 2-1 loss at Indianapolis last night, so I can only go by the game logs and Neil Solondz’s report; but it seems to me that the Bulls showed some widening of the holes in the fabric of their season to date. It’s hard to know whether these can be stitched up adequately enough to set this team up for the playoffs. Certainly the talent and the drive are there, but over and over again the Bulls lose for the same handful of reasons:
1) Not Enough Hits and Too Many Strikeouts. I wrote last night that the Bulls have trouble stringing rallies together unless the opposing pitcher helps out with walks; they just don’t put enough balls in play. Last night, they struck out nine more times (or 10, depending on whose count you accept) in six innings against Ian Snell, and managed just five hits overall in 33 plate appearances. That’s a little extreme—Snell has major-league stuff and a chip on his shoulder, and Indians’ closer Chris Bootcheck was an International League All-Star—but lately the Bulls seem to be hitting less and striking out more. Chris Wise over at WDBB has a chart and notes about the Ks.
2) Baserunning. And when the Bulls finally did get something going off of Snell, they ran themselves out of the rally. With two on and one out in the sixth inning and Durham down 1-0, Justin Ruggiano doubled to drive in Henry Mateo and move Reid Brignac to third. But Ruggiano rounded second base too widely and was thrown out trying to retreat to the bag. That SBG (the Bulls’ old nemesis) might have cost the Bulls the lead: there would have been two men in scoring position and one out. Instead, there were two outs with Brignac on third. Naturally, Chris Richard struck out. See 1).
3) Runners in scoring position. (Geeky stats advisory!) Last night’s 1-5 isn’t really that bad when you consider how few chances the Bulls had with RISP, but lately they’ve really struggled to hit in the clutch. By my count, they’re now 10-61 with RISP since the All-Star break. If memory serves, they had a similarly anemic stretch early in the season, too.
Oddly, a wider-angle lens on this stat shows minimal distortion between overall season hitting (.255) and RISP hitting (.251 as a whole, although the current roster is actually at a collective .249). But when you pick that apart, you see that the problem is the mean, not the average—or at least I think that’s the correct mathematical distinction (said the book critic, drowning in numbers). Six of the team’s hitters are batting under .232 with RISP; three are hitting above .315; and just three are between .232 and .315. That means that a clutch-deficient Bull is nearly always twice as likely to come to the plate as a decent or excellent clutch hitter. And one of those apparently excellent clutch hitters has deceptive numbers: Ray Olmedo is at .316 with RISP, but his slugging percentage in that situation is only .355 (that’s actually slightly higher than his overall mark). Not surprisingly, the clutchiest Bull is Jon Weber, who is a King-Kongly .345/.400/.707.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Boba Fett, Dale Thayer, Ian Snell, Indianapolis Indians, Jason Cromer, Jon Weber, Justin Ruggiano, Ray Olmedo, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, SBG
Adam Sobsey ·
19 Jul 2009, 5:16 AM ·
2 Comments
The Eedge delivered for Durham
“This type of game is all about the late mistakes,” Bulls’ broadcaster Neil Solondz noted in the 14th inning of last night’s
3-2 Bulls win at Louisville. Solondz made that comment moments after Ray Sadler was picked off of first base: an S.B.G. of potentially dreadful consequence from which Sadler was held harmless when Elliot Johnson struck out to end the inning. But given Johnson’s night overall—more on that below—it’s easy to suppose that he’d have found a way to plate Sadler had Sadler managed to stay attached to his base.
The “type of game” Solondz was referring to was the very long, extra-inning one that might be dubbed the extraneous-inning game: fun as free baseball is, there comes a point when you can’t help but sigh “enough already.” It’s like too much drink: the fun wears off and you’re left with the hangover and vague memories of a wasteful evening. If you wake up to discover you’ve also lost the game in question, it’s a bit like realizing you didn’t go home with that cutie at the bar you were hitting on.
Or in the Bulls’ case last night, not hitting on.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Ben Jukich, Charlie Montoyo, Dale Thayer, Elliot johnson, extraneous innings, James Houser, Jason Childers, Joe Bateman, Jorge Julio, Louisville Bats, Matt Joyce, Ray Sadler, SBG, The Eedge, The Roodge
Adam Sobsey ·
11 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
The problem with winning streaks is that they end. After rattling off series wins against Toledo, Columbus and Charlotte, which put them back at the top of the mountain, the Bulls then looked down and saw Gwinnett and Norfolk—their two closest competitors in the International League South Division—coming up to try to knock them off. After Gwinnett basically handed Durham the first game of the three-game set at the DBAP, the Bulls responded by more or less giving one back, and then nearly stealing one late that they had no business even coming close to winning.
And then last night they faced Norfolk, who sat just a game behind. The Bulls basically gave that one away, too, losing 5-3 despite putting 17 men on base in the game on 11 hits and six walks. And although the Bulls went 4-8 with runners in scoring position, they hit into four double plays, were caught stealing third once, and had a runner thrown out at home plate trying to score from second on a single to left field. These last two erasures both came in the fourth inning. I’m not prepared to call them SBGs since I didn’t see them—although I suspect at least one of them was—but the fact is that the Bulls lost a game they should have won. A whopping 15 of the 24 men faced by starter Andy Mitchell reached base. That is Houseresque.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Andy Sonnanstine, Calvin Medlock, Dale Thayer, Gorch Brothers, James Houser, Joe Bateman, Jorge Julio, Norfolk Tides, Ray Olmedo, SBG, The Wild Bunch, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
7 Jul 2009, 5:00 AM ·
Comment
I don’t know why it took me until now to see the obvious symbolism of a team named the Bulls, but in assessing last night’s rip-snorting 6-1 win over Charlotte, I suddenly got it. The Bulls have now won 10 of their last 12 after losing 12 of 14: they are a team that is nearly always charging ahead or in full retreat. And in taking four of five games from the Knights in the annual intrastate, Fourth-of-July-weekend, home-and-home series, they dropped their North Carolina rivals deeper into last place in the International League South division, 10 1/2 games behind the front-running Bulls—who trail Scranton/Wilkes-Barre by percentage points for the best record in the entire league.
The Bulls have now belted 28 homers in their last 13 games, a pace that would surely set a record if they kept it up for an entire season. Overall, the hitting has carried the team lately; the Bulls have allowed 62 runs in those 13 games, or about 4.75 per game, which is neither great nor terrible. (Twenty-two of those came in just two games, it should be said.) Still, neither-great-nor-terrible is good enough by plenty when your team leads the league in homers and doubles, and is second in walks and slugging percentage.
Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls Andy Sonnanstine, Carlos Hernandez, Charlotte Knights, defensive indifference, Elliot johnson, John Jaso, Ray Olmedo, SBG
