Durham Bulls go to Norfolk, lose third straight, fall into tie for first
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.
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