Showing posts tagged “Wade Davis”
Adam Sobsey ·
9 Sep 2009, 8:48 AM ·
1 Comment
Case in point: not long after I went all Heisenberg in yesterday’s playoff preview of the series between the Durham Bulls and the Louisville Bats—cautioning readers about the transitory and frankly inscrutable nature of Triple-A rosters—the Tampa Bay Rays read what I wrote and decided to have a little more fun with us and/or do something to shore up their collapsing bullpen, which wilted again and let down David Price last night. They recalled Dale Thayer (pictured, pre-mustache), and as I was already wondering aloud here the other day, what took them so long? Can Thayer be much worse than what they’re getting from their relief corps lately?
Also, after his great debut on Sunday, Wade Davis has been asked to repeat the performance this coming Saturday at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox. I don’t think he’s likely to come back to Durham, either this season or any other. Andy Sonnanstine has been relegated to the bullpen, where he can ply Thayer for mustache grooming tips—even if he doesn’t decide to grow one. A mustache.
A glance at the Durham Bulls’ web site suggests that Travis Wood, not Ben Jukich, is Louisville’s starter tonight. If that’s the case, it means that a pair of 22-year-olds who were both pitching in the Double-A Southern League less than two months ago will be spearheading their respective Triple-A clubs’ playoff runs tonight. With Hellickson and Wood on the mound, you may be seeing two of the new young guns of the big leagues in action this evening.
Finally, for those looking for a little sports crossover, here’s yet another good reason to come to the games tonight and tomorrow: Carolina Hurricanes Erik Cole and Chad LaRose will throw the ceremonial first pitches on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Unless they’re called up to Tampa.
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Bulls on the Move, Chad LaRose, crossover, Dale Thayer, Erik Cole, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
7 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
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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 ·
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
Adam Sobsey ·
2 Sep 2009, 3:00 AM ·
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DBAP/ DURHAM—First things first: the “mystery” fifth Bull promoted to Tampa was none other than last night’s starter, Wade Davis, Charlie Montoyo said after the Durham Bulls’ 10-2 loss to Gwinnett. You can finally get some sleep! You can also rest assured that Davis’s promotion had nothing to do with his performance last night, probably his worst of the season. Davis had trouble finding the strike zone for the first three innings, throwing just half of his pitches for strikes. Then, when he did find it, his strikes got hit in the fourth inning, culminating in a disputed grand slam home run by Alvin Colina (more on the dispute later). Davis came out of the game one batter later, having reached a workload limit imposed by the Tampa Bay brass, who want him fresh for his first start as a Ray, which rumor has it will take place in a doubleheader scheduled for Labor Day in a place called [ruffles through papers] Yankee Stadium, which I understand is in one of the outer boroughs of New York City. Congrats to Davis: he’s shown himself worthy of the callup; and with his reserved demeanor and his competitive edge, he seems ready for the challenge.
He wasn’t last night, though—you’ll find some of his thoughts after the jump—and neither were his teammates. The quality of baseball at the Class AAA level is generally pretty high. No surprise there: it’s just one level down from the top, and most of the players have or will have played in the majors in their careers. But every now and then, you get reminded where you are.
And so we were last night. The Bulls’ fumbling, stumbling loss dropped them back into a tie with the Braves for the IL South Division lead, with six games to play. The two teams split their final series, two games apiece, as well as the season series, 11-11 (although they could meet again in the playoffs). They have identical home records, too: 39-30. Oh, and they also have identical road records. Guess what it is? 39-30.
Suffice it to say that, at the moment, there’s a rightness to all of this evenness, which also extends into the future: each team has three games remaining against Charlotte and three against Norfolk.
It wasn’t only the Bulls who played like minor-leaguers last night: the Braves didn’t exactly look like world-beaters, either. But it was actually two other parties, the umpires and the architects, who set the tone for Tuesday’s richness of embarrassments. See how, and also more roster moves, below.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Alvin Colina, Bulls on the Move, Charlie Montoyo, Elliot johnson, Gwinnett Braves, Heath Rollins, Henry Mateo, Joe Nelson, Jon Weber, Paul Phillips, Reid Brignac, Sean Rodriguez, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
1 Sep 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—The weather changed abruptly yesterday. At game time Sunday we were still in the sweaty languor of late summer, but the heat and sun fell out of the sky overnight. The season that replaced them on Monday wasn’t so much autumnal as alien—as if the primer-gray clouds, the unsettled breeze and the melancholy dampness had been imported from a British Isle, or Soviet-bloc Europe.
And the Bulls’ meteorology changed, too, with the same suddenness. Not only did their seven-game winning-streak come to an ugly end in a sluggish, poorly-played (by both teams) 8-6 loss to Gwinnett, but the date, August 31, marked the beginning of Bull-poaching season. Five players—a full rundown of them below (well, almost full; you’ll see)—left the DBAP for Tampa Bay after last night’s loss. It was less meteorology that hit the Bulls’ clubhouse than a meteor, which decimated the squad. Or, put another way, if September has come to take the sun and heat out of the sky, then its accompanying major-league roster expansion has swiped some of the stars, too.
And that’s not all. Two more Bulls, Jason Childers and Jon Weber, are off to join Team USA for the Baseball World Cup, to be played in Europe later this month. (Why doesn’t the IBAF schedule this tournament two weeks later? Then the minor-league season would be over, and none of the players on Team USA—all of whom are in Double-A and Triple-A—would have to miss the playoffs.) Childers and Weber have been near the front of the Bulls’ charge to the brink of the post-season—the Bulls have a one-game lead in the IL South Division, and a 4.5 game lead in the wild card race with seven left to play—but they won’t be here to help push the team across the threshold.
More’s the pity, because both of those stalwarts had a chance to help the Bulls notch one more victory last night, and both came up short. How that happened, and what happens next to the Bulls, follows.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays 10000 Maniacs, Andy Sonnanstine, Baseball World Cup, Bulls on the Move, Charlie Montoyo, Desmond Jennings, Fernando Perez, Gregor Blanco, Gwinnett Braves, Jason Childers, Jeff Bennett, Joe Nelson, Jon Weber, Montgomery Biscuits, MVP, Paul Phillips, Rayner Oliveros, Shawn Riggans, Team USA, Trapper John M.D., Wade Davis, Winston Abreu
Adam Sobsey ·
30 Aug 2009, 6:00 AM ·
5 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—You’ve probably heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which “states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”
If you apply the Infinite Monkey Theorem to baseball, you’ll get something like the Durham Bulls’ 10-9, 14-inning win over Gwinnett last night. It’s unlikely that a monkey will type Hamlet, but it’s also inevitable, in infinite time. And it’s also unlikely that last night’s game should ever happen, but last night’s game did happen. You could look it up.
“No, I’ve never seen anything like it,” was the first sentence out of Charlie Montoyo’s mouth afterward, before anyone had even asked him a question.
It would take me an infinite number of words to describe everything noteworthy about the doings at the DBAP on Saturday night (and, in fact, a bit of Sunday morning; the five-hour game ended at about ten past midnight). Although I don’t mind claiming that I am not a sportswriter who would ever, ever succumb to fatigue—I am a veritable dog with a bone, or better yet a monkey with an infinite number of bananas (and if you read that last clause carefully, you found the syntactical giveaway: I’m not a sportswriter)—as I say, although I don’t mind claiming indefatigability, which is an eight-syllable word, the Bulls have another game fairly soon, and at some point between now and then I have to sleep, eat, exercise, and, uh, type. Like a monkey.
And in case you need more monkey stuff, consider that last night’s ballgame featured mascot antics from something called Reggy the Purple Party Dude (he looks like a Sesame Street character who has somehow started growing french fries out of the top of his head). He monkeyed around in the first inning with a fake first-base coach, later with the umpire and Wool E. Bull, and then with “his inflatable nine-foot monkey,” which was both exactly what it sounds like and also inhabited somewhere in its recesses by a person. During one mid-inning caper, a banana figured heavily, along with spray cans of that fake shaving cream stuff that is actually string; and although I know that this is a family Web site, the fact is that the whole Reggy act, including the “his inflatable monkey” scenes and (especially) the fake-first-base-coach antics, played uncomfortably like the preparatory scenes of very, very, very specialized pornography targeted at an extremely specific fetish market I would prefer not to know anything about.
And also, the game was full of monkey wrenches.
I’ll give you all I’ve got if you click Continue reading »
Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Akinori Iwamura, Andy Sonnanstine, Aristotle, Barbaro Canizares, Brandon Jones, Charlie Montoyo, Chris Richard, Desmond Jennings, Deunte Heath, Diory Hernandez, Douglas Adams, duct tape, Elliot johnson, extraneous innings, F.O.B., Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Infinite Improbability Drive, Infinite Monkey Theorem, Inflatable Monkey, injury, Joe Bateman, Joe Nelson, Jon Weber, Julio DePaula, Michel Hernandez, monkey, Olympic Rings, Ray Olmedo, Reggy the Purple Party Dude, Reid Brignac, Wade Davis, walks, Wes Timmons
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
Adam Sobsey ·
24 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
The Bulls’ Joe Bateman hit consecutive batters in the ninth inning last night in Syracuse, but it was the Bulls who felt the pain. The Chiefs’ Norris Hopper hit a two-out, game-
winning single to score one of the plunkees, handing the Bulls a 3-2 loss.
So it wasn’t walks that did the Bulls in, but a sort of fast-track walk, the hit batter. And where the Bulls’ clutch hitting tends to abet control problems in losses, last night the lineup didn’t even mount enough threats to set up clutch situations. The Bulls scored twice in the second inning (with help from a pair of, ahem, walks); after that, they had only four baserunners, and just one of those advanced to second base.
Wade Davis did a fine job on the mound for the Bulls, but a Reid Brignac error helped an unearned run score, and Davis gave up a solo homer to (I told you to watch out for) Brad Eldred. Davis’s counterpart, the Chiefs’ Marco Estrada—the same guy who opposed him a couple of weeks ago at the DBAP—was again excellent. He stifled the Bulls on August 8, allowing just a pair of unearned runs on two hits in seven innings; last night, he allowed two runs in six innings, overcoming his second-inning control problems and matching Davis’s results. Charlie Montoyo was reluctant to credit Estrada in the August 8 ballgame, choosing instead to blame his hitters’ approach at the plate. But after Estrada shut Durham down again last night, one has to concede that Estrada himself may have been the reason for his success.
Some curious bullpen management by Montoyo last night: Dale Thayer replaced Davis in the seventh and tossed a pair of scoreless innings, leaving he ninth for Bateman. Usually, it would be Thayer handling the late shift, with Bateman setting him up. There’s definitely a reason for the switch, perhaps Tampa-related, and Bateman has closed out games for Montoyo before; still, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher.
In the Bulls’ official game report, you’ll happen upon a typo: “The Bulls are 1.5 games behind Syracuse in the wild card race and four games in front of Toledo and Norfolk.” The Bulls are actually 1.5 games ahead of the Chiefs, but the mistake reflects some growing pessimism, even inside the organization, about the Bulls’ state of affairs. Although the team is still lined up for a playoff spot, lately they haven’t looked like they’re headed for the post-season. Good games are followed by bad ones, the club’s overall energy rises and falls, and their record over the last three weeks is just 10-12. The Bulls look middling, inconsistent, beatable.
Meanwhile, Gwinnett keeps on winning and now has a four-game lead over Durham in the International League South Division. And the wild-card race is thickening—in the quotation nestled in the paragraph above, careful readers will have spotted Toledo now entering the rear-view mirror (this is not a NASCAR post!), thanks to the Mud Hens’ eight-game winning streak. Make no mistake: if the Bulls coast all the way into Labor Day at a .500 pace, one of the three teams on their tail will overtake them. The law of averages virtually assures it.
A quick note about the roster. Chris Richard had a cortisone shot in his wrist (maybe he and Carlos Hernandez, who also had one recently, can compare notes), and he’s expected back perhaps as early as Monday. In the interest of giving Joe Dillon most of a night off on Sunday, Charlie Montoyo started Henry Mateo at first base, which is something I can’t even picture. Dillon entered the game late when Mateo moved to second to replace Akinori Iwamura, who played a scheduled seven innings. Elliot Johnson (strained quadriceps) is eligible to come off the disabled list, and he has been running and taking batting practice. Look for him to return to action very soon. He’ll give the team a boost. It needs one.
Andy Sonnanstine pitches for the Bulls on Monday night. If the Chiefs’ rotation is still in the same order, his opponent will be Ross Detwiler. Those two faced each other at the DBAP on August 9, and the Bulls shredded Detwiler on their way to giving Sonnanstine an easy 11-5 win.
Baseball, Durham Bulls Brad Eldred, Chris Richard, Dale Thayer, Elliot johnson, injury, Joe Bateman, Marco Estrada, Reid Brignac, Syracuse Chiefs, Wade Davis, wild card
Adam Sobsey ·
19 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
1 Comment
DBAP/ DURHAM—I missed more than two innings of last night’s 5-2 Bulls win over Charlotte. I spent half an inning in the visitor’s clubhouse as part of the crowded media contingent interviewing the Knights’ Jake Peavy (pictured) following his four-inning, 67-pitch outing against the Bulls, his second rehab start for the Chicago White Sox, and another two innings waiting for that interview. It was much like the game that rehabbing Tampa lefty Scott Kazmir started for the Bulls a couple of months ago, when we were whisked down into the bowels of the DBAP for a mid-game interview with a pitcher.
Both times, I was happy to do this—it’s not every day that you get to talk to one of the dozen or so best active pitchers on planet Earth—but I have to say that I got very antsy in the administrative lobby while watching the ballgame on a television feed as Peavy threw a supplementary bullpen session. All that did was make me wish I was seeing the action firsthand rather than on a screen. I suppose that my reaction means that, for better or worse, I’ve become more interested in the fortunes of the Durham Bulls than I am about pretty much any other baseball being played.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls Akinori Iwamura, Carlos Hernandez, Carlos Torres, Charlie Montoyo, Charlotte Knights, Chicago White Sox, Craig Albernaz, Dale Thayer, Daniel Hudson, Elliot johnson, Fernando Perez, Gwinnett Braves, Henry Mateo, injury, Jake Peavy, Jeff Bennett, Joe Dillon, Jon Weber, Justin Ruggiano, Matt Joyce, RISP, Runners In Scoring Position, Wade Davis
Adam Sobsey ·
9 Aug 2009, 5:00 AM ·
2 Comments
DBAP/ DURHAM—It has turned into a rather dreary homestand for the Durham Bulls, who are a gloomy 3-4 and tied for the International League South Division lead with Gwinnett, which is somewhat comforting until you’re reminded that the Bulls should probably be at least two games up. They just lost a pair of games they should have won.
I was thinking, on the way to the park last night, that one reason for the Bulls’ middling results was that they hadn’t had a really good starting pitching performance during the homestand. The best was Andy Sonnanstine’s three runs in six innings on Tuesday night, which is really only decent, especially when you consider that he allowed nine hits in that game. It counted as a so-called “quality start,” but all it did was reiterate that “quality start”—which designates at least six innings and fewer than four runs allowed—is a poorly conceived statistic: a season of “quality starts” translates to a thoroughly so-so 4.50 ERA.
So it seemed that the Bulls were badly in need of a stopper-like start, even a dominant start, and it further seemed that Wade Davis (pictured, top) was the man to give it to them. He has been a bit inconsistent recently, allowing five runs in three of his last five starts, but in his usual fashion he always competed hard, and it seemed only a matter of time before his determination was matched by results. Sure enough, that happened on Saturday night.
But for the second straight night, the Bulls lost late, 3-2.
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Baseball, Durham Bulls, Tampa Bay Rays Charlie Montoyo, ejection, Jason Childers, Jhonatan Solano, Joe Dillon, Justin Maxwell, Kevin Causey, Marco Estrada, Matt Joyce, Michel Hernandez, R. J. Swindle, Ray Sadler, Rhyne Hughes, Russ Springer, Shawn Riggans, Syracuse Chiefs, Wade Davis
