Not Quite Enough

Game 127: Bulls 3, Knights 4
Season: 70-57
Games Left in Season: 17; Home Games: 7
Wrap, Box, Indy Week

The Durham Bulls 29th pitcher of the year, Jeff Bennett, started the game last night. If that sounds like we’ve had a lot of pitchers, we have. To be fair (not that being fair is my forte), three of the 29 were position players thrown to the wolves when we’d run out of relievers. Three more were rehabbing Rays. Nevertheless, 29 is more than we had in 2008 (27) and we had a couple of rehabbers last year as well. The Rays have used 20 pitchers this year.

At any rate, Bennett had a shaky start, giving up two runs in the first two innings. But the next two innings were just fine. Is Bennett a starter or reliever? Darned if I know. Guess we’ll find out.

Two big disappointments in the game for me was the performance of two of my favorite Bulls, Jon Weber and Jason Childers. Weber had the bases full in the 1st and hit into an inning-ending double play. He struck out with a runner on second in the 3rd. He hit into another inning-ending double-play with runners on first and second in the 5th. On the other hand, his single with Mateo on first in the 7th, moved Mateo to third and set up the go-ahead run when Mateo scored on Dillon’s ground out. So, he redeemed himself. Unfortunately, Jason Childers gave up a walk and then a home run in the 8th. And this coming just after he was profiled on the Bulls website.

Scary moment:

• Akinori Iwamura, bad knee and all, being waved home in the 3rd. It was always going to be a close play and, as it turned out, the ball got there well before he did. By the way, Iwamura drew three more walks last night. He’s got a stunning OBP of .600 since he’s been here.

Fun moments:

• The phrase, “baserunner caught in a run-down” was demonstrated in the 6th. Charlotte’s Josh Fields got way too far off second base and our pitcher, Julio DePaula, came off the mound and literally ran him down and tagged him out.
• In the 8th Michel Hernandez was coming to bat and I was ranting about who was available to pinch hit (Michel hasn’t had a hit since he came back). Michel comes to the plate and gets a leadoff single. Didn’t pay off, unfortunately, since like so many others last night, pinch runner Fernando Perez got stranded on second.

Bulls hit the road. Plan to do a post about that later in the day.

Only seven more games at home!