Cromer Takes Bulls Into the Lead

Durham Bulls 4, Louisville Bats 3
Wrap, Box, Indy Week, N&O, Louisville Courier-Journal

The Jason Cromer Fan Club is pleased, mighty pleased, to report to you that our man has come through for the Bulls again. Six innings, and except for those unfortunate two home runs, yet another solid game for our guy. Of course, he was helped quite a bit by his colleagues Joe Bateman, Julio DePaula, and Winston Abreu. Not to mention the infield and outfield. The Bats left 12 men on base and that is an indicator not only of timely strikeouts, but good defense.

As much as we love Jason, we also have to mention Winston Abreu. He just seems to get better and better. In the 9th inning last night he struck out the first batter on three pitches, the second batter on three pitches, and was 0-2 on the third batter before an infield hit got dribbled past him. He was 0-2 on the fourth batter before he threw his first ball of the game. And then that batter dribbled another slow roller no one could handle. Abreu was hitting 96-97 mph all along. By this time Winston was ticked. The next batter had no chance. He was 0-2 before he fouled one off, took a ball, and then struck out. Dominating is the only word to use.

The Bulls got all their runs in the 4th inning off starter Sam LaCure. A Joe Dillon single, Matt Joyce walk, and a walk to Sean Rodriguez loaded the bases with none out. Justin Ruggiano singled in a run (Justin was 3-4 on the night), Elliot Johnson singled in a run, Michel Hernandez grounded into a double play, but that scored a run. And Henry Mateo (first appearance in series) singled in the fourth run.

According to reports, Montoyo is going to go with Raynor Oliveros tonight. He did OK against Norfolk on September 5th, and one of these days our bats are going to wake up (seems like it has been quite a while since that happened). Things are looking up.

We are now 2-1 in the best of five and need just one more to come back to Durham for the next round. By the way, Gwinnett won at Scranton/WB last night. In that series SWB leads 2-1.