Great Days At the DBAP

Game 11: Durham Bulls 10, Norfolk Tides 1
Season: 8-3
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

No matter how long you’ve been a Durham Bulls fan, you will not have seen many home stands like this one. The sheer numbers are amazing.

• Won 3 games out of 4.
• Scored 35 runs while allowing 16.
• 55 hits for 82 total bases: 40 singles, 9 doubles, and 6 home runs.
• 11 stolen bases.
• Norfolk helped out by letting seven of our guys reach on errors.
• One bad inning, 1st inning of first game (4 runs, Bennett).
• Pretty darn good pitching all around.

Last night’s performance by Jeremy Hellickson was simply icing on the cake. My guess is that he’s going to stay here for quite a while, but there’s no doubt that he’s major league caliber. Here’s hoping that he’s having fun here in Durham and is continuing to learn his craft.

If Jeremy’s having fun, I’m not entirely sure about our outfielders. There we were last night with what is probably the speediest outfield in Durham Bulls history: Justin Ruggiano in left, Desmond Jennings in center, and Fernando Perez in right and what happens? Not much. Justin got to catch one fly ball in the 1st inning and two in the 9th (off Baker); Desmond got to catch one in the 6th and two in the 7th, Perez caught one in the 5th. Boring … But boring can be good.

Desmond Jennings was back in the lineup for the first time since the championship game last year. Good to see him back. As leadoff he had a double and two walks. Pretty good. Fernando Perez was moved down to the number two spot. Up until last night Elliot Johnson, who is really on a hot streak, had been batting second. He got dropped all the way to eighth and responded with two singles, his seventh stolen base, an RBI, and he scored a run.

Alvin Colina has broken out of his slump in style with two more doubles and an RBI.

Both Herald-Sun and Indy Week articles have some good player and manager quotes. Worth checking out.

Odds and Ends:

• Adam Sobsey over at Indy Week reports that Rays prospect Aneury Rodriguez will take Jeff Bennett’s place in the rotation for at least one start. That would be Wednesday’s day game against Charlotte. I’ll try to dig up some links, but surely RaysProspects has something on him.
• We don’t see the Tides again until after the 4th of July. I’m betting it will be a very different team then.
• Interesting interview with Fernando Perez in a Neil Solondz podcast. “It’s like I’m back in low A trying to learn it all over again.” Perez is, for the time being, going back to exclusively right-handed hitting.