Explosive Seventh

Game 36: Durham Bulls 9; Syracuse Chiefs 2
Season: 22-14; Last 10: 8-2; Trip: 1-0
Wrap, Box

If the weather prediction is on target, Scotty McCreery may end up singing in the rain today. Don’t know who Scotty McCreery is? You’re not from around here are you?

While we wait for the rain, how about them Bulls in the 7th inning last night? After two outs in the inning, nine more Bulls came to bat against three different pitchers. One got hit by a pitch (Lopez), two hit singles (Luna, Chirinos), three hit doubles (Olmedo, Canzler, Lobaton), and two hit home runs (Jennings, Anderson).

Just two days ago we had a chart up where we worried about Leslie Anderson’s numbers. Last night’s two home runs (3 RBIs) pushed his numbers up quite a bit and they were his first home runs of the year. Omar Luna broke through the Mendoza line and reached .211. Unfortunately, two other hitters of concern, J.J. Furmaniak (0 for 5) and Robinson Chirinos (1 for 5) were not able to participate in the breakout.

An oddity of the game was Anderson and Furmaniak in the outfield. Guessing that Guyer, Ruggiano and Carter up for days off. Given the power those three bring to the lineup, last night’s score is all the more remarkable.

Brian Baker seems to be settling in. Six solid innings last night. His first couple of games as a starter were tough. In those games he was only able to get through 3 or 4 innings and his ERA ballooned up to the mid-7’s. In his last two starts (admittedly against not very strong teams) he’s gone six innings each and has gotten his ERA down to 4.34. Pretty good.

And then there’s Dane De La Rosa, who got his head handed to him in the middle innings at the old DAP earlier this week. A solid two innings.

Chart of the Day

I like this one. It shows the growing difference between the total runs scored by the Bulls and the runs allowed by the Bulls. If these numbers are plugged into the Pythagorean Expectation formula you can come up with the “expectation” that the Bulls won-loss record “should” be 20-16, below its actual 22-14. Traditional explanations for deviations from expectation are luck and/or bullpen performance. I haven’t noticed much luck in the games I’ve witnessed, so I’m going with the bullpen explanation. Yeah for the bullpen!