4-1: Pretty Darned Good Stand

Season: 7-2; Home Stand: 4-1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

The Tides’ pitcher, former big-leaguer Freddy Garcia, is more than a bit irritating to fans. Here’s hoping he gets promoted to Baltimore before we have to put up with his shuffling and twitching and brushing his hand on the mound and strolling around the mound and calling the catcher out again. One of the pleasures of minor league ball is that umps usually don’t put up with that sort of posturing and expect pitchers to bring the ball to the plate in a reasonable amount of time. Nevertheless, even after giving up 10 hits over 5 innings, Garcia got the win and the Bulls lost. The Bulls had their chances, but couldn’t get the runs across.

It didn’t help that J.D. Martin’s second spot start didn’t go well at all, including the home run by the first first batter.

Hak-Ju Lee is becoming the Bull to watch. He made a spectacular fielding play in the 5th, although he also committed 2 errors (4 on year). At bat he had a double, two singles, two RBI, scored a run and stole his 5th base.

A great home stand. We got to see some terrific pitching, solid hitting, and generally exciting baseball. If we are waiting for Wil Myers to blossom (he trails several Bulls in all hitting categories), everything we’ve been told ensures us that he will.

Outside the game —

• Prior to the game Leslie Anderson was award the Al Lopez Award, an award given by the Tampa Bay Rays to the most outstanding rookie in spring training camp.
• What’s up with the stats sheets? Not useful.

Charlotte is off to a slow start, but it looks like they are hitting well enough.