Sunday Smashing

Game 57, June 2	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Rail Riders (Yankees)	0	0	1	0	2	0	0	0	1	4	8	1
Durham Bulls (Rays)	2	1	0	4	0	0	0	0	x	7	9	0

Season: 36-21; Home Stand: 6-1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

The 2013 Durham Bulls are not a home run hitting team. In fact, they are the bottom team in the International League, hitting only 35 this year. The league leader, the Buffalo Bisons, has hit 66. All the more surprise that they hit four in one game yesterday. Better yet, two of the four were the first of the year for Cole Figueroa and Juan Apodaca. That leaves only Chris Gimenez, Craig Albernaz, and Rich Thompson among this year’s players who have not hit a homer. Shelley Duncan’s and Wil Myers’ were particularly hard hit shots over the Monster. Duncan hit the bull. I think that’s the first time the bull’s been hit this year.

Mike Montgomery had a decent outing, his third since coming off the DL. The Bulls are far from having anything like a stable rotation, but with Montgomery there is some hope.

Nice glove work by Tim Beckham in the 4th and 5th innings, especially the double play he started in the 5th. Another hopeful sign.

Outside the game —

• Jim Paduch retired rather than take his assignment to Montgomery. Paduch has been sort of a utility long man for the Bulls for what seems like a long time, but has really just been most of 2012 and all of 2013. His numbers have never been all that good, but he ate up a lot of innings (106 in 2012, 37 so far this year). This year he had only one decent outing. He’s had 10 years of professional baseball, but it didn’t look like things were ever going to get much better for the 30-year old. Good luck, Jim.
• Norfolk lost. Bull are up two games in the South.
• Crash has edged out Annie in competition so far this year. Nuke has yet to find his way to the finish line. Cute routine for the Kiss Cam for the three of them.

	1st	2nd	3rd
Crash	7	6	0
Annie	6	7	0
Nuke	0	0	13