Bulls Away, Fix the Field

Scott Strickland plowing up (actually aerating) the DBAP, morning July 26)

Season: 67-39; Home Games Left in Season: 15
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

I don’t know about you, but I am really, really tired of watching/listening to the Durham Bulls play the Gwinnett Braves. Nine out of the last 17 games, more than half, have been against Gwinnett. From a winning and losing point of view, that’s OK. The Bulls have won 7 of those 9 games, and I really don’t mind watching Ernesto Mejia strike out against Josh Lueke, but some variety would be nice. At least for the next eight days we’ll be listening to different teams. And then the Bulls will be back home to play … Gwinnett (aaarrgh!!).

New guy Kevin Kiermaier was fun to watch last night: Good arm, stolen base, ran down a couple of fly balls.

Also nice to see Jason Bourgeois seem to get back into his game: timely hits made all the difference, and he threw out a guy at the plate as well.

Merrill Kelly continues to be very impressive. Interesting to see that he, and others are now routinely nearing 100 pitches per game. Tells me the season is moving along.

The worrisome news is that, according to the Herald-Sun, Brandon Guyer’s finger got broken in that hit by pitch in the first inning last night. No further word (and none likely given how close hold the Bulls/Rays are about such things). The Herald-Sun also reports that Tim Beckham should be back in the game soon.

Matchup

The last couple years the Columbus Clippers dominated the West Division of the IL. Not so this year. At 7 games below .500, they are far behind the division leaders, the Indianapolis Indians.