Bulls Back in Town

Season: 59-35; Last 10: 8-2
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Tim Beckham hit his second home run of the season, a solo shot in the 1st inning. Jesus Flores hit his second home run of the season, a three-run shot in the 7th to pretty much close it out. That gave the Bulls their fourth in a row and their eighth win out of the last ten games. They are 9½ games ahead of Norfolk in the IL South Division and tied with the Indianapolis Indians for the best won-loss record in the International League. Pretty darned good.

His last time out, Jake Odorizzi had five good innings out of six, but took a loss. Last night when he fielded a grounder and then threw the ball into center field we were thinking that history might repeat itself. It didn’t. He kept the game in control.

An oddity in the lineup was Chris Gimenez batting in the #4 position. Possibly a gimmick to help him regain his focus. It might have helped just a bit. Gimenez and Anderson were in the outfield again as Ryan Roberts, Brandon Guyer, and Jason Bourgeois were all on the bench with various ailments and ouchies.

Outside the game —

• Catcher Juan Apodaca was taken off the disabled list and released. He had a couple of good moments with the Bulls, but we were always wondering what he had to offer over Craig Albernaz (also on the DL, but likely to come off now).
• Tim Beckham has a nice feature article on him in today’s News & Observer. It appears that the N&O has basically decided to try to do profiles this year rather than regular game coverage, deferring to the Herald-Sun for that. Sort of makes sense. 
• The Herald-Sun is reporting the interim manager of the Bulls during Charlie Montoyo and Neil Allen’s time with the Futures Game will be Bill Evers, very successful manager of the Bulls in their early Triple-A years.