Season: 82-51
Wrap, Box, Virginian-Pilot
Given Kirby Yates' performance this year, it was entirely understandable that Charlie Montoyo would go to him in the 9th instead of sticking with Brandon Gomes. Unfortunately, the result was a rare blown save and a loss for Yates and the Bulls.
On the other hand, you’ve got to think that Norfolk is going to be much hungrier than the Bulls for these four games (and the three at the end of the season). As we’ve been showing in other posts, the Tides are in the hunt for the wild card. Even though they need for Rochester and Pawtucket to both lose some games, the only way they are going to make it to the playoffs is by beating the Bulls — a lot. They will play Durham six out of their last eleven games. We’ll see.
Outside the game —
- Delmon Young was not exactly a beloved figure back in 2006 when he was in a Bulls uniform (when not throwing bats at umpires). He is back in the Rays system, but currently assigned to the Montgomery Biscuits. Stacy Long has some solid reportage here. We weren’t doing this blog back in 2006, but we recall him as a talented young man as part of a poorly led team. That was the year between the Bill Evers era and the beginning of the Charlie Montoyo era. And it was after Montoyo's arrival that I realized how critically important a good manager is to the development of young ball players and building a good minor league team. Not sure that idea had quite sunk in system-wide with the then Devil Rays.
- Over at Bull City Summer Mike Croley has two very insightful pieces on Shelley Duncan. If you want to get some idea of what goes on in a hitter’s head, really worth reading. One of the articles (this one) has a couple of those spooky photos that Leah Sobsey and Tim Telkamp have been taking/making this year. The other (this one) gets into just what could happen in one at bat.
- Also at Bull City Summer, Adam Sobsey got a terrific quote from Chipper Jones about AAA baseball (Note: Jones is talking about his time in Richmond, then the AAA team of the Braves, not the Durham Bulls).
- Lastly, here’s the anonymously-written DNA of Sports which had an interesting profile of outfielder Kevin Kiermaier from a few days ago.
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I was at that game where Young tossed the bat. Elijah Dukes was also on that team, big slugger with a bigger attitude.
ReplyDeleteDarnell McDonald batted leadoff that night.
We had endless reruns of the video clip at the time. That was my first year closely watching AAA ball and didn't really understand how important the manager and his crew could be to these young egos. Of course, in the case of Dukes probably no one could have sorted him out. (no one ever did). I'm hoping he doesn't show up here. Already sounds like his ego is getting in the way.
ReplyDelete