14 Inning Game 3 Goes to the Bulls

Series: 2-1; Best of 5
Wrap, Box, MiLB, Pawtucket, Providence Journal

When a game goes on and on and on the way this one did for almost six hours, all sorts of statistical oddities start showing up. We’ll get to some of those, but first a tip of the hat to the eight Durham Bulls pitchers who, even if they provided too many thrills (that would be you, Kirby Yates), did not allow a run over 14 innings that saw 57 Pawtucket batters come to the plate. Another tip of the hat goes to sheer aggressiveness that eventually paid off when fielding/positioning lapses let Kevin Kiermaier and Cole Figueroa get home in the 14th.

How important has pitching been so far? These are teams that in the regular season average almost five runs a game (Bulls - 4.85, PawSox - 4.60), yet in these three games the have only scored 8 runs between them (Bulls 5, PawSox 3). Mistakes (and aggressiveness) are helping the Bulls, 4 of their 5 runs have been unearned.

Kirby Yates now has 4 saves during the playoffs. But could he make it just a little bit easier on himself? Two walks and a hit batsman loaded the bases in the 14th. Coulda been a mess.

Jeff Beliveau performed well for the home town crowd, making up for the tough time he had a couple of days ago.

Enny Romero made his 2nd AAA appearance and got the win.

Meanwhile 14 innings provides lots of chances for batters to whiff. Bulls struck out 19 times, PawSoxers struck out 14 times.

The Bulls are now one game away from grabbing the cup. Merrill Kelly starts tonight and that young man has been doing very nicely since coming up from Montgomery. The PawSox will be starting another knuckleball pitcher, Charlie Haeger. Games starts at 6:05, an hour earlier than we are used to.

Notes —

• Looks like Adam Sobsey of Bull City Summer is up in Pawtucket. Likely to have a piece from him today. Should keep an eye out for it.
• PawSox blogger Jenks was at the game, so you might want to check to see if PawSox Heavy has some thoughts on tonight's game (or last night's).
• Craig Forde’s piece at the MiLB link above probably has the best quotes from the game that we've seen. Tomatoes? Really?.

UPDATE:
Thanks to R. L. we've got two more links. Adam Sobsey has a piece in the on-line version of the Herald-Sun (posted at 3:00 AM, now that's is a true baseball obsession). And the Pawtucket Times has a game story that I missed.