The Rain Came Down; Mud Hens in Town

We should have known that it was a doomed effort from the start. After all, that’s what all the weather predictors were saying. Nevertheless, the tarp was pulled in time for the game and we drove through thunderstorms to the DBAP, getting there one inning late. That meant we only saw a couple of innings of baseball before the tarp came back on. At that, though, the Red Wings were hitting Alex Colome pretty well. Worrisome.

The Bulls are going to try to finish the game while they are up at Rochester next month.

Matchup

The Toledo Mud Hens seemed to have sorted themselves out until they arrived in Norfolk four days ago. But then they lost four in a row and are coming in to  Durham in 3rd place in the West. [standings] Statistically, the Mud Hens and Bulls are not that far apart in any department.

Possible Bulls starters for the four game series are: Mike Montgomery, Enny Romero, Matt Andriese, and Nathan Karns.

Geek Stuff

The Pythagorean Expectation computation attempts to translate runs scored for and against into win and losses. So if you were to run the PE equation as we went along this season, here’s what you would get.

click on chart for expanded view

Now, the question is, how come the Bulls are doing better than their expectation? The most likely answer is the bullpen. The Bulls overall ERA is nothing special. At 3.57 they are 4th in the IL. But the relievers’ ERA is 2.86, pretty special. Otherwise, something of a mystery, and something to worry about if the Bulls cannot score runs to push their expectation up. It takes runs to win a game, and the Bulls are not as good at that as some of their competitors.