Durham Bulls in the Governors' Cup Playoffs

That was some kind of Labor Day. Remember the win/loss options from yesterday—if the Bulls lose and Charlotte wins, they are out.

 I admit to watching from home and it was painful watching the Gwinnett Braves score 6 runs (having gone through 5 Bulls pitchers) before the Bulls scored a run in the 6th.

I fired up my laptop to follow things at Harbor Park over in Norfolk (although Kinas was doing a fine job keeping up). That did not look good either. At the end of 7 innings, the Charlotte Knights were leading the Norfolk Tides 5 – 1.

Up North, the Syracuse Mets were soaring up into a tie with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. They will play a one-game tie-breaker tonight.

By the 8th inning in Durham, the Braves led the Bulls 8 to 1, but over in Norfolk, the Tides waited until they had two outs in the bottom of the 8th to score 4 runs and go ahead of the Knights 6-5. If the Knights were to lose, the Bulls would be in.

And then the Bulls scored 4 runs in the 8th and looked to be chewing up pitchers. Not enough.

In the Knights/Tides 9th, the Knights tied the game.

The Bulls/Braves game ended, the Bulls losing 8-5. Bulls face elimination.

I'm left listening to Kinas on the radio and watching the Knights/Tides on MiLB.TV. The Tides hold off the Knights in the top of the inning. Single brings in the runner from 3rd. Tides win! Bulls are in the playoffs!

I'll repeat my lament regarding news coverage. No print coverage with  one notable exception — check out Bob Sutton of the Burlington Times-News. He did a terrific job.

Also, there was a bit of tape at WRAL.

Over at the International League site, they got the playoff situation wrong.

Note that the Bulls used 8 pitchers. Pretty sure that was a season record. Of those, Michael Plassmeyer and Cristopher Sanchez were jumped directed up from A ball for their AAA debut. They got to join the celebration.

Here's the last wild card chart. Beautiful!