Durham Bulls Five Weeks In

 

The Durham Bulls are 29 games into the season and are still looking good. In fact, a little better than the last time we updated. Their nice run in late May and their 3-2 run against Norfolk last week, kept them at 13 games above .500 and just a game back of Nashville, which had an extraordinary 15-game win streak.

Nevertheless, let me gripe some more about the so-called Triple-A East (Southeast). The Nashville Sounds lead the division that the Bulls are in, but the Bulls will not even play them this year. How weird is that? 

Back to the Bulls, though. The team OPS is .849, the best in the entire league. The Bulls team ERA of 3.59 is 2nd, behind the Buffalo Bisons, who just got kicked out of their stadium so the Toronto Blue Jays could play there. A stat that I like, team WHIP (Walks/Hits per Inning) is 1.126 and is also the best in the league.

23 pitchers have stepped up on the mound so far this year, including the severely injured Tyler Zombro. Zombro was reported this morning to have moved out of the ICU over at Duke. We are wishing him well. 

Among the hitters, Wander Franco and Vidal Brujan are getting the most playing time and they are making the best of it. Franco's .922 OPS and Brujan's .949 are among the tops in the league. Brujan is on the Rays' 40-man, Franco is not. But the Rays are looking pretty good in the infield just now, so maybe they both will stay with the Bulls for a bit longer. Brujan also leads the league in stolen bases with 13. 

DBAP notes

• The DBAP is pretty much open now. Pretty big crowd on Saturday (7,100), a bit smaller on Sunday (5,400).
• They had food trucks on Saturday up on the right-field concourse.
• The center-field gate was open on Saturday
• Still no printed program, which I find very annoying. Should not have to dig out my phone just to find a player's name. 
• I'm guessing there's some kind of "bubble" around the players. All of the in-game entertainment is in the outfield.
• Noticed the extension of the screens to the end of the baselines.