Reset!

 

The Durham Bulls started and ended the first half of the 2024 season with a loss. In between they never managed to get above .500 or even remotely in contention. I am not used to this half-season business and the IL website doesn’t seem to be inclined to provide any information. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Patrick Kinas on the radio, I’m not sure I’d have known about it at all. Starting tomorrow, the won-loss records reset themselves (although the stats do not). That means the Bulls get to try again.

The Bulls ended the first half’s 75 games with a 36-39 record, putting them tied with Norfolk for 5th place in the 10-team IL East, 10.5 (10.5!) games back from Syracuse. They were 10th overall in the entire  20-team IL. Standings

We Bulls fans are not used to seeing a team perform this poorly. We often see a hiccup in the first year of a new manager, but nothing like this year.  The team is weak across the board.

Hitting

The team OPS is .774, which ranks them 11th in the 20-team IL. Plus they are very good at getting on base at .339 (14th). And they strike out a lot -- 713 times so far, the 4th worst in the entire league. Ronny Simon (66th), Kameron Misner (72d), and Tristan Peters (81st) are the only hitters ranked in the top 120 batters.

Pitching

Pitching is marginally better. With an ERA of 4.84, they are 9th in the league. Joe Rock’s 3.86 over 60 innings ranks him 7th in the league. But, he’s the only Bull in the top 30.

Base Stealing: Kameron Misner makes an appearance in the stolen base rankings at #6 with 22 and he’s only been caught once. Ronny Simon is the next Bull on the list, at 60th with 8, but he’s been caught 3 times.

Fielding? Nothing to shout about. They’ve let in 52 unearned runs so far this year. That’s approaching a run per game (.716 per 9 innings). The league average is .516.

Is there hope for the second half? Not much. The team pitching is showing steady improvement as are the run differentials. But overall hitting is pretty stagnant. And in any case, there’s a long, long way to go.

Five in a Row!

 

Are things looking up for the Bulls? Maybe. Certainly, they have a long way to go, but last week down in Jacksonville they did very, very well. And it shows in their numbers. The team OPS improved from .769 to .778 and the team ERA improved from 5.31 to 5.36. That’s still 9th out of 20 on hitting and 13th out of 20 on pitching. 

Nevertheless,  they are 6th in the IL East with only 18 games left in the first half of the season. Standings.

This week they are home against the Gwinnett Strippers, who play in the IL West. Looks like the Bulls have a slight edge in hitting. Gwinnett, however, is 4th in ERA in the IL.