Week 10: Great Home Stand

 

The Durham Bulls had a stellar home stand last week. They won 6 out of 7 games against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp and moved up into a tie for second place. Standings.

Sad to say, that success does not actually mean all that much given the bizarre approach to "championship" chosen for the International League by Major League Baseball. The Bulls only have 18 (or so, not really sure) games left in the first half of the season and they are 7 games behind the Norfolk Tides. The Tides are not waiting for any of the teams chasing them. The Bulls may be 8-2 in their last 10 games, as are the St Paul Saints, but the Norfolk Tides are 7-3 and still looking very, very good. After the first half, it's a reset. The 20 teams start over for the second half. How weird is that? And why are they doing it?

Still, let's celebrate the pitching we saw last week and the ticking upwards of the Bulls' stats in all major categories. If the Bulls are far from the top in hitting (13th in OPS), their pitching is doing just fine.

6/5: Week 10		Change
OPS	.778	+.007
ERA	4.38	-.38
WHIP	1.39	.06
uERA	.628	-0.15
Run Diff	17	+21

The Bulls are in Memphis, Tennessee this week. The matchup is quite close. The Redbirds have not had quite the roster turmoil of the Bulls, which may give them an edge. 

Matchup: Bulls vs Redbirds, June 6, 2023
As of June 6, 2023	W-L	Rk	RDiff	OPS	ERA	WHIP	uERA
Durham Bulls (Rays)	33-24	2	17	.781	4.38	1.39	0.63
Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals)	31-26	5	43	.783	4.44	1.51	0.64
RDiff-Run differential;  Rk - Rank in International League; WHIP - Walks/Hits per Inning; uERA-unearned runs per 9 innings

Weeks 8 & 9: Doing OK

 

Top 8 of 20 Teams

The Nashville Sounds came to town in mid-May and the Bulls went 3-3 against them. Then the Bulls went off to Lawrenceville, Georgia and won 4 out of 6 there. Today they are in 4th place and come home 8 games back from the Norfolk Tides. Standings.

5/28: Week 9		Change
OPS	.771	-.019
ERA	4.76	-.22
WHIP	1.45	-.03
uERA	.613	-.035
Run Diff	-4	+4

This is a decent baseball team, just not the league-dominating team we've been used to around here. They rank 15th of 20 in OPS at .771, and 7th in ERA at 4.76. They've had a lot of roster turmoil (20 transactions since mid-month) that probably links back to the exceptional performance of their parent club, the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are tearing up Major League Baseball (they just took 2 out of 3 against the LA Dodgers and have the best record of any team out there). 

Meanwhile, Norfolk is dominating the International League. 

Matchup

Jacksonville shows up for 7 games today (making up a rainout down in Jacksonville earlier in the year). They are not doing all that well, but their roster has also seen a lot of turnover.

Matchup: Bulls vs Jumbo Shrimp, May 29, 2023
As of May 28, 2023	W-L	Rk	RDiff	OPS	ERA	WHIP	uERA
Durham Bulls (Rays)	27-23	4	-4	.771	4.76	1.45	0.61
Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Miami)	23-26	14	-23	.759	4.99	1.52	0.59
RDiff-Run differential;  Rk - Rank in International League; WHIP - Walks/Hits per Inning; uERA-unearned runs per 9 innings

Umpires

Noticed that there was a 4-person crew down in Georgia. Seems only fair that we have another human on the field when the machine is calling the shots on the balls and strikes. I'd like to see more of the full crews, especially as we see all these base-stealing attempts.

Memorial Day 2023

 

Bald eagle on veteran's grave, Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Photo by Frank Gilk, Minneapolis Star Tribune. Stories by Jon Tevlin June 25 and August 10, 2011.

Memorial Day 2023

The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak

     Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them? 

     They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts. 

     They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us. 

     They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done. 

     They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave. 

     They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them. 

     They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this. 

     They say, We leave you our deaths: Give them their meaning: give them an end to the war and a true peace: give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards: give them their meaning.

     
     We were young, they say. We have died; Remember us. 

— Archibald MacLeish

Week 7; A Wash in Charlotte

 The Durham Bulls settled down a bit after their disastrous visit to Norfolk the previous week. They split the series, 3-3. 

Let's have a small aside on pitching, at least on two pitchers, Taj Bradley and Luis Patiño. Both of these young men are thought of as the future of the Tampa Bay Rays. Mr. Bradley has already been up to Tampa Bay and did very well while there. He started 3 games, pitched 15 innings, won all three games, and holds an OK 3.52 ERA. As a Bull, however, not so good. As a Bull he has started 5 games, pitched 16 innings, given up 20 earned runs, for an 11.25 ERA. Unless injured, there's no doubt he's going to keep on starting games for the Bulls and keep on working on whatever Tampa Bay wants him to work on. That's what Triple-A is all about, but sometimes we can hope that what he needs to work on for Tampa Bay aligns with what the Bulls need to win a game.

Mr. Patiño is a bit different. I've come to dread seeing him on the mound. He's appeared in 9 games (6 as a starter, 3 in relief). May has been a disaster so far. 4 appearances, 15 earned runs in 7 2/3 innings. 

Last week in Charlotte was not good for either pitcher. Mr. Bradley started on May 11, lasted 3 1/3 innings, and gave up 4 runs. Mr. Patiño had two relief appearances. In one he did OK, 1 run in 1 inning; the next was awful, 7 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning.

Stats

5/15: Week 7		Change
OPS	.795	+.002
ERA	5.10	+ .07
WHIP	1.52	+ .03
uERA	.674	- .031
Run Diff	-8	+5

Not much change in the team stats this week. 

Matchup

Nashville comes to town today and the Bulls are tied with them for 5th place, 8 games back from Norfolk. It looks like their pitching is significantly better than the Bulls as a team. So it's likely to come down to day-by-day performances.

Matchup: Bulls vs Nashville, May 16, 2023
As of May 16, 2023	W-L	Rk	RDiff	OPS	ERA	WHIP	uERA
Durham Bulls (Rays)	20-18	5	-8	.795	5.10	1.52	0.67
Nashville Sounds (Brewers)	20-18	5	18	.791	3.89	1.32	0.65
RDiff-Run differential;  Rk - Rank in International League; WHIP - Walks/Hits per Inning; uERA-unearned runs per 9 innings

Week 6: Pretty Much a Distaster

I got lazy, and a bit apprehensive, after last week's disaster at Harbor Park. I'm late. 

So far this year Norfolk has won 8 of 9 games against the Bulls, and the Bulls are going to have to play another 6 games against them starting on the 4th of July. On a positive note, that will be after the Great Re-Set and will not count against the first half of the season. 

At any rate, at the end of the week in Norfolk the Bulls were two games over .500 and tied for 7th place in the International League. Not what Bulls fans are used to. The team saw a decline in all major performance metrics. 

5/8: Week 6		Change
OPS	.793	- .04
ERA	5.03	+ .22
WHIP	1.49	+ .04
uERA	.705	- .037
Run Diff	-13	- 18

                                                            Matchup

The Knights are another traditional rival of the Bulls, but not in recent years. They aren't doing all that well in 2023, but neither are the Bulls.

Matchup: Bulls vs Knights, May 9, 2023
As of May 8, 2023	W-L	Rk	RDiff	OPS	ERA	WHIP	uERA
Durham Bulls (Rays)	17-15	7	-13	.793	5.03	1.49	0.71
Charlotte Knights (White Sox)	16-17	11	-36	.758	5.94	1.69	0.35
RDiff-Run differential;  Rk - Rank in International League; WHIP - Walks/Hits per Inning; uERA-unearned runs per 9 innings

The Bulls did win last night's game against the White Sox franchise, looking very good in a 5-3 game. Progress?