Tough Home Stand; Off to Georgia

The Bulls are off to Gwinnett after getting shut out by Buffalo yesterday. Mr. McWilliams is having trouble adjusting to AAA. After a decent season in Montgomery (15 games, 87 innings, 2.05 ERA, 1.255 WHIP) he has not settled into his Bulls uniform (4 games, 19 innings, 7.91 ERA, 1.810 WHIP). Put another way, he's given up almost as many runs in 4 games as a Bull (17) as he did in 15 games as a Biscuit (20). Will he get better? Sure. But yesterday capped off a home stand where the Bulls lost 4 out of 6 games.

In Georgia, the Bulls are playing the newly-established-in-first-place Strippers. The Strippers have only been up there for the last 8 games or so. It would seem the Bulls would be able to claw back up on top. Our concern is that this isn't quite the same team that we've been watching all year. Their team ERA is creeping upwards; the team batting average is creeping downwards.

Matchup

What's Going on with the Bulls?

This five-game slide into second place in the IL South is ugly.

The proximate cause of the last two losses were pitchers — Austin Pruitt (just off the injured list) on Wednesday, who gave up 2 runs to lose the game,  and rehabbing  Anthony Banda yesterday, who gave up three runs after a fine start by Brendan McKay.

Still, we've got to look at all the fine baseball players from days past who simply aren't in the lineup today (although a few may come back). Of the 27 players who've come to bat this year, ranked by OPS, 9 of the top 15 are not with the Bulls.

Gone Bulls	Games	OPS
Nick Solak	85	.838	Nashville (.880)
Jake Smolinski	67	.864	NC Dinos (1.140)
Mike Brosseau	68	.998	Tampa Bay (.884)
Nate Lowe	68	.938	Tampa Bay (.886)
Jake Cronenworth	80	.972	Injured
Christian Arroyo	33	.984	Injured
Nick Ciuffo	34	.626	??
Andrew Velazquez	34	.778	Cleveland

Trouble in Bull City.

The Durham Bulls at the All-Star Break

The Durham Bulls are 90 games into a 140-game season and are doing very well. They lead the South Division of the International League, but just by 1½ games over Gwinnett. They don't have the best record in the league, that would be Cleveland's AAA team, the Columbus Clippers. The South Division is, by far the most competitive division in the league. Gwinnett and Charlotte are 1 and 2 in the wild card standings.

So why am I worried?

What worries me are the ups and downs since mid-June. In the last 21 games the Bulls have 11 wins against 10 losses. In the last 10 games, 4 wins against 6 losses. That's worrisome.

The roster turmoil has been severe over that period. Since June 20 there have been 35 transactions. 19 were subtractions, 16 were additions. Some of that was just back and forth between the Bulls and Tampa Bay, but a few were outright losses (Nick Ciuffo, Andrew Velazquez and Jake Smolinski are just gone).

Will it settle down next week? We can hope.

The trend in run differentials over the last several games may reflect this turmoil. It shows a distinct flat or downward trend over the last several games. And is beginning to fall below the last couple of years.

Pitching

The pitching crew has done just fine. The team ERA is second best (after Gwinnett) in the International League. The ERA for the starters has been high all year. However, those data are somewhat tainted by the 8 times the Bulls used an "opener" who was only in for an inning or so. They put together a combined 7-inning no-hitter last week, and they've put together 6 shutouts.

The pitching crew also excels in keeping keeping their opponents off base. The Bulls opponents have been held to a very low batting average. Even better, their "secondary average" — essentially extra-base hits and walks — is well below their batting average.

Hitting

The Bulls have the third-best batting average in the league. At .278 they are just 2 points behind the league leader, Rochester. Their secondary average is terrific as well. However, note that slight downward trend in recent days.

Defense

Our homegrown measure of defensive prowess, unearned runs per 9 innings, or uERA, has wavered between excellent and awful this year. In general, it has followed the overall downward trend of the International League as a whole. But there have been a couple of games lost to poor defense

The Hitters

This table is sorted by batting average, but also shows two other measures of hitting, Secondary Average and On Base + Slugging Percentage (OPS). Another measure I've come to regard as important is the difference between batting average and secondary average. That shows, sort of, both extra-base performance, speed, and plate discipline (walks). Small samples can lead to distortions, so the numbers for McCarthy, Bemboom, Ricardo, Perez, and McKay are not very useful.

Name	Games	AB	BA	SA	Diff	OPS	Notes
Kean Wong	72	289	.346	.253	-.093	.910
Jake Cronenworth	75	295	.342	.359	.017	.973
Mike Brosseau‡	68	249	.317	.402	.085	.998
Christian Arroyo‡	33	121	.314	.397	.083	.984
Emilio Bonifacio	46	146	.295	.240	-.055	.767
Nate Lowe‡	68	241	.290	.440	.150	.938
Team	90	3019	.278	.323	.045	.832
Andrew Velazquez	34	129	.271	.240	-.031	.778	Traded
Jake Smolinski	67	248	.270	.379	.109	.864	Released
Dalton Kelly	28	98	.265	.224	-.041	.696
Brendan McKay*	15	49	.265	.510	.245	.951
Nick Solak	83	292	.264	.349	.085	.830
Jason Coats	53	197	.259	.294	.035	.792
Michael Perez*	22	72	.236	.403	.167	.812
Nick Ciuffo	34	123	.228	.195	-.033	.626	Released
Nathan Lukes	56	166	.217	.265	.048	.630
Joe McCarthy	23	85	.200	.353	.153	.703
Mac James	44	129	.194	.240	.046	.601
Anthony Bemboomº	11	36	.167	.139	-.028	.488
Dashenko Ricardo	10	25	.160	.240	.080	.534

* 40-man; ‡ w/Tampa Bay; º on rehab assignment

Overall, this is a very impressive crew. Much as we wish it were not so, we must expect continued back and forth to Tampa Bay. Remember, the Rays are masters at manipulating rosters. The fact that only a few of these players are on the 40-man (and three on this list are with the Rays as I write this) doesn't mean much. Several can expect a shot (or deserve a shot — Kean Wong especially) before the year is out.

Free Scott Pose

Durham Bulls Radio color commentator Scott Pose has had a very (very) old fine catch up with him! He's paying the fine ... but has also started a GoFundMe page

https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-scott-pose

to help the Miracle League of Durham.

Read all about it at the link.

Great cause and good guy ...

... c