Norfolk Takes Title

Season: 73-70; Home Stand: 1-1
Wrap, Box, Norfolk Wrap, Virginian-Pilot, Herald-Sun

I don’t want to write about that first inning. Those masochists among you can get the play-by-play here. Let’s go on to something different.

Congratulations to the Norfolk Tides for winning the South Division. They’ve had a great year and we’ve seen some good games between the two teams. Today should be fun.

Yesterday saw the Triple A debut of Kyle Bird. He came up the Bowling Green Hot Rods, Rays A affiliate, to fill in for Jim Miller. Did just fine in his 1⅓ innings.

Kyle Bird

Outside the game—

• The West Division championship remains undecided! Standings.
• Some years ago the Bulls played their last game with all players using the same bat, until it got broken. Wonder if they will do that again today?
• If the Gwinnett Braves beat the Charlotte Knights today, and the Bulls win, the Bulls will end the year tied with the Knights for third place. 
• I’ve been a bit critical of the Herald-Sun this year, but Brooke Pryor’s piece on Jared Sandberg's year is a very nice job. Thanks.
• The Bulls started the year down in Gwinnett with the umpiring crew of Jon Byrne, Jansen Visconti, and Doug Vines. They are ending the year with the same crew.
• This promotion by the Gwinnett Braves could have some some odd unintended consequences. Can imagine a taxi pulling up outside the stadium and a guy in a Braves hat dragging his wife into the stadium. ... well you get the picture ...

Calling Dr. @ChopperGBraves...It's LABOR DAY! Preggos, come to today's game for FREE! Go into LABOR and FREE parties! pic.twitter.com/su7mHLxUkp

— Gwinnett Braves (@GwinnettBraves) September 7, 2015

Boog Booms One

Season: 72-69; Trip: 2-1
Wrap, Box, Charlotte Observer

Has Boog Powell turned into a home run hitter? He’s the guy who bunts his way on base a lot of the time and yet in the last two games he has put one over the wall. We expect it of Corey Brown, who hit a just barely fair one in the 9th for his 19th, or Taylor Motter, who’s 12th dinger in the 7th was the shot that doomed the Knights, but Powell?

Things got a bit testy in the 9th when the Knight’s Wendelkin tossed a pitch behind Taylor Motter. But Wedelken got ejected and if things didn’t calm down, at least the field got cleared of excess players after some intense discussions. In the last couple of games there was a good bit of plunkin’ and near-plunkin’ goin’ on. So maybe the umps had had enough. Too many home runs? Over the three game series 15 home runs were hit, 9 by Knights, 6 by Bulls, but that seems to be the result of the Knight’s very, very pretty Little League park. By the way, after Wendelkin got ejected, his replacement walked Motter and Corey Brown followed with his home run that put the game out of reach. Have to wonder what the chatter between dugouts was after that.

Meanwhile Blake Snell pitched his last minor league game of the year. With the Bulls he was 6-2 with a 1.83 ERA. He is an amazing young ballplayer. We can hope to see him for at least some of next season. The Rays have been appropriately cautious of him, limiting his pitch count and innings with the Bulls. Have to think that he will get in at least a couple of innings with the Rays before the end of this season.

We also saw Ernesto Frieri for the first time since July 7th. Frieri has been on the Durham Bulls’ books since passing through waivers on June 20, appearing in only 7 games. José Dominguez, another on and off pitcher, had a rough inning.

Now what? Standings. Norfolk leads Gwinnett by 2 games, they both have three games left to play.

Gwinnett plays Charlotte for their last three games down in Georgia. Norfolk comes to town for three games at the DBAP. As noted, Norfolk is just 2 games ahead of Gwinnett for the South Division title. That’s a big comedown for the Tides. They had led the division by six games as recently as August 18th, but they’ve had their troubles since then. Nevertheless, Gwinnett has to win all three against the Knights, and the Tides have to lose all three against the Bulls to take them completely out. We won’t go into tie-breaker rules. Makes my head hurt. Seems to me that both Norfolk and Gwinnett are going to have to work for it. By the way, the IL West is still a dead heat between Indianapolis and Columbus.

The Bulls are one game back of Charlotte. There’s a way for them to get out the cellar before the end of the year.

These last three games have odd timings: 6:35, 5:00, and 1:00. Don’t be late!

Roster moves —

• A pitcher, Kyle Bird, has been brought up all the way from Single A Bowling Green. Seems to be somewhat specialized for his age (22). 69Ks in 69 innings. Stats.
• Jim Miller was placed on the Temporarily Inactive List. Update: Reported to have become a new dad. Congrats!