Durham Bulls Starting Pitcher — Monday, 10 May

Tonight’s game at the Durham Athletic Park is likely to be a freak show at the under any circumstances, so Heath Phillips is probably as good as any other Bull to have on the mound. Should I point out that he was four years old when the movie Bull Durham was released? That every time our catcher goes out to the mound the crowd will be shouting Crash Davis-Nuke LaLoosh quotes? That I really, really wouldn’t want to be the guy in the Wool E. Bull costume tonight?

Heath’s numbers are a bit above the team’s (3.89 FIP, 3.81 ERA). He seems to be a bit home run prone as well. Stats.

Cold At the DBAP — Let’s Go To the DAP

Durham Athletic Park in 1940s and 2008
Photos courtesy Herald-Sun and Endangered Durham

Game 31: Durham Bulls 3, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees 9
Season: 19 -12
This Home Stand: 2-2
Streak: L2
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, Indy Week

Even with the temperature dropping, we expected hot bats and hotter pitching last night. That’s pretty much what we got — except not by the Bulls. We’ve seen Jeremy Hellickson struggle before but that time Justin Ruggiano led the Bulls to a come from behind, super-exciting win. This time Jeremy left the game in the 6th with no one out and the bases loaded. Mike Ekstrom could not hold ‘em and all of them scored.

Nevertheless, the 6th did have two glad-I-was-at-the-game moments. Situation: bases loaded, five runs have already scored, still nobody out, Reegie Corona at bat. Jose Lobaton rockets a throw to shortstop Angel Chavez and picks off Yankee Robby Hammock for first out. A pitch or so later, Yankee Golson tries to steal second. A strike from Lobaton to Dillon catches him. Two outs. Corona grounds out and we’re finally out of the inning. Pretty, pretty throws by Lobaton.

The last time Winston Abreu tried to go two innings he lost the game. This time the game was not at risk, but Charlie pulled him after 1 ⅔. Radioman Neil Solondz thinks that Winston’s got to demonstrate that he can go two innings if he wants to be called up. Indy Week writer Sobsey thinks that Abreu hasn’t recovered from aneurysm surgery. Back to the gym/weight room Winston. We need you.

OK. Toledo is coming to town. This second-most-famous club in minor league baseball (we were a movie, they were a logo in a long-running TV show), is a Tigers affiliate and usually pretty good team.

The baseball, however, will be taking second fiddle to nostalgia tonight. And appropriately so. Here’s one piece from the Herald-Sun.

Webworld:

DRaysBay watching a couple of our Bulls.
Leslie Anderson, the Cuban defector whom we’ll probably see sometime this season, is making his way up through the Rays system.

Durham Bulls Starting Pitcher — Sunday, 9 May

(click chart for larger image)

Jeremy Hellickson is having a stellar year. His numbers are superb across the board, and he’s winning games. He’s by far our best pitcher and among the best in AAA baseball. We are fortunate Tampa Bay doesn’t need him right now.

On a related topic (stat-geek warning!) Carlos Hernandez’ performance last night was pure fodder for the baseball numerologists. Going into the game his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 4.68, his ERA was 3.10, and his won-loss record was 2-0.

He took the loss and is now 2-1.

But, since the play in which an error was committed could have ended the inning, all the runs scored thereafter were “unearned”. Hernandez lasted two more innings. So, for the night he had 0 earned runs and his ERA dropped from 3.10 to 2.73.

Of course, no one watching could call it a strong performance (except for the seven strikeouts — that was impressive). He took 94 pitches to get through 4 innings and he gave up a home run and two walks. His FIP barely changed, from 4.68 to 4.65.

So, you’ve got to score one for the sabremetricians on this one, the FIP sure looks like it judges pitchers better than ERA, at least in the case of Hernandez.

Bulls Go Quietly; Ready for DAP?

Photo courtesy Durham County Library and Endangered Durham

A hundred years ago parking was a problem at El Toro field. Wonder how it will be tomorrow?

Game 30: Durham Bulls 2, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees 4
Season: 19-11
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, Indy Week

Last night was to have been a big night for two players who have been out of the lineup for a while, Angel Chavez and Desmond Jennings. Chavez had only missed a few days, but Jennings has been out for a couple of weeks. Jennings had a good night — single, double, RBI, stolen base. As for Chavez, well, his return to shortstop could have been better.

In his first at bat in the 2nd inning Chavez hit a solid single, but tried to stretch it into a double and got thrown out for the last out of the inning. In the 3rd Scranton had runners on first and third with one out. A classic “strike ‘em out/throw ‘em out” play didn’t quite work. Carlos Hernandez got the strike out and the runner from first was caught in a run down. But Chavez threw the ball away when the runner on third broke for home. So, instead of being out of the inning, Scranton had a run in and a runner on second. Hernandez walked the next batter and gave up a three-run homer to Scranton’s Winfree.

But all was not lost. In the 6th inning Chavez came to bat with runners on first and second and one out. Of course, this being his night to be the goat, he hit into a 3-6-1 double play.

Shake it off, Angel. Shows you what a quirky game baseball can be.

A very bright light in the evening was Heath Rollins. He had what was, by far, his best outing of the year. He went 3 ⅓ innings with 2 walks, 4 strikeouts, and used a reasonable 54 pitches to get there.

Clearly Charlie Montoyo is a member of the crowd that thinks stolen bases count for something. The bottom of the 3rd last night was a classic example of how that approach can work. With one out, Rashad Eldridge drew a walk. Eldridge stole second during Jennings’s at bat, then scored on Jennings’ single. Jennings then stole second and scored on Elliot Johnson’s single. Elliot Johnson stole second, but neither Joe Dillon or Hank Blalock could bring him in. Still, our only runs last night came off of stolen bases.

Pretty sure I saw Jeff Bennett leaning against the rail in the Bulls dugout last night. Bennett has not been seen here since April 15th when he left the game after facing two batters. Is he back? Would be nice if he were, assuming he’s healthy.

Today is the last time to see the Yankees this year, unless we meet in the playoffs.

Durham Bulls Starting Pitcher — Saturday, 8 May

click chart for larger image

Most baseball statistics are static. By that I mean when you look at them you don’t know if the player is getting better or getting worse. So I thought I’d try to draw a picture of changes over time for our starting pitchers. I’d appreciate some readers’ comments. Is a chart like this useful? I’ll keep it up through at least one rotation and then revisit. Seems to help me get my head into the day’s game.

Carlos Hernandez has had five starts this year. He’s pitched 29 innings and has a 2-0 record. He is the only left handed pitcher on the Bulls roster.

The chart plots his FIP and ERA as they changed over those five games.

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is a number built around what a pitcher can control: home runs given up, walks, hit batters, strikeouts and innings pitched. Hernandez has given up 3 homers, walked 12, hit 2, and struck out 19. What’s worrisome is that the current trend is upwards.

ERA is really affected by small sample size and the vagaries of the team behind the pitcher, meaning the quirks of “earned” vs. “unearned” rulings. Over time, these two curves should start getting closer together. But that growing FIP curve is not a good for the future. The dropping ERA is tricky to evaluate. We'll have to see about that after a few more innings.

What does this say about Hernandez? Well, these aren’t particularly good numbers. And he’s averaging less than 5 innings per start. Hernandez ended up in 2009 with an ERA of 3.29 over 112 innings, so realistically we shouldn’t expect too much more than what we’ve seen so far. If the Bulls keep up their run production, that should be enough in most games. Still, it would be nice if he could go longer in the games.

Pitcher Emerging?

From “Baseball’s Hometown Teams: The Story of the Minor Leagues” by Bruce Chadwick and posted on Endangered Durham

Game 29: Durham Bulls 9, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees 3
Season: 19-10
This Home Stand: 2-0
Streak: W4
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, Indy Week

No reason to stop worrying about our starting pitching, but maybe we can be a little less worried. Richard de los Santos really looked good last night, going well into the 6th inning. If his ERA of 4.56 looks a bit high, remember that after his first appearance of the year it was 27.00. He is billed as a “spot starter” as in, “We don’t have anyone else, so throw a reliever to the wolves.” This is his second start. He took the loss the last time out, but it was five innings in a 1-0 loss to Rochester, hardly a typical Bulls game this year. Last night Bulls had seven runs across before Bateman came in with two outs in the 7th.

About those 7 runs — we got two more in the 7th and 8th — the amazing year continues. The Bulls have scored 42 runs in the last four games. The run differential against our opponents is 67, another amazing number. Then there’s last night with 14 hits, including 5 doubles and 2 home runs (and 5 walks). Or the last four games with 99 total bases. We’ve had 500 total bases this year. The team OPS is .850!

Take one player, Joe Dillon. In the 1st inning he drew a walk with Elliot Johnson on 2nd. He then went to 3rd base on a Hank Blalock single (Elliot scored) and then scored on a Dan Johnson single. In the 3rd inning he hit a single to lead off the inning, got his first steal, but was left on base. He grounded out to lead off the 5th. He was Durham’s sixth batter in the 6th inning, coming up with two outs and Elliot Johnson on second and Perez on third. Perez zipped home on a wild pitch, Dillon alertly signaling that the Yankee’s catcher couldn’t find the ball. He then hit a double, sending Johnson home from third. Hank Blalock sent Dillon home with a single. To top it off, in the 8th he banged a homer off the bull. Pretty good day, 3 for 4, 2 RBIs, a walk, and 3 runs scored. And yet Joe's batting average of .316 is fifth among Bulls hitters! His OPS of .933 is sixth. Tells you something about this team.

Bench: Jennings (14, got another 1/2 inning in), Ruggiano (4), Chavez (5), Colina (1). Think that Luna is back to Charlotte without an at bat.

WebWorld:

• Photo above is from a website we were alerted to by the Bulls’ George Habel at his blog, Notes to Self. The website is Endangered Durham and it has some really cool old photos of El Toro Field and the Durham Athletic Park.

• The Wall Street Journal takes a look at that burning issue, how come we have two major leagues?

• Her Rays is having trouble dealing with the late night games the Rays are playing on the west coast. You just gotta click on the link. Trust me. You’ll love it.

• Great story-telling continues over at The Life of a Baseball Wife, including this one about coping with a husband off playing winter ball.

Nice To Be Back Home

Game 28: Durham Bulls 13, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees 8
Season: 18-10
This home stand: 1-0
Streak: W3
Wrap, Box

The Bulls had another extraordinary run-producing game. Simply amazing what they are able to do with a bat this year.

But first let me rant about the pitching, because if that isn’t sorted out you have to think things are going to drop off the edge some day soon.

After two terrific starts, Aneury Rodriguez has had two crummy starts. Not possible to guess why, but it sure would help if he were backed up by the bullpen. But until we got to Mike Ekstrom, the fourth pitcher of the day, none of the relievers were helping at all. Particularly egregious was how the number 8 and 9 batters in the Yankee’s order were treated. In their first 8 plate appearances they got seven walks and a single. Four, count ‘em, four of the walks later scored. That is simply terrible pitching. Here’s hoping that they get it out of their systems.

On the other hand, a ton of those guys that our pitchers let on base, stayed on base (13).

On our side, you have to admire the way we kept coming back. Up a few runs, down a few runs, up a few runs. Colina’s homer in the 6th was particularly timely and pretty. Hank Blalock’s three-run shot into the seats in the 8th was just beautiful. And congrats to Jose Lobaton for his first home run as a Bull (also in the 8th, and the winning run).

On the Bench: Jennings (13) (Note: he had a ½ inning in center field); Ruggiano (3) (Note: Ruggiano now officially on DL for bicep injury, backdated to 3 May); D. Johnson (1); Chavez (4); Luna (3). Why is WDBB doing this? Because we are getting really worried about the health of this team.

JonWeberWatch: Double, single, 1 RBI, 1 run scored.

Bulls Radio: Very pleased to pass on to you that Bulls Radio is broadcasting inside the park on low power FM 87.7 in addition to AM 620. The Bulls front office was very responsive to a fan request that involved mumbling about not having “old” technology like portable AM radios and bragging about their new iPod with its built in FM tuner. However, it is called low-power FM for a reason. The signal barely reaches the front gate. But there it is for all you folks unwilling to go back to the 20th century, 87.7. Now if they could just get an iPhone/iPad app …

[Correction: Frequency is 87.7, not the frequency in the original posting]

Virgil Vasquez: Yesterday and this morning there was a bit of a kerfuffle regarding Virgil Vasquez’s status in the Rays system. A report in Baseball America was picked up at Rays Prospects and passed on in a comment in WDBB. We were well into our high dudgeon/rant mode going into today's game.

But Virgil is still with the Rays. According to Bulls radio, Virgil Vasquez is in Extended Spring Training at the Rays facility in Florida (Port Charlotte?). From what I can learn, Virgil was “released” and then resigned immediately thereafter. Why would they do that? Who knows. But if I were a betting man, I’d bet on it having something to do with the Rays insurance policies.