Hold Alex in Your Hearts

Most Bulls fans know bits and pieces of Alex Montoyo’s story. Charlie Montoyo’s five year old son is about to undergo yet another open-heart surgery, his fourth in five years. Charlie is off to Los Angeles in a day or so and Dave Myers will be managing in his absence.

See Harold Gutmann’s terrific story in yesterday’s Herald-Sun.

Guyer!

Season: 5-1

Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

If you missed the first inning, you pretty much missed it all last night. Brandon Guyer set all sorts of records with his two home runs and 5 RBIs in the inning as 12 Bulls came to bat to score 10 runs. But there were hints of more that auger well for 2013.

Catcher Craig Albernaz, who is sure to get more playing time this year, had an RBI double in the inning and cracked two very authoritative-sounding, but caught, shots later in the game. Third baseman Cole Figueroa also had an RBI double and went on to pick up a single and a triple. Four other Bulls got hits in the inning, one of the biggest in Bulls’ history.

Not to be overlooked was Alexander Torres’ opening the game with 3Ks. He went on to have a very solid five innings. That raises our hopes regarding young Mr. Torres.

Bulls’ relievers were less impressive. At an inning each, neither new guy Steve Geltz nor Frank De Los Santos looked sharp. Possibly coming in with a huge (12-0) lead had something to do with it. But the two of them gave up 8 runs and pretty much ruined their ERAs for quite a while. (Speaking of ruining an ERA, Gwinnett starter Daniel Rodriguez was charged with nine runs on only one out — ERA = 243.00!)

Will Inman did just fine and Josh Lueke closed it out with some serious heat.

Outside the game —

• Regular readers may remember a project organized by Sam Stephenson that put together photography and stories centered on the Bulls and the DBAP near the end of the 2011 season. He’s back with something that should be very interesting as he has put together a crew to record the full 2013 season. Here’s one story and here’s a link to their exceptionally well done web site. Once they get going you will want to add the RSS feed as a regular place to visit. Stephenson and writer Adam Sobsey were interviewed yesterday on WUNC radio. Worth a listen.
• On opening day I almost went into full-blown rant mode when Doc and Merle Watson’s version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was not played for the 7th inning stretch. Pleased to report that they are back and in fine form.
• Great fun to watch/listen to current and former Bulls read lines from “Bull Durham” played as part of the evening between-innings work. Gotta find my 20th Anniversary hat. Should he hanging around the house somewhere.
• Adam Sobsey introduces the Bulls via Indy Week.

Baseball At Last

Trooper Mike Potts and Son to throw opening pitch
photo Durham Herald-Sun

Season: 3-1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, News & Observer

As our regular readers know, here at WDBB we tend to highlight the quirks of the game or stuff that catches our eye. We figure most fans have already seen or listened to the game or possibly followed one of the links. So we all sort of know what happened.

That perspective makes it really fun to write about an opening day and even more fun to point out what a bizarre end it was. I don’t know how to research this, but a baseball game with no earned runs by either team has got to be an oddity. If no earned runs, then no RBIs either. Very strange.

All the scoring action took place in the 9th inning after a superb 6 ⅔  inning outing by Jake Odorizzi and an impressive four outs in eight pitches by Adam Liberatore (see, I said I look for the quirks of the game). But then in the 9th Josh Leuke walked a batter and followed that with a fielding error that put runners on first and second. Another error, this one by shortstop Hak-Ju Lee let a run in.

In the end, however, conventional baseball wisdom lost the game for the Braves. In the 9th Wil Myers led off with a single and the Braves went into a “no-doubles” defense (fielders back near the warning tracks) for reasons admirably explained by color commentator Scot Pose (By the way, great to have fellow University of Arkansas Alum Pose back in the radio booth this season. He brings a lot to the game.) Problems arose, however, when that alignment allowed a weak Leslie Anderson liner to drop in front of the Braves center fielder and Myers was able to reach third base. Chris Giminez drew a walk and, again, conventional wisdom called for the infield to be drawn in. That can often work. This time it didn’t. The Braves shortstop couldn’t handle a Brandon Guyer grounder and two runs scored.

Meanwhile, the weather could not have been better. We experienced one of our proudest moments watching former Durham Bulls pitcher Trooper Mike Potts and his son throw the first pitch and the standing ovation that greeted them. The men’s choir’s rendition of the National Anthem was spot on. The baseball was crisp. I’m gonna withhold judgment on the Bull Durham doll race for the moment. It was kind cute, though. And it got some attention outside our area. The “little bulls” parade is still my favorite.

Solid set of videos at WRAL site.

Outside the game —

A comment to another post points out that the starting rotation seemed to be disrupted by the postponed game, lengthy game, double header, etc. down in Norfolk, not sure why that should be. I'm sure if we could ask Charlie Montoyo we could get a better answer but here's my guess. All five starters this year (Archer, Colome, Montgomery, Odorizzi, and Torres) are on the Rays 40-man. In addition to being on reduced pitch counts for the early part of the season (75-85) Tampa Bay wants to have at least one of those guys available for a spot start at any moment. That means putting them on a schedule and keeping them on a schedule.

But that's absolutely pure speculation. If there's another reason that makes more sense please share it with us.

Player Added; Player Never to be Added

As we wait for the first home game to start we hear that the Bulls bullpen will be getting some help to fill the hole opened when Brandon Gomes was called up to the Rays. Adam Liberatore, a 26 year old left-handed reliever, is coming up from the Montgomery Biscuits. He appeared in 16 games for the Bulls last year with a stellar 1.29 ERA over 21 innings. Happy to have him. Stats.

On the other hand, Robinson Chirinos, a catcher we saw the year before last, and liked a lot, has been traded to the Texas Rangers. Chirinos and former Bull Steven Vogt had been designated for assignment by the Rays a week or so ago. That’s two catchers out of the Rays system in just a few days.

By the way, it’s great to hear (thanks, Rob) that that Steven Vogt has started his career as a Sacramento River Cat with a single, home run, and a strike ‘em out/throw ‘em out play.

Let's Go to a Ball Game!

The last game played by the Durham Bulls in the Durham Bulls Athletic Park was on September 1, 2012. That was a long, long time ago. I hope that you are as ready as I am to drive over there and see some baseball today.

Parking for Bulls baseball games has always been a bit tricky, but mostly these days we've got paved parking, even covered decks for some. And the field's looking better than it used to.

As important as nostalgia is to baseball, I have to say that I really like the DBAP and Wool E. Bull and can't wait to see him spin out his go-cart;

And watch the Bull smoke!

Have fun today!

-----

OK, I couldn't let the day go by without at least some baseball stats ...

Headed Home!

Season: 3-1
Wrap, Box 1, Box 2

This is an interesting team coming to Durham.

In four games they put together 35 hits, scored 19 runs, drew 20 walks, hit 6 doubles, two triples, but just one home run. Speedy? Heck yes. They stol 6 bases while getting caught just once. The pitching looks good with the starters putting together an ERA of 2.95 and the relievers just 1.20 (Team ERA 2.16).

Sure it’s just four games against a team whose front office messes with them even more than the Rays mess with the Bulls. But I’m encouraged. Listing to the game — the audio stream was working today. Hooray! — they just sounded like fun.

There were some serious oddities with the pitching rotation (the Bulls are running one short in the reliever ranks) and the team has already put in a bunch of innings. We were scared to death that today’s second game was going to go into extra innings. Will it sort itself out? I hope so.

But I just didn’t hear anything to worry about.

And now we get to see these guys at last!

Great Start!

Season: 1-0

Box, Wrap, Virginian-Pilot

Has it really been 215 days since the Bulls last played a baseball game? It has. And how different this one was as every Bulls batter except Vince Belnome got a hit — and he got two walks and an RBI sacrifice fly.

Chris Archer only gave up a couple of hits and just the one run in his five very efficient (82 pitches) innings. Kirby Yates gave up a home run for the only other Tides score.

We’ll have to go with Patrick Kinas’ call of the game to judge young Mr. Hak-Ju Lee, but it sure sounded like he’s going to have fun in AAA — 2 runs on two hits (triple and single) and a walk, and two stolen bases.

Pleased to discover that the various media seemed to be working OK (I don’t have MiLB television, though). Although signal not good, AM 620 was broadcasting. Gameday and audio streaming through internet was working. And the Bulls iPhone app was working when I tried it.

Outside the Game —

• Steven Vogt (recently designated for assignment by the Rays) was traded to Oakland and will start the season with the Sacramento River Cats,  Oakland's AAA team. We’ll miss him on the club for a lot of reasons. Does this mean we will see more of Craig Albernaz in the lineup? Maybe. 
• We haven’t seen anything on the web regarding Robinson Chirinos who was DFA’d with Vogt. Not sure exactly when the clock started for him.
• Have not heard if there’s a replacement coming for Brandon Gomes, who was called up Thursday.

Double Header Tonight! Starts at 6:05. 

Tonight’s games will not be on AM 620. If you are one of the 10 people in the Triangle with an HD radio the games will be on 99.9 HD3. Otherwise the games will be streamed or available through smartphone apps. Probably 7 inning games, but not sure about that.

Last note: Patrick Kinas is back doing play-by-play. Good. He calls a good game. I will enter here, once again, a plea for Kinas’ pre-game interviews and commentary to be made available as podcasts. Seems like that would be simple and painless to do. Hey, stick an ad in the middle and make some money!