Triangle Offense

I had plans last night and stopped listening to the Durham Bulls' radio broadcast with the Bulls leading Syracuse, 5-0, in the seventh inning. Matt Joyce hit a grand slam in the first inning and Bulls' starter Jeremy Hellickson was cruising, having allowed just a single baserunner. The Bulls seemed well on their way to an easy win on getaway day.

I should have known better. Hellickson allowed a two-out, three-run homer to Seth Bynum in the bottom of the seventh---long balls are his one obvious weakness so far---and gave the Chiefs life. The Bulls added a run to their lead in the next inning on a passed ball, but not before Syracuse outfielder Justin Maxwell got ejected, the second time he's been tossed from a game versus the Bulls this year. According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, his ejection had to do with the last out of the seventh inning, on which Maxwell grounded out to third base and protested the call at first. Manager Tim Foli joined him in the dispute and in the clubhouse. Must have been a fun argument to watch. I hope I never make Justin Maxwell mad.

Sometimes ejections light a fire under a team, and in this case Jason Childers had a gasoline can with him when he came on to replace Hellickson in the eighth inning. With a 6-3 Bulls lead, Childers faced four batters and retired none of them. It went: triple, double, single, single, Dale Thayer. Thayer got charged with a blown save when he allowed a game-tying sacrifice fly to Daryle Ward. (This is, by the way, a ridiculous rule. All Thayer did was retire all three men he faced in order, but it's he, rather than Childers (who put the man on third base), whose stats take a hit.)

Anyway, the Bulls scored three more runs in the top of the ninth. Shawn Riggans had a two-run double and Michel Hernandez added his third sacrifice fly in two days. Winston Abreu, suddenly Sandman again, eliminated a one-out walk with a double play, and this one goes in the win column, 9-6. Deep breath.

The Bulls now have a 3.5-game lead over Syracuse in the wild-card chase. A couple of quick notes follow.

The Syracuse Chiefs took a 2-0 lead over the Durham Bulls early in last night's game, and Bulls broadcaster Neil Solondz noted that the Bulls had done the same in Sunday's game before the Chiefs rallied to win, 3-2. You got the sense that he was hoping the Bulls might reverse the stream and visit the same comeback on Syracuse. Sure enough, the Bulls tied the game with two runs in the sixth, then won it in the eighth, by that same 3-2 score, on Michel Hernandez's second sacrifice fly of the night.

This was a big win for the Bulls. They dropped Syracuse 2.5 games behind them in the wild-card chase; elsewhere, both Norfolk and Toledo lost and each team fell five games back; and Gwinnett lost both games of a doubleheader at home to Charlotte. That pulled the Bulls to within 2.5 games of the Braves for the South Division lead. Plenty can happen between now and Saturday, when the Braves visit the DBAP for four games, but if the Bulls can stay close, it'll be a critical series. If nothing else, the Bulls can add another important game to their wild-card lead on Tuesday if they can beat Syracuse again. They can also earn their first series win in their last six.

Game details and notes follow.

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The Bulls' Joe Bateman hit consecutive batters in the ninth inning last night in Syracuse, but it was the Bulls who felt the pain. The Chiefs' Norris Hopper hit a two-out, game-

winning single to score one of the plunkees, handing the Bulls a 3-2 loss.

So it wasn't walks that did the Bulls in, but a sort of fast-track walk, the hit batter. And where the Bulls' clutch hitting tends to abet control problems in losses, last night the lineup didn't even mount enough threats to set up clutch situations. The Bulls scored twice in the second inning (with help from a pair of, ahem, walks); after that, they had only four baserunners, and just one of those advanced to second base.

Wade Davis did a fine job on the mound for the Bulls, but a Reid Brignac error helped an unearned run score, and Davis gave up a solo homer to (I told you to watch out for) Brad Eldred. Davis's counterpart, the Chiefs' Marco Estrada---the same guy who opposed him a couple of weeks ago at the DBAP---was again excellent. He stifled the Bulls on August 8, allowing just a pair of unearned runs on two hits in seven innings; last night, he allowed two runs in six innings, overcoming his second-inning control problems and matching Davis's results. Charlie Montoyo was reluctant to credit Estrada in the August 8 ballgame, choosing instead to blame his hitters' approach at the plate. But after Estrada shut Durham down again last night, one has to concede that Estrada himself may have been the reason for his success.

Some curious bullpen management by Montoyo last night: Dale Thayer replaced Davis in the seventh and tossed a pair of scoreless innings, leaving he ninth for Bateman. Usually, it would be Thayer handling the late shift, with Bateman setting him up. There's definitely a reason for the switch, perhaps Tampa-related, and Bateman has closed out games for Montoyo before; still, it's a bit of a head-scratcher.

In the Bulls' official game report, you'll happen upon a typo: "The Bulls are 1.5 games behind Syracuse in the wild card race and four games in front of Toledo and Norfolk." The Bulls are actually 1.5 games ahead of the Chiefs, but the mistake reflects some growing pessimism, even inside the organization, about the Bulls' state of affairs. Although the team is still lined up for a playoff spot, lately they haven't looked like they're headed for the post-season. Good games are followed by bad ones, the club's overall energy rises and falls, and their record over the last three weeks is just 10-12. The Bulls look middling, inconsistent, beatable.

Meanwhile, Gwinnett keeps on winning and now has a four-game lead over Durham in the International League South Division. And the wild-card race is thickening---in the quotation nestled in the paragraph above, careful readers will have spotted Toledo now entering the rear-view mirror (this is not a NASCAR post!), thanks to the Mud Hens' eight-game winning streak. Make no mistake: if the Bulls coast all the way into Labor Day at a .500 pace, one of the three teams on their tail will overtake them. The law of averages virtually assures it.

A quick note about the roster. Chris Richard had a cortisone shot in his wrist (maybe he and Carlos Hernandez, who also had one recently, can compare notes), and he's expected back perhaps as early as Monday. In the interest of giving Joe Dillon most of a night off on Sunday, Charlie Montoyo started Henry Mateo at first base, which is something I can't even picture. Dillon entered the game late when Mateo moved to second to replace Akinori Iwamura, who played a scheduled seven innings. Elliot Johnson (strained quadriceps) is eligible to come off the disabled list, and he has been running and taking batting practice. Look for him to return to action very soon. He'll give the team a boost. It needs one.

Andy Sonnanstine pitches for the Bulls on Monday night. If the Chiefs' rotation is still in the same order, his opponent will be Ross Detwiler. Those two faced each other at the DBAP on August 9, and the Bulls shredded Detwiler on their way to giving Sonnanstine an easy 11-5 win.

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Nice to see the Bulls get off to a resoundingly positive start on a crucial seven-game road trip to Syracuse and Norfolk, the two teams trailing them in the International League wild-card race. That isn't to say that the South Division title is out of reach---the Bulls trail Gwinnett by three games with 16 left to play---but if they concentrate on putting some distance between themselves and their pursuers, they'll have plenty of momentum coming into their four-game showdown with the Braves at the DBAP when they return (buy your tickets now!).

Desmond Jennings (pictured) was one hit short of the cycle for the second time in his last three starts, this time substituting a homer for the triple, and the Bulls took a quick 5-0 lead after three innings, extended it to 7-0 after five, and rode out a 9-2 win at Syracuse. Every Bull in the starting lineup had at least one hit, including Shawn Riggans, whose fifth-inning double snapped an 0/18 spell since his return from the disabled list. Jason Cromer pitched well enough, if inefficiently, and earned his sixth win. Calvin Medlock, Joe Nelson and Winston Abreu finished up. Nelson allowed singles to the first two men he faced, so his BA-against and OBP-against are still very scary, but perhaps we're seeing a gradual return to good form for him.

A very good thing has happened to the Chiefs' Mike Morse: he was recalled to Washington a few days ago. That's also very good thing for the Bulls, because Morse pounded Durham pitching when the Chiefs came to town earlier this month: he went 6/14 with two homers, a double, three walks and seven RBIs. Syracuse did, however, regain the services of 6-foot-5, 290-pound (!) righty slugger Brad Eldred. Eldred went hitless in five trips to the plate last night, with a walk and a strikeout. The Chiefs pulled a Durham, going 2/12 with RISP and stranding 12 men on base---a little balancing of the Bulls' recent ledger.

Chris Richard sat out a third straight game with what Charlie Montoyo told us was a wrist problem. With Elliot Johnson on the disabled list---he's eligible to come off Sunday, although there's no word if he will---Richard's absence means that Joe Dillon is the everyday first baseman and Ray Olmedo is inked in at third. Olmedo has now played nine straight games, which is many more than any Bull should be logging right now. He's 8/35 in that stretch. All eight of his hits have been singles (one of them a bunt), he's drawn only one walk, and he has hit into three double plays. He has also committed four errors. It's one of those oddities of minor-league baseball that a guy with a .614 OPS, who leads the team in errors, and who walks about once every 20 times at bat, can wind up with the third-most games played on the roster. The Olmedos of the world tend to be utility players because they aren't good enough to hold down a position. Their utility makes them, unfortunately, indispensable; they're the duct tape of ballclubs, which tend to want for nails (the good hardware is used for major-league jobs). And I think I've hammered that point into the floor (ha ha ha, sorry).

Wade Davis, coming off a superb outing in which he took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, is on the mound for the Bulls on Sunday. On August 8 at the DBAP, he came within a batter of blanking Syracuse for seven innings. Gametime is 5:00 p.m.