Week 5: Bulls Split

Week 5 was OK. The Bulls were at home and played well, mostly. They split 3-3 against a very good Memphis team. Aside from the Taj Bradley blowup on Sunday and the terrible, horrible, execrable, odious, and just plain wrong home run call that gave away three runs and lost the game for the Bulls on Wednesday (and ended up with pitcher Elvin Rodriguez being thrown out of the game), not a bad week.

Statistically, hitting stayed even, ERA and WHIP lost ground, and fielding continued to improve. The drop in run differential is worrisome.

For some reason, the standings are now split into East and West Divisions although the fine print says that championships will disregard regions (as does the schedule). Overall, the Bulls started the week in 5th place and ended the week in 5th place.

ABS and Challenge Games

This week saw the full-blown implementation of both the Automated Balls and Strikes System and the Challenge system, all driven by some fancy whiz-bang technology. How it works and the way it’s used depends on the day of the week you go to the game. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the machines tell the ump what to call — ball or strike. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the ump calls the game, but players (batter, catcher, or pitcher) can “challenge” the call and the machine will decide the call (and show the path of the ball on the video board). Each team gets three challenges. If they are wrong, then they lose the challenge. If they are right, they retain the challenge. Details here.

If the home plate ump’s not quite as busy Tuesday thru Thursday, then how come he missed the call on Wednesday? Just asking. 

Speaking of umpires, this week’s crew included Jennifer Pawol, on track to be MLB’s first female umpire. I’m not sure if this is a first at the DBAP. It’s not something I track. Just happened to notice that she was the only member of the crew not involved in a controversial call this week.

Matchup

The Bulls are off to Norfolk to play the Norfolk Tides, Baltimore’s team. They are doing very, very well this season. They swept the Bulls 3-0 at the DBAP to start things off and they’ve been doing well since.