The Durham Bulls are the champions of minor league baseball for 2009.
Durham defeated the Memphis Redbirds tonight at Oklahoma City’s Bricktown Ballpark in the Triple-A National Championship. To most people, the means the Bulls are sort of like the champions of the tallest group of midgXXXX, little people.
The game’s most valuable player was a guy who hadn’t been in the game for more than two hours when it ended after 11 innings and 3:48. Durham right-hander Jeremy Hellickson allowed just two hits and a walk in five scoreless innings, left with a 4-0 lead and watched the Bull pen give up the lead.
The Bulls won it 5-4, when Oneli Perez entered the game as Memphis’ sixth pitcher and threw one pitch. The ball went to the backstop, and pinch runner Rashad Eldridge scored from third base on the wild pitch.
The Bulls, representing the International League as the Tampa Bay Rays’ top farm team, defeated the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate that won the Pacific Coast League championship.
Doubles by Ray Olmedo and Desmond Jennings broke a scoreless in the bottom of the third inning. Durham was designated as the home team as a reward for the International League’s victory in the Triple-A all-star game.
Sean Rodriguez led off the fourth with a home run into the left field seats. The Bulls added two more in the inning on Olmedo’s run-scoring double and losing pitcher P.J. Walters’ mental lapse.
With two out and Olmedo at second base, Walters ran to cover first base on a grounder to first baseman Mark Hamilton, but too late to put out the speedy Jennings. As Walters continued past first base, Olmedo broke for home and beat the pitcher’s throw.
Dutham left-hander Jason Cromer nearly undid the Bulls’ 4-0 lead while pitching to four batters and retiring none of them.
Jon Jay led off the Redbirds’ sixth with an opposite-field home run to left field. After Tyler Greene singled, Allen Craig sliced a two-run homer over the wall near the 325-foot mark at the right field foul pole to cut the lead to 4-3.
Memphis tied the game in the seventh on David Freese’s sacrifice fly sandwiched among three walks and a hit batsman.
It was good to see Hellickson win the MVP award, and to get a chance to talk with him. He has spent the last two or three years in some of my fantasy teams’ farm system. Here’s why I like him: In 4 ½ minor league seasons, Hellickson has a 37-13 record -- including 9-2 this year for Double-A Montgomery and Durham. And a whole lot of other excellent statistics that tell me he’ll be a star in the major leagues as soon as 2010.
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