Day: May 22, 2008

In baseball, a good player puts a poor performance out of mind as soon as the game’s over. Obviously Cole McCurry did something a little different between starts, going from a dreadful performance down in Kannapolis (8 earned runs in 2 1/3 innings) to a gem against Greensboro in the space of one week. On Monday Cole dominated the Grasshoppers, allowing just two hits in seven innings of shutout ball while striking out ten.

Another of the many lower-round draft picks that dot this year’s Shorebird roster (in this case, the 43rd round), the 22 year old lefty still managed to skip a level at the tail end of last season. While he pitched in the lowest rookie level for the Orioles’ entry in the Gulf Coast League for most of 2007, he made two appearances with Delmarva at the end of the season and was relatively impressive, finishing 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings of work.

Although his 2008 numbers aren’t great as a whole (a 1-4 record and 5.75 ERA in 40 2/3 innings pitched), toss out the bad start in Kannapolis and the earned run average falls to a more respectable 4.26 mark. Another good indicator of his ability is having 39 strikeouts against just 9 walks, making his WHIP 1.30. He does have a surprisingly high number of hits given up (44) for being a good strikeout pitcher and also a tendency to give up a lot of fly ball outs.

So did this young man from Tennessee Wesleyan College find something to assist him in keeping the pitches down and off the opposing hitters’ bats with his dominating performance earlier this week? It’ll be something to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

I was talking to Shorebirds GM Chris Bitters yesterday evening and asked him about attendance. Surprisingly, it’s running close to last year’s despite the generally poor weather our region has seemingly endured this spring.

Being the curious sort, I did a bit of research. Including last night, there have been 23 nights the Shorebirds have managed to play a home game (not counting the three games scrubbed due to rain or wet field conditions.) Out of those 23 calendar days, we failed to reach our average high for the date on 13 of them, including 7 of the 11 dates thus far in May. Also, on 10 of those days this season we’ve had measurable precipitation and it’s seemed that the majority of those days we had rain during the ballgame (including last night.) We have not played at home on a dry day where the temperature was above average since May 6th – only 6 home dates of the 23 have been like that this season.

In comparison, the days where the Shorebirds have been on the road have been the nice ones. 12 of the 23 days were above average in temperature and 10 of the 23 featured rain – however in April the Shorebirds were away on 7 straight days where we had above-average temperatures and no precipitation. (Included in the string were the weekends of Pork in the Park and the Salisbury Festival.)

Because of that, it’s a tribute to the fans that we’ve even come close to normal on attendance. For the 12 April dates, 31,239 fans braved the elements at Perdue Stadium, about 2,600 per opening. With some promotions and a couple decent evenings at the ballpark weatherwise, the total through last night has bumped up to 72,897 – an average of 3,169 per game. (Between the last two evenings though the average took a hit as less than 3,000 combined made it out on two raw, chilly nights. Monday night’s draw was a pathetic 1,013.)

True to form, the weatherman is predicting sunny weather and highs in the 80’s come Saturday when the Shorebirds hit the road for 8 games in 9 days. But the worm will have to turn sometime and June promises to be a good month as the Shorebirds wrap up the first half with a short homestand against division-leading Lake County then host Phillies affiliate Lakewood in mid-month. Also on the June docket is cross-state rival Hagerstown as Delmarva only has 10 home games scheduled for the month.

With 44 home dates left, Delmarva is on a pace to draw just over 212,000 fans for the season. It would be a slight dip from last year’s total but traditionally attendance has picked up once the kids are out of school and weeknights are no longer school nights. Still being this close to pace after all the rain and chill speaks well of fan loyalty. Hopefully the team can reward them with a stellar playoff run.