With the exception of the All-Star Break from July 15 – 17, the Tides have six off-days this season. Today is one of them. This gives us a day to celebrate yesterday’s 8-4 victory over Durham. Jurrjens got the win over Colome and avoided the series sweep. Hoes and Schoop put our Tides ahead early. Durham tied the game up 3-3 in the fourth, but the Tides lit up Paduch, Inman, and Liberatore out of the Bull-pen (pun intended).

After a long bus ride last night, the team arrived in Charlotte to start a five-game series with the Knights tomorrow. Then, finally, they come back home to us on Saturday for four games with the Mud Hens and four with Syracuse. For those of you who like the fireworks shows at Harbor Park, the first fireworks of the season will be Saturday night. I believe they will have fireworks the next Saturday night (May 4) after the Syracuse game as well.

Hope our players enjoy their off-day. If you are, like me, a little lost on off-days, perhaps you could catch a good baseball movie on this cold, wet, dreary Earth Day. (If they want us to celebrate Earth Day, they should make the weather better for it.) Or, you can catch the Orioles against the Jays tonight at 7:05. I think that one’s on MASN 2. – RR

I sure miss Section 309. Does anybody else out there think that this road trip has gone on way too long? The Tides have to come back home sometime, right?

First off today, congratulations go out to Jason Pridie and his wife Bianca, who is expecting. Pridie dropped a clue the other day on Twitter when he posted that he had sent a fruit arrangement to his wife because she was ill. Today he made a more obvious announcement on Twitter. Best wishes to the Pridies on their newest “minion”!

Things haven’t been going so well with the Tides since I last reported here. Yesterday’s double-header with Durham was a bit brutal. A bad collision at second between Travis Ishikawa and the Bulls’ Hak-Ju Lee during the first game left Lee with a season-ending knee injury (two torn ligaments, and possibly other damage). Ishikawa has a broken nose but will be okay. His teammates report that he will be at the park today.

The Tides ended up losing both games yesterday, 10-4 and 5-3. They have a chance to come back tonight. Colome will be pitching for the Bulls. The Tides haven’t posted the starter for tonight yet. Clark and Russell went last night, and we saw Stinson, Garcia, and Britton in Gwinnett, so I’m thinking Jurrjens might get the call today. We’ll see, though.

All of the goings-on so far on this road trip have left the Tides three games back of Durham. I have a good feeling about tonight’s game, though. -RR

After the events in Boston yesterday, some sports shows abandoned their coverage of sports in favor of discussing breaking news about the bombing. I respect those decisions. They were appropriate responses. Arguably, ESPN did a better job than the news outlets with their coverage.

However, I believe that, as evidenced by the return to baseball after 9/11, baseball helps restore a sense of what is right and good in America. So, I’m going to say a few words about baseball today.

As a segue, I offer an item about the Yankees game tonight. My grandmother often said that you can always find something even in the midst of a tragedy that will make you smile. That will happen for me tonight when, in honor of Boston, the Yankees will adopt Fenway’s tradition of playing “Sweet Caroline”. I “LOL’d” when I read that.

Now, to the Tides. Stinson looked great on Sunday. Proctor got his first save of the season, and the story was really about pitching (again). Last night was a heartbreaker. Our three-game winning streak came to an end on Pastornicky’s RBI single in the 11th. Again, there is much to be happy about in this current Tides lineup. Canzler can’t be stopped at the moment, and Valencia (who homered last night) is also batting over .300.

Time to go check in on tonight’s game! Have a nice evening… – RR

It would be easy to look at last night’s 9-0 score against Durham and get a little depressed. Yeah, true, the Tides managed only two hits and are one-for-four against Durham so far this year. I can’t explain that away. However, Jurrjens had a decent outing, and according to the Tides website this morning, he threw 54 of 93 pitches for strikes.

The simplistic analysis is that the Tides need to get something going on O, period. For you “Sabermetrics” fans out there who like the OPS number (not my favorite, but let’s use it here for comparison’s sake), the Tides have only four players with OPS numbers over .700 (Navarro, Robinson, Canzler, and Romero). And, only four players are batting over .250 (Navarro, Robinson, Canzler, and Valencia). The Tides have combined for 23 runs so far in 2013. Let’s compare that to our current opponent, Durham, who has combined for 52 runs so far. Only four of their players have OPS numbers UNDER .700. Some of the Bulls’ successes on offense came at the expense of Tides pitching during the Bulls’ recent 21-4 win over Petersime, granted. However, we can make similar comparisons with Gwinnett, our opponent for the six games after tonight, and with Charlotte.

The opposing pitching we’ve seen so far this season has been good, but not THAT good. There is no reason why the Tides can’t show us more on offense during the upcoming games with Gwinnett and, Heaven help us, Durham again.

The Tides are down in Durham tonight. Then we’ll get to see them play two games with Gwinnett at Harbor Park. This fan is hoping to see some needed power out of the batter’s box this weekend. – RR

My Day Job has taken precedence over my blog the last couple of days, and it was pure torture to sit inside the office yesterday on one of the most beautiful days in the history of the world and listen to the Business Special on the radio. The last two games have gone rather well for the Tides, and I wanted to see the improvements in person. Duty called, however. I was a Good Employee and multitasked by following along with Gameday and with the audio stream on the ESPN 94.1 app (which is pretty good, by the way).

One thing that has been nice to see is Canzler’s improvement over the last few games. Last Saturday night he went 0 for 4 and struck out three times. Now he’s batting well over .300 (I want to say .333, but you need to check me on that one). He has hit home runs in the last three games and is tied for first place in the International League for RBI.

Jackson also looked good in the matinee with three hits. He’s also batting over .300.

We also learned yesterday that Dickerson’s contract has been selected by Baltimore. This transaction should complete their 40-man roster. Good thing we have Robinson now in the outfield. He has been doing a good job for us – he put up a nice RBI single yesterday. After 20 at-bats, he’s batting around .450.

I was also sorry that I didn’t see Navarro’s walk-off RBI single Tuesday night. This was a nice come-from-behind win, considering that the Tides trailed 4-0 going into the eighth inning. Stinson had a decent debut. His outing was definitely an improvement over Petersime’s last Monday.

The Tides are down in Durham for a couple of games, and then head back to us for the weekend. The weather may turn tonight in Durham, but hopefully they can get the game in before the front comes through. – RR

Perhaps the best thing to say about last night’s game with Charlotte is: nothing. You can tell everything you need to know from the 21 – 4 score. Worst trouncing we’ve had since 1999.

Petersime got an emergency call-up from Frederick yesterday. He is back in Frederick today.

At least Stinson is here. The five-man rotation of Clark, Jurrjens, Britton, Garcia, and Stinson should be able to handle matters for awhile.

You should see some redemption at the game tonight. 6:35 start again. (New this year: 6:35 starts on school nights through June.) I expect that my next post will be a happier one. -RR

I just got the lineups for tonight’s game with Charlotte. (6:35 start, by the way.) Canzler, who was the DH during the Durham home stand, is going to start at second tonight. Ishikawa will be the DH, while Jackson will start at first. Tides manager Ron Johnson is continuing to develop his players at multiple positions, much like Buck Showalter does in Baltimore. I like to see this sort of thing. It creates additional bench depth, and it helps the players grow into valuable multi-talented utility players who see a lot of playing time due to their versatility. Should be a great game tonight, and the weather is perfect.

Last night, Daniel McCutchen didn’t look good at all on the mound. Just learned that he’s been suspended 50 games for violating substance abuse policy. At least he won’t be getting lit up tonight…at least not by Durham anyway.