Lots of Tides personnel news this week. First, we want to offer our congratulations and best wishes to Jason Pridie and Jairo Asencio, who will be playing in the AAA All Star Game in Reno! That game will be July 17, so mark your calendars and enjoy the results of your maximum voting. Also, the Tides’ trainer, Mark Shires, will be there too! So, we know the players will be well taken care of.

There have been some personnel changes to report. We lost Jake Arrieta in the trade to the Cubs for Feldman and Clevenger. Of course, we wish him well in his new home. Feldman went to the O’s, so we will enjoy having Danny Valencia back with us for a little while.

The team looked good against Columbus and Gwinnett. Pettit was awesome Wednesday, to say the least. We’re still struggling with Durham. Tonight, if you can tune into the game on 94.1, you’ll get to see if Wada can handle their offense. At the moment, we’re 8.5 back in the IL South. However, there are two months left in this season, and a lot can happen.

The Tides are due back in town on July 12. Fox43 and Coke are sponsoring a nice giveaway that night. Looks like a good-looking black cap.

Have a great weekend! – RR

Hi, everybody. It’s been awhile since I posted, but quite frankly there hasn’t been much to talk about that you’d want to read. It’s been a rather depressing few days. The Tides dropped nine straight games against tough Indianapolis and Louisville teams, and most of the games were close. We saw a series split with Scranton, and now the Tides are coming back home for nine games. The next four games are with Columbus. I was thinking about heading out to the park tonight myself. I was concerned about the weather, but I think it’ll be fine.

I do have to pause for a moment to say, “I told you so.” You had to catch Kevin Gausman during the last homestand, or you missed him. He was recalled to Baltimore yesterday. Freddie Garcia will be rejoining the club. I have to say that I really don’t understand this move, but we can sure use Garcia back in the lineup.

If you do make it to Harbor Park tonight, you’ll be able to catch Brian Roberts starting at second on a rehab assignment. He’ll be batting in the leadoff spot. Stinson will be on the mound. With Garcia coming back to town, I’m not sure exactly what the rotation will look like for the Columbus series, but at least Stinson will go tonight.

Time is running out to vote for the Triple-A All Star Game starters! It’s very easy. Just do the obvious things from norfolktides.com. You can even click on the “Tides” logo when you get to the voting site to highlight our guys on the ballot, in case you’re having trouble keeping our lineups straight these days.

Okay, that’s it for now. I have to wrap things up here to head over to the ballpark. Enjoy the homestand! – RR

Just a quick post before tonight’s game. Ishikawa is not starting again tonight. You’ll see Canzler at first again. So…what’s going on with Ishikawa? I hate to think of it, but I have to wonder if his tenure with the Orioles organization is nearly over. I haven’t heard anything definite, but his absence from the lineup is puzzling. I don’t think he’s too happy about spending so much time in AAA this summer.

I should also say something about the series this past weekend with the Bats, but I don’t want to. 

Let’s look to the future instead. Kevin Gausman, as I said in a previous post, is here in Norfolk now, and he’ll be starting tomorrow night. I don’t think he’ll be here very long so catch him sooner than later at Harbor Park.

Wada is going tonight. He got shelled during his last start, so we hope for a better outcome tonight. Reports from the park are that the weather broke and it’s beautiful now. Have fun tonight! – RR

It’s been a busy week for our Tides. They’ve been on the road playing in Louisville and Indy, and they just made it back home to us in time for a big weekend. Tonight’s game, starting in just a few minutes, is a double-header thanks to last night’s frightening weather. This stand with the Bats is a good time to get a look at one of the Reds’ future starts, Billy Hamilton. He is a base-running machine. In addition, the Bats are starting Corky Miller at catcher, or maybe pitcher, or maybe outfield. Versatile guy. He was fun to watch when he was with Cincinnati. However, you might have a hard time imagining him as a pitcher when you see him. He looks like a catcher and will start in that position tonight.

A couple of our favorite Tides have received some big honors in the past week. Travis Ishikawa was named Topps Player of the Month for minor league baseball, and he truly deserves that honor IMO. Also, Zelous Wheeler was IL Player of the Week.

There were a few notable personnel moves. One of those happened just a couple of hours ago. Arrieta was called back up to Baltimore today. Earlier this week, Gausman was optioned to Norfolk, and Belfiore is back with us.

This weekend is going to be an awesome one for baseball at Harbor Park. You can play catch on the field before the game Sunday afternoon with your dad. There will be fireworks tomorrow night after the game also. The Tides will be in town through the 20^th, so hopefully you can catch a game soon!

Before signing off, I want to remind everybody to go to the Tides’ website (norfolktides.com) and vote for all of the Tides for the MiLB All-Star Game. You can vote more than once too!

Oh, and a quick P.S.: my brother’s former team, the Indiana Hoosiers, is playing in the College World Series in Omaha. Check them out! They’re a fine team. – RR

Wow, our Tides have had some troubled times since my last post, but they did get a big W against the Bats last night. Louisville has a strong team, so this was a fine showing by our guys. There was also some good news this afternoon from Lew Ford. He tweeted this afternoon and said that his surgery went well and that he is not out for the season. “Blowing Out to Left” wishes him the speediest of recoveries. We also learned a few hours ago that Xavier “X-Man” Avery is heading back up to Baltimore. The Tides report that 16 players now have appeared on both teams’ rosters this season. No wonder we had a few rough outings this week with Scranton and Buffalo.

I hope you were lucky enough to catch Trayvon Robinson’s walk-off homer last weekend. That was a fun game to watch. I couldn’t go to the park that night, but happily Sky4 carried the game. I wish they would carry all of the games. It seems like it would be feasible to carry the home games at least.

The lineup for the Tides is looking good this week. Pridie is on a tear, batting .321. Ishikawa is back and batting .319. Wheeler is batting .316, and Navarro is back with .294. Wood continues to impress and is batting .289. I think this means that we are not going to be 3 games behind Durham much longer. We’re about to make a move on the Bulls again.

Oh, I don’t know how I forgot to mention that Jon Rauch has joined the club. He pitched a decent inning two nights ago in Louisville (1 BB and 1 K). Jose Gil was released that day.

Until now, I haven’t given out any homework assignments, but today I am going to do just that. Please go to the norfolktides.com site and vote for our Tides players for the MiLB All Star Game! Just click through the obvious places on the homepage to vote. And, as we say back where I came from, “Vote early, vote often.” (It’s legal in this case though.)

For extra credit, check in on the MLB draft this evening. It’ll be a chance to see some of our future Tides. I expect that the Orioles are going to have a good draft this year.

Stay safe in the storm tomorrow. -RR