Late Homers Drop Bulls, 3-2
Jackson Holliday and Kyle Stowers hit home runs in the eighth inning to snap a 1-1 tie as the Norfolk Tides beat the Durham Bulls 3-2 in the series opener at Harbor Park on Monday night. With the game tied 1-1, Bulls reliever Enmanuel Mejia (L, 5-3) entered to replace
Jackson Holliday and Kyle Stowers hit home runs in the eighth inning to snap a 1-1 tie as the Norfolk Tides beat the Durham Bulls 3-2 in the series opener at Harbor Park on Monday night.
With the game tied 1-1, Bulls reliever Enmanuel Mejia (L, 5-3) entered to replace Tyler Alexander, who threw seven sterling innings. After recording the first out, Mejia surrendered Holliday’s home run into the right field bullpen. Two batters later, Stowers drove a Mejia pitch over the left-centerfield wall to put the Bulls (2-5) behind 3-1.
Durham mounted a major threat in the ninth in an attempt to rally for the win. Tristan Peters hit a one-hop single to right with one out. CJ Hinojosa grounded a single to center against Trey McGough (W, 2-0), moving Peters to second. After a flyout and pitching change, Curtis Mead bounced a single to center to score Peters to trim the margin to 3-2. Ronny Simon drew a walk to load the bases, but Austin Shenton fanned against Nolan Hoffman (S, 1) to end the game.
Alexander retired the first 13 batters of the game before three consecutive Norfolk (3-3) hits came with one out in the fifth to tie the game. Alexander stranded runners at second and third to exit the inning tied, and proceeded to pitch through the seventh. Alexander fanned six, walked one and yielded five hits during his longest Bulls start of the season.
Durham took a 1-0 advantage in the fifth after Mead blooped a run-scoring single to right field to score Jake Mangum, who had doubled with two outs.
Mead had three of Durham’s seven hits and both RBI.
Norfolk starter Chayce McDermott struck out a career-high 12 batters across seven innings.
The Bulls play the second game of the series at Harbor Park on Tuesday night at 6:35 PM ET. Shane Baz (3-3, 4.12) is expected to start against Carlos Tavera (1-1, 7.36).
Durham returns home to the DBAP on the Fourth of July at 6:35 PM ET against the Tides.
Tickets for all 2024 Durham Bulls home contests are available and can be purchased online at DurhamBulls.com.