Ciao, Al Drago!

DBAP/ DURHAM—Convenient of the Bulls to schedule their annual Bark in the Park bring-your-dog promotion to coincide with the team’s current slobbering and panting and begging ways. The Bulls made a dog’s breakfast of a manageable 4-3, deficit last night, helping the Charlotte Knights send 12 batters to the plate in the seventh inning and score eight runs en route to a 12-7 whipping of the locals. The Bulls have lost three straight games, and four of five overall, to bad teams. This dog won’t be in the (playoff) hunt unless it starts dominating the runts again.

The Gwinnett Braves did what the Bulls could not: they beat Norfolk at home (and Charlotte at home, twice, before that), and crept to within three games of the Bulls for first place in the IL South Division with 12 left to play. The two teams go head to head for two games at the DBAP on Monday and Tuesday. Four days ago, it seemed like those games might wind up being virtually meaningless, but with Gwinnett having recovered from their own bad stretch—they went 2-6 from August 14-21—and the Bulls currently ensconced in a three-game losing streak, you might need to drop whatever bone you’re planning to worry those nights, and get out to the ballpark.

Sportsfans, our coverage of the Durham Bulls has moved, for now, to another corner of the Independent‘s web site, known as “Bull City Summer,” a gullywhumpus of a new project that is going to take the Bulls by their horns in 2012 but is having its first rodeo here at the tail end of 2011. Continue reading this game story, and all those that follow, here.