THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9407010548
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
This game can be slothlike enough without lapsing into baseball-interruptus, which is what transpired on a damp Thursday night at The Diamond. Fortunately for the Norfolk Tides, it's a style they play tremendously.
At least they did Thursday, when a rain delay at the start and two power failures during - for a total of 51 idle minutes - couldn't stop the Tides' 16-6, 19-hit mauling of the Richmond Braves.
Between stops and starts, the Tides surged back from a six-run deficit to score 16 unanswered runs, ironically after going down in order the first three innings.
Thereafter, there was no shutting them down as they matched their best 10-game tear this season with their eighth victory in the last 10. For a single game, however, the Tides - two days after nearly being no-hit in Charlotte - set new season standards for runs and hits.
Every starting position player had not one but at least two hits. The Tides (39-42) batted around three times in the final six innings. And they also left their mark on the history of The Diamond by scoring the most runs by an opposing team in the stadium's 10 seasons.
``I thought we were going to get our butt kicked at first,'' said outfielder Jim Vatcher. ``We were all half asleep, you know, we thought it was going to be a rainout, I think. It took us a while to kind of wake up a little bit. You could feel guys bearing down. You could feel something happening.''
The Tides got starter Eric Hillman, touched for six runs in three innings, off the hook by skewering Brian Bark for six in the fourth. Hillman was way off the hook by the fifth - and Jonathan Hurst well on the way to the victory - when the Tides scored five more off Judd Johnson and Don Strange, who was released after the game.
Richmond (45-35) wound up with outfielder Brian Kowitz on the mound, and he, of course, was the Braves' most effective pitcher.
``We're lucky it was just (16),'' manager Grady Little said. ``We feel like we're real fortunate nobody got hurt.''
The odd thing was that 16 of the Tides' 19 hits were singles. Extra-base hits were logged only by Vatcher (double), Doug Dascenzo (triple) and Jeromy Burnitz, who hit his third home run in two games.
``We have a bunch of guys who are scrappy on this team,'' Dascenzo said. ``You're not going to see a whole lot of home runs on this team. But there's a good chance you're going to see a lot of wins.''
After the Tides crept as close to the .500 mark as they've been since May 22, manager Bobby Valentine had to agree.
``We've had a year where we've been able to build a lot of character on this team,'' Valentine said, ``and I think it's coming together right now.'' by CNB