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Can you blame him?

Moments after the Bison offense totaled just four hits in a 3-1 lackluster loss to Norfolk on Sunday Oberkfell didn’t pull any punches as he finally lost his cool.

“They better look in the mirror,” Oberkfell said of his players, the disgust in his voice clearly evident.
“I mean (jeez) they are professional athletes. I’m running out of things to say. I try to be as positive as I can be. But someone…I don’t know what to say I mean it’s right here in black and white.”

Oberkfell picked up the statistic sheet, for the second time in his post game interview to illustrate his point.

“I can go down the list of players if you want? Lets see, Michel Abreu (explicative) whatever? I don’t want to deal with it,” Oberkfell as he toss the stat sheet aside in frustration.

“It’s depressing. It’s sad our pitchers are pitching there (butt) off and our offense stinks!” He said.
“These guys are Triple-A baseball players, some of them are major-league players. You’ve got to produce, plain and simple.”

Stinks is at best an understatement.

As of May 10 the Herd owns a putrid 6-22 record and is on pace for a 31-113 season which would be the worst record in International League history since Rochester went 28-105 with a .211 winning percentage in 1904.

The maddening thing is the Bisons keep falling into the same sinkhole day after day after frustrating day: Lack of hitting.

Pitching and defense have been there, especially the starting pitching. In the last 10 games Bison starters have had a combined ERA of less than 2.00. But time and time again Bison bats have suffered through the worst power failure New Yorkers have seen since the Great Blackout of 1977.

“Not many of our pitchers are getting run support. It’s plain and simply we’re 6 and 22,” said Oberkfell.
“It’s not our pitchers. It’s our offense plain and simple. Nelson (Figueroa) did a good job he threw well. You throw seven innings and you give up two runs you’ve done your job. Plain and simple. There are guys in there that need to step up and get some hits. I don’t know what to say. How many runners did we have in scoring position today? It’s a broken record we get the right guys up there to the plate and what do we get: strikeout, pop out, double play. You wanna know why we’re 6 and 22? Right here.”

Oberkfell grabbed the stat sheet and began to read aloud.

“Runners in scoring positions, .167. Runners in scoring position with two outs: .118. That’s why we’re 6 and 22. It ain’t our pitchers.”

Just 1-for-24 with runners in scoring position over the past two games the Bisons have been shutout seven times this season. A number that could actually be at eight or even nine had the Tides not made defensive flubs the past two games.

How can they possibly make up any ground?

The worst part of it is this is when the Herd should be making a solid move to get back into some sort of respectable state because they are in a month of May where they play 19 of 30 at home.

What will it look like in July when they have only 12 games at Coca-Cola Field?

While all of the Bisons pitchers are could sue the offense for lack of support no one has suffered more than Nelson Figueroa.

Throwing seven solid innings on Sunday, Figueroa (0-3) has had less than 1.8 runs of support per start this season.

“It’s a struggle for everyone,” said Figueroa. “It’s not like we’re not trying but I mean you can get old men out of the stands to ‘try’. We’re paid professionals and we’ve got to find a way to do it.”

On the humorous side, the 300 or so brave souls that toughed out the chilly November like weather had a good laugh when a rouge seagull made a ‘fudgie’ on Norfolk starter Rich Hill in the fifth inning.

Play was stopped for a few minutes so that Hill could clean himself off with a towel.

Working in a rehab start Hill (1-1), who won 11 games with the Chicago Cubs two seasons ago, struck out seven and walked three in six innings of work.

Oscar Salazar and Mike Costanzo were both 2-for-4 for the Tides (18-11).

The series concludes Monday with a 7:05 first-pitch. Tim Redding (0-0, 1.50 ERA) will take the hill for Buffalo and oppose Norfolk Dave Hernandez (2-1, 4.38 ERA).