Carlos Duncan Leads Caps Over Victoria

Eight days after being traded from Victoria to the Edmonton Capitals, Carlos Duncan returned to Royal Athletic Park on Tuesday night and stuck it to his old team. Duncan hit a homer and a double in five at-bats and knocked in three runs to help the Capitals trounce the Seals 11-4. Luckily for Victoria, the Calgary Vipers lost 3-2 to the Tucson Toros, so the Seals didn't fall any further back out of first place in the second-half standings. Victoria, now 5-9 since the start of the new season, remains five games back of the Vipers.

Seal Blubber Bits

• Good news: the new scoreboard at RAP was up and running on Tuesday!!
• Sergio Pedroza continued his red-hot hitting on Tuesday night. He hit his 11th home run of the year to put him one behind Jamar Hill for the team lead. Over his last 10 games, Pedroza is hitting .429 with 5 homers and 19 RBI. His 41 RBIs on the season puts him into a tie for the team lead with Hill. By the way, Pedroza has a better batting average (.326 vs .280) and slugging percentage (.578 vs .498) than Hill.
• Brian Rios was able to return to action on Tuesday night. His ankle wasn't strong enough to allow him to play third base, but he DH'd and went 1-for-3 on the night. Terry Mermer played third base in Rios' place and he did not have any balls hit his way.
• OF Billy Krause has been riding the pine since his shaky professional debut. He went 0-for-7 with 4 strikeouts in his first two games with the Seals.
• Isaac Hess is expected to take to the mound on Wednesday night in his first RAP start since he was signed by the Red Sox and then returned to the Seals due to medical concerns about his artificial hip.
• On Monday night, ex-Seal Austin Bibens-Dirkx had his most impressive performance since joining the Peoria Chiefs of the Midwest League. Bibens-Dirkx pitched the first 9-inning complete game for the Chiefs since 2006 and raised his record to 2-1 with his new team. He gave up one earned run and only allowed five hits while lowering his ERA to a sparkling 2.39. Bibens-Dirkx didn't walk a batter and struck out seven Wisconsin Timber Rattlers on the night. In spite of the fact that Peoria had 12 hits during the game, it was played in a brisk one hour and fifty-two minutes. One or two more impressive outings like this and Bibens-Dirkx will be promoted to Advanced A (Daytona Cubs) or AA (Tennessee Smokies).