Byline: RICH RADFORD
NORFOLK -- BY RICH RADFORD
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
NORFOLK - Jason Dubois showed off his tunnel vision Thursday afternoon at Harbor Park.
With the Buffalo Bisons batting in the seventh inning, Dubois ventured into the tunnel from the dugout to the clubhouse and envisioned putting a perfect swing on the next pitch he saw.
Then he delivered one .
Dubois drilled the first pitch he saw from Tides reliever Pedro Feliciano over the centerfield fence. The ball landed 415 feet from home plate and nearly hit Rip Tide, who was standing in the bed of a truck, ready to throw T-shirts into the crowd from the warning track .
The three-run shot, Dubois' second home run in as many games, capped a six-run inning and gave the Bisons an 8-1 lead on way to an 8-3 victory over the Norfolk Tides on a sunny day at Harbor Park.
' I went down into the tunnel and made a few adjustments,' said Dubois, who attended Cox High in Virginia Beach . 'I tried to get the feeling of what I was doing well in spring training.'
Since Dubois hit .417 in Cleveland Indians camp before being one of the last players sent to Triple-A Buffalo, that would be a pretty good mind-set .
'Jason put on a nice little show for his hometown fans,' Buffalo manager Torey Lovullo said .
Lovullo said Dubois has shown no ill effects from his demotion to Triple-A just days before the season opened.
'He hasn't surprised me at all with his attitude,' Lovullo said. 'He's very professional and there have been no effects of frustration. It's a credit to him and I've already reported that it's a strong quality he's showing.'
The Tides, meanwhile, didn't put on as good a show. While they split the four-game series with Buffalo, they are 2-6 after a season-opening, four-game sweep by Durham. They now hit the road for 10 games.
'That ball Dubois hit was the dagger,' Tides manager Tony Tijerina said. 'Maybe it's a good thing we're going on the road. I told the guys, 'Maybe we're a good road team and don't know it yet.''
Once again, the Tides had their chances early, but left runners at third base in the third and fourth innings. Through eight games, the Tides are batting .197 with runners in scoring position and .233 as a team.
Notes: The Tides will play four games in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, four in Rochester, and two in Richmond before returning home April24. Jeff Keppinger got a rare start at third, Chase Lambin a start at shortstop and Chris Basak a start at second base in what Tijerina said will be an occasional shuffling of the infield, an edict from the parent New York Mets. Keppinger was in major league camp this spring and Lambin and Basak made occasional trips from the minor-league camp to the major league facility during the spring.
nReach Rich at 757-446-2463 or rich.radford@pilotonline.com BUFFALO 8 Norfolk 3
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Hyunsoo Leo Kim/The Virginian-Pilot
The ball gets away from Norfolk's Chase Lambin on Thursday. Lambin, who had been playing third, started at shortstop.
