The Durham Bulls won their second Triple-A national championship Tuesday when they defeated the Memphis Redbirds 5-3. The bulls had a great season leading into the playoffs. They were 86-56 on the year and they won the international league south division. This all happening the year after they went 64-80, and missed out on the playoffs.

Before they won the national championship, they first had to go through the international league playoffs. There are two leagues in Triple-A baseball, the international league and the pacific coast league. The winners of these two leagues go on to face each other in a winner takes all national championship game.

In the first round of the playoffs the bulls had to face the winner of the international league west, the Indianapolis Indians. Every round of the playoffs is a best 3 of 5 series. The bulls defeated indianapolis 3 games to 1 to advance to the international league finals. Ryan Yarbrough got the win for the bulls in game 1 while they were lead in batting by Shane Peterson who went 2-4 with 2 walks and an rbi. Yonny Chirinos got the win in game 2 for the bulls and they were lead offensively by Jake Bauers. They would be shut out in game 3 5-0 in their first road game of the playoffs. They bounced back in game 4 winning 4-3 and winning the series.

The bulls would face the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders in the international league finals after they beat Lehigh Valley 3 games to 1. The international league finals also went 4 games with the bulls winning 3-1. the bulls shut out the Rail Riders 6-0 in game 1, but they got shut out in game 2 4-0. Jake Bauers had another good day at the plate going 2-4 while Brent Honeywell got the win in game 3. The bulls claimed their fifth governor´s cup championship with a 6-4 win in Scranton.

Four days after they won the international league the Bulls were still in Scranton to face the Memphis Redbirds who won the Pacific Coast League by defeating El Paso 3 games to 2. the bulls struggle early in this championship game giving up two runs in the first inning. They were down 3-1 in the fourth inning after a sacrifice fly and the Redbirds were feeling good about their pitching. Shane Peterson for the bulls was hit by a pitch to start off the bottom half of the fourth, and then Justin Williams singled in the next at bat. Johnny Field was the next batter up and he walked to load the base and coming up the plate was second baseman Kean Wong who only had 5 regular season home runs. Wong hit a grand slam to put the bulls ahead 5-3 and they never looked back with the bullpen pitching 5 scoreless and the bulls claiming their second national title in franchise history.

The Durham Bulls had a great year going 86-56 which is 30 wins better than the previous year. The team finished the year off with a championship under Jared Sandberg, the manager, this was his first championship with the team.