Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2012 > May
May 2012
Some thoughts on an off day
NOTE FROM THE MAN CAVE on an off day for the Cincinnati Reds:
The Reds are in Houston, perspiring through an off day and if I were still traveling with them this would be my day:
Breakfast at the Inn at the Ball Park, my favorite hotel on the road — located directly across the street from Minute Maid Park. It is an entire baseball motif, complete with a baseball library in the lobby. Todd Frazier, who loves Frank Sinatra, would love the place. They pipe nothing but Sinatra music into the elevators.
A couple of hours at McCoy’s Fine Cigars (unfortunately, no relation), puffing on a couple of Montecristo White Label Churchills while listening to the lies of the luncheon regulars, a bunch of guys who like to rip on the Houston Astros.
Lunch at Pappasito’s, my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant in the country, where they make salsa chips right in the dining room and deliver them to your table hotter than charcoal.
Dinner at Vic & Anthony’s steakhouse, where I once saw the entire Detroit Pistons NBA team walk in and devour four cows.
FOR THOSE RAGGING on manager Dusty Baker for not starting Joey Votto Wednesday in Pittsburgh, well, it was Votto’s call, not Dusty’s. Votto had started every game this season and played in every game since last mid-August.
Some were quick to point out that the Reds had Thursday off and that should have been enough. If one day is good, two days are better. It didn’t work out because the Reds lost, but a tired and worn-out Votto in August might cost the Reds more than one game.
IT IS CLEAR that Aroldis Chapman needs to be careful with whom he associates and more than one Reds official is trying to advise him to use better judgement.
When Kevin Mitchell was with the Reds, it was comical to see him when the Reds were in San Diego, his hometown. After games Mitchell would walk into the stadium parking lot and be surrounded by unsavory-looking characters, his posse, and he would pass out $20 bills.
IN THE LAST year the Houston played in the Astrodome, I was working in the press box after a game when I felt something nudging my foot. I looked down in time to see a rat the size of Paige, my schnoodle, scurry away.
The Astrodome was so rat-infested that they kept an army of cats in the place and turned them loose after games to go hunting.
I’VE BEEN WATCHING the Hatfields & McCoys on the History Channel and I still say, “My relatives didn’t steal no pig from no Hatfield.”
LIKE JOEY VOTTO, Ted Williams is my favorite all-time player and I love this story.
One day a rookie was pitching against Williams. He threw three pitches and the umpire called all three balls. The rookie, believing that all three were strikes, glared at the umpire.
After ball three a glare from the kid pitcher, the umpire whipped off his mask, stood in front of home plate, and yelled, “Kid, when you throw a strike, Mr. Williams will let you know it.”
YES, THE REDS definitely need bench help. They certainly need a lefthanded bat. But where do they find it? Teams aren’t dumping players this early, unless they are useless. And there is no help at Louisville.
Don’t despair, though. Every team in baseball has holes somewhere. There are no Big Red Machines or ’27 Yankees in baseball these days.
I’M OFTEN ASKED, so here are my favorite baseball parks/stadium, by league:
National: 1. PNC Park, Pittsburgh; 2. AT&T Park, San Francisco; 3. Minute Maid Park, Houston; 4. Coors Field, Colorado; 5. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles.
American: 1. Progressive Field, Cleveland; 2. Fenway Park, Boston; 3. Camden Yards, Baltimore; 4. Kauffman Field, Kansas City; 5. Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.
PREDICTION INVOLVING the current division leaders:
The Reds will win the NL Central, the Dodgers will win the NL West and the Rangers will win the AL West. But Washington will not win the NL East, neither Baltimore nor Tampa Bay will win the AL East and Chicago will not win the AL Central.
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TweetReds, Cueto burned by Burnett
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, wondering what else is going to happen to Aroldis Chapman off the field — a law suit in Cuba charging him with falsely testifying against a man in a human trafficking case, five speeding tickets (at the last count) and now having his room in Pittsburgh robbed, with the intruders tying up a woman who was in Chapman’s room). You can’t make this stuff up.
As much as he is paid and as strong as he is, nobody can expect Joey Votto to play every game.
Unfortunately.
Manager Dusty Baker decided Wednesday was the perfect time to give Votto his first day off this season and his first day off since last August.
It made sense. After playing 20 straight days, the Cincinnati Reds are off Thursday, so a day off Wednesday gives Votto two days off.
BUT IT MAY have cost the Reds a chance to win Wednesday night instead of losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1.
Baker decided to use Mike Costanzo at first base, a piece of real estate not very familiar to him.
As former major league manager Gene Mauch once said, “You can’t hide anybody on defense because the baseball always find him.”
Well, the baseball didn’t find Costanzo, mostly because he didn’t go after it and it might have cost the Reds the two runs that beat them.
Johnny Cueto was protecting a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning and retired the first two batters. Cueto tempted his own fate, though, by walking Neil Walker.
Garret Jones the bounced a six-hopper between first and second. Second baseman Brandon Phillips ranged far left but couldn’t flag it. Costanzo stayed anchored near first base instead of chasing it. It was a ball Votto might have stopped.
Instead the ball found right field for a single and the next batter, Matt Hague, one-hopped the right field wall for a two-run double, the two runs the Pirates needed to beat Cueto.
ONE SMALL PLAY like that stands out like an Irishman wearing orange in a game like this.
The Reds ran up against A.J. Burnett and he was dealing aces and eights. The Reds scored an unearned run in the first when leadoff batter Zack Cozart doubled, took third on a sacrifice bunt by Drew Stubbs, who reached on third baseman Pedro Alvarez’s error, and Cozart scored on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Phillips.
After that the Reds were playing by candlelight. Burnett retired 17 straight after that and the Reds managed only one other hit against him during his seven innings (no earned run, two hits, two walks, three strikeouts).
The Reds had one other chance against Burnett and that surfaced in his last inning, the seventh. Chris Heisey, who had two hits, singled to center. The Reds were down, 2-1, and had a runner on first with no outs. A sacrifice bunt? Nope. Todd Frazier was permitted to swing away and hit into a double play.
Cueto left after seven innings, too, having giving up two runs and five hits. Going in, Cueto was 7-1 with a 2.14 ERA in nine starts for his career in PNC Park.
The Reds put the fear of buccaneers all over the world in the ninth against Pirates closer Joel Hanrahan.
Brandon Phillips popped up on the first pitch, but Heisey singled to center.
Now it was Votto time — the world’s most expensive pinch-hitter on this night. And he singled to left, putting runners on second and first with one out.
But Miguel Cairo struck out and Ryan Hanigan struck out on a bad pitch to end it as the Pirates took the series two games to one.
The Reds were 13-3 in the last game of series this year, but now are 13-4. And they messed up a chance to extend their NL Central lead to 2 ½ games over the St. Louis Cardinals, who lost at Atlanta. Instead, the lead stays at 1 ½.
Remember all those home runs the Reds hit on their last seven-game homestand? Twenty-seven of them. They did hit a single one in PNC Park. But neither did the Pirates.
LAST CHANCE this week to send an entry for Sunday’s Ask Hal column. Send them by noon Thursday to halmccoy1@hotmail.com.
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TweetFrazier a hero on and off the field
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, thinking about Todd Frazier as I ate a steak Tuesday night at the Dayton Agonis Club Awards Dinner at the Presidential Banquet Center in Kettering — and listening to an inspiring talk from University of Michigan football coach and Kettering native Brady Hoke.
When Hoke was finished, 250 people wanted to leap from their chairs and run through the doors, ready to make some blocks and some tackles.
A DINER AT THE next table leaned over and said to me, “Did you hear the Todd Frazier saved a guy’s life Monday night with the Heimlich Maneuver?”
I hadn’t heard, but I thought if that was true then Frazier was a winner before ever stepping on the PNC Park field Tuesday night in Pittsburgh.
It was true and he was, indeed, a winner before the game. Reports said Frazier and Ryan Ludwick were eating dinner at a Pittsburgh restaurant when Frazier noticed two women trying to give a man the Heimlich Maneuver, but struggled to dislodge a piece of steak.
Frazier rushed over, pushed the women aside, and performed it himself, perhaps saving the man’s life.
THEN HE WAS rewarded — or rewarded himself — in the game against the Pittsburgh Prates (after a two-hour rain delayed the game’s start) with a double and a triple, driving in two runs.
The entire roster had their hitting galoshes on during an 8-1 Cincinnati Reds victory.
While the Reds barraged Pittsburgh pitchers with 12 hits, Homer Bailey cruised through the Pirates batting order, holding them to four hits and one walk.
His 102-pitch night resulted in his second career complete game, both against the Pirates, and he lowered his ERA to 3.67 with his eighth quality start, his fourth in a row.
Bailey loves Pittsburgh and it has nothing to do with perogi sandwiches or Primanti Brothers restaurant or Iron City beer.
With Tuesday’s win, Bailey is 6-0 in eight starts against the Pirates, 4-0 in PNC Park.
And to rub it in, Bailey had two hits and drove in a run.
And it looks as if Jay Bruce is back on track after his 1 for 31 slide. He had three hits and two RBI.
THE ST. LOUIS Cardinals lost in Atlanta, so the Reds are back to a 1 ½ game lead in the National League Central, with a chance Wednesday to take the series two games to one.
TIME FOR THOSE Ask Hal questions for Sundays Dayton Daily News. Send them now, and before Thursday at noon, to halmccoy1@hotmail.com.
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TweetMcDonald puts silencer on Reds’ bats
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, where it was 92 degrees, even with a fan blowing in my face. And my laptop made it worse, heating my lap.
It was a bad match-up for the Cincinnati Reds from the git-go on Memorial Day, a less than memorable day for the visiting nine at the mouth of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh.
FIRST OF ALL, the Reds started Bronson Arroyo, who doesn’t do well against his original team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Last year in two appearances he gave up 10 runs and 11 hits.
And the Reds faced James McDonald, a lanky righthander who was 4-1 in career starts against the Reds. Now he is 5-1.
The outcome was predictable: Pittsburgh 4, Cincinnati 1. The Pirates had numerous chances against Arroyo and took advantage. The Reds had numerous chances against McDonald and frittered away each and every one.
The Pirates started fast, scoring two in the first, one in the second and one in the third and Arroyo was finished after four innings — four runs, eight hits, a walk and a strikeout.
Meanwhile, the Reds put their leadoff batters on base in the second, third, fourth and fifth — and didn’t score.
The most abysmal portion was the third and fifth when the Reds put their first two runners on base ¬— and didn’t score.
IN THE THIRD, Ryan Hanigan doubled and Arroyo was asked to bunt. Instead, McDonald walked him on four pitches. Now it was Drew Stubbs’ turn to bunt. He bunted hard to the pitcher and McDonald threw Hanigan out at third.
Wilson Valdez struck out and Joey Votto flied to center. End of rally.
IN THE FIFTH, Miguel Cairo and Hanigan opened with singles, putting runners on second and first with no outs.
Pinch-hitter Mike Costanzo (1 for 13, eight strikeouts) popped to short, Stubbs took a called third strike and Valdez grounded meekly to first. End of rally.
From there McDonald swept the Reds aside as if he was a broom and the Reds were dust bunnies — retiring 12 of the last 12 he faced at the end of the fifth through the eighth. He gave up no runs and five hits for eight innings, 103 pitches.
Lefthander Tony Watson replaced McDonald for the ninth and he ruined the shutout when he walked Joey Votto and Chris Heisey singled for a run.
That forced Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle to go to his closer, Joel Hanrahan, and Hanrahan retired Miguel Cairo on his second pitch, a fly to center.
At the same time, the St. Louis Cardinals were mopping up the Atlanta Braves, to trim the Reds lead in the National League Central to a half-game.
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TweetNIne homers leave GABP and Reds win
CINCINNATI — The balls they used Sunday in Great American Ball Park must have had dimples in them and the word ‘Titleist’ stamped on them.
The baseballs were traveling as if they were teed up and teed off by Tiger Woods.
A record nine home runs were blasted on the hot, humid day. And get this — Cincinnati Reds starter Mat Latos gave up five home runs. He gave up five hits that landed in five different area codes. All five hits were solo home runs.
He pitched 7 1/3 innings and never once pitched out of the stretch. He gave up five home runs and was the winning pitcher in a 7-5 Reds’ victory over the Colorado Rockies.
THE FIVE HOME runs tied a club record for most given up in one game by one pitcher.
All that was missing this day were beer kegs, aluminum bats and players with big guts hanging over their belts during this softball-like smash-o-rama.
The Reds only hit four home runs off 49-year-old Jamie Moyer, but won the game to conclude a 6-1 homestand.
For the record, Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, Brandon Phillips and Todd Frazier did the Home Run Trot for the Reds. For Colorado it was Carlos Gonzalez twice, Troy Tulowitzki, Michael Cuddyer and pinch-hitter Dexter Fowler.
THE NINE HOME runs traveled 3,493 feet, or nearly seven-tenth of a mile, the longest by Colorado’s Michael Cuddyer, a 448-footer that nearly broke a window in the black party building in straightaway center.
Even so, there was pitching drama. The Rockies put two on with one out in the eighth, trailing, 7-5.
In came Aroldis Chapman to face Colorado’s two best hitters — Gonzalez and Tulowitzki. He struck out Gonazles and battled Tulowitzki for eight pitches (five foul balls) before getting him on a meek fly to center.
During the seven-game homestand there were 29 home runs launched in Great American Small Park, 17 by the Reds, 12 by the other guys.
“That’s too many home run on their side but I’ll take all of ours,” said Manager Dusty Baker. “If you don’t make quality pitches here and the ball gets up in the air, that’s what happens. If you don’t make quality pitches, it doesn’t matter if you are playing in a shoebox. If you don’t make quality pitches, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing in Yellowstone.”
THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE home run was banged by Todd Frazier, a home run described by Colorado manager Jim Tracy as, “A interesting swing right there.”
Frazier swung and lost control of the bat. As the ball whistled out of the park the bat helicoptered out of his hands. Frazier believes he hit the ball one-handed.
“It slipped out of my hand as I swung,” he said. “I came up to the clubhouse after the inning and looked at it on video. It looked like my bottom hand was off the bat and then I hit it. It was a pretty interesting way to hit a home run. It was pretty cool. I felt it slipping right away and I thought, ‘I might as well swing as hard as I can.’
“I watched the bat at first, then I saw the ball and thought, ‘Oh, man, ah shoot, a pop-up.’ Then I took a couple more steps and said, ‘Oh, I’ll take it.’”
Of his five-homer day, Latos said when he heard he didn’t walk anybody or put any other runner on base, “I didn’t walk anybody? That makes me feel a little better. It’s a bummer to see the ball leave the yard five times. I was in attack mode and giving up five home runs shows at least I was throwing strikes.”
During this homestand they had to push relief pitchers out of the bullpen, kicking and screaming and grabbing for the gate while the pitchers yelled, “Don’t make me go out there, please don’t make me.”
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER was sniffling, sneezing and shooting nasal spray up his nostrils when the media entered his office Sunday morning.
“Allergies, man,” he said. “Terrible allergies. People used to ask me, ‘What are you crying about?’ Allergies. All my life. It can be 100 degrees and my nose is running.”
It’s the ragweed that gets him and ragweed is rampant right now, earlier than usual and Baker said, “I figured. Because ragweed is the worst one for me and I don’t usually get these allergies this early.”
AND SPEAKING OF allergies, what Chris Heisey did in the first inning Saturday, a three-run home run, was a quick cure. But what Heisey did in the fifth inning clogged up the old sinuses again.
The Reds were leading by three runs with runner on first and third with one out when Heisey came to the plate. He bunted. What? He bunted.
In the press box there were gasps. “What is he thinking? What is he doing?”
In the dugout, Baker was thinking the same thing. Heisey bunted to the pitcher and the runner on first, Brandon Phillips, took second. But a stunned Joey Votto remained anchored at third.
“I TALKED TO Heisey about that,” said Baker. “That’s the time we wanted to blow the game out. I understand what he’s trying to do, but that’s a situation where you want to drive in runs.
“And you have to know who is behind you — we had a pinch-hitter for the pitcher,” said Baker. “I said, ‘Dude, a three-run lead in this ball park in the fifth inning against the Rockies ain’t nothing. Time to go for the big inning.’
“I told him about it and he said, ‘Yeah, I know, skip,’ but that’s better than trying nothing,” said Baker. “But that wasn’t the time to try that particular thing.”
Baker laughed when somebody said they wondered if he signaled for the bunt and said, “C’mon, man. That’s really overmanaging when you try some crap like that. That is a guy trying to make himself look smart or something.”
THIRD BASEMAN SCOTT Rolen is taking ground balls, but isn’t swinging a bat and will stay back to do rehab work when the Reds play in Pittsburgh and Houston on the road.
Does manager Dusty Baker miss Rolen, even with his .174 batting average? Of course he does. How much?
“The guys playing third (Todd Frazier, Miguel Cairo) are doing a good job, but Scott Rolen is Scott Rolen. You don’t really appreciate his consistency because of his dullness and lack of flair until he is not in there. He just makes all the plays. All of them.
“He is trying to get the strength and range of motion he had in spring training,” said Baker. “He had it big-time, but slowly but surely things got shorter and shorter with him without us noticing.”
KEN GRIFFEY JR. was a surprise visitor in the pre-game clubhouse Sunday and he was as big as bungalow. Not fat. Just big. He looked in better shape than the day he retired from baseball.
His son, Trey was with him, and Trey is taller than his father, “So I have to stay big to keep him in line,” said Junior.
Trey is headed for the University of Arizona, where he has a full ride to play wide receiver.
“That happens to all of us — getting big when we quit playing,” said Baker. “But how about his kid? How big is he? Man? He’s tall.”
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TweetThe Big H’s: Hoover, Heisey pace Reds
CINCINNATI — On a night when Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Mike Leake was giving up bullets, rockets, lasers and mortars, his offense and his bullpen picked him up and carried him, a 10-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies that extended the Reds to a 1 ½ game lead in the National League Central.
Leake gave up three runs, nine hits and a walk in only 3 2/3 innings and left with a lead. But he didn’t pitch the necessary five innings to qualify for a victory and that went to relief pitcher J. J. Hoover.
After Colorado scored a run in the top of the first, the Reds reconnoitered for four in the bottom of the first, punctuated by a three-run home run by Chris Heisey. And the Reds never looked back.
Heisey started it with a three-run home run, his first of the season, and pinch-hitter Ryan Ludwick ended it with a three-run pinch-hit home run in the seventh inning.
That called for some stern and stiff work from the bullpen, from guys who haven’t been getting much work lately. And J.J. Hoover and Sam LeCure produced.
WHEN THINGS ARE going right for the starting pitchers, when they are getting into the seventh inning night after night after night the way the Cincinnati Reds starters were doing, it makes three members of the team nearly invisible.
Normally, middle relief pitcher are invisible men, as anonymous as authors of threatening letters.
Such is the case for J.J. Hoover and Alfredo Simon and Sam LeCure. Hoover ha made only three appearances in the last 11 days. Simon has made only three appearances in the last three weeks and LeCure recently went 11 days with no activity.
They were needed Saturday when Leake melted in the 90-degree heat. Hoover replaced Leake in the fourth and went 1 1/3 innings, giving up no runs, no hits, one walk and striking out two. And he was rewarded with the win, his first major-league victory.
“This was good after losing Friday night to come back and win,” said Hoover. “We’re just all trying to do our job, try to keep our team in the game.” LeCure, his head shaved of a previous full load, but his mustaches intact, pitched the next two and was nearly perfect — no runs, no hits, one walk, three strikeouts.
THAT’S GOOD when middle relief is not needed. And that’s bad, too. It means the starters are making the middle guys obsolete, but it also means the middle guys aren’t getting work. So how do they stay sharp so they are effective when the time comes that the bullpen phone rings for them?
“When are we supposed to use those guys when our pitchers are going seven innings?” asked manager Dusty Baker. “Everybody has a designated job and our starters are going seven innings in all our games.
“Nevertheless, it is very important that Hoover, LeCure and Simon stay sharp,” said Baker. “It’s a hard thing for the front end of the bullpen to work hard to stay sharp. What you have to determine is how not to overwork and leave it all in the bullpen or when do you underwork and are not sharp in the game.
“Sometimes you realize you might have to work a little harder in the bullpen because sometimes you can decondition by just sitting out there,” Baker added. “And it doesn’t take long. The issue is — what are they supposed to do? How much is too much and how little is too little. So most of them run every day and then do a lot of work after games.”
WHILE IT IS A Catch-22, Baker prefers the extended work of his starters over the short outings when the bullpen wears a path from the outfield to the mound.
“Remember last year when we just kept having our starters going four and five innings?” said Baker. “Every day. Fans were yelling at me, ‘Get him out of there,’ and I’m saying, ‘Get him out of there? I’ve taken guys out of there the last four days. How many pitchers you think I have?’”
Heisey, who hit 18 home runs last year during part-time play, was more than 100 at-bats into this season without one and said, “I told my wife I’ve got to hit a home run pretty soon. I better hit one. It hasn’t been happening, but I didn’t think about it a lot because I have been getting hits recently. And I know I hit four or five this year that could have been homers — two held up by the wind in Wrigley Field and one in Pittsburgh that hit the top of the wall.”
MIGUEL CAIRO started at third base Saturday, mainly because Colorado pitcher Jeremy Guthrie hadn’t figure out how to send Cairo back to the bench without first reaching first base.
Cairo was 4 for 5 against Guthrie, with a double. But, of course, manager Dusty Baker had other reasons, too.
“Guthrie throws mostly fastballs,” said Baker. “I have to play Cairo sometimes. I have to get him, Ryan Ludwick and Valdez going so they’ll be strong off the bench to help us. That’s a tough job already, especially if you never play.
“And let’s not forget what a great job Cairo did for us the last two years,” Baker added.
Cairo had two at-bats against Guthrie and didn’t get a hit.
JAY BRUCE WAS back in the lineup Saturday after getting Friday off to reflect on things and forget about his 1 for 31 spell. And he reacted with a hard-hit double and a walk after his day of rest.
Asked what Bruce did on his day off, Baker said, “I don’t know. Whatever he wanted to do. I saw him messing around at shortstop during batting practice. That’s what I wanted. Told him to go have fun. Don’t hit in the cage, don’t hit in batting practice. Just have fun.”
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER was asked if there are any players in the majors today capable of winning the triple crown and he quickly said, “Josh Hamilton. Remember? He won the batting title in 2010 (.359) and batting average is the hardest one to get. He would be the guy who has the best chance to win a Triple Crown.
“But, oh yea, Matt Kemp, too. Big-time Kemp. Joey Votto would have a chance. Albert Pujols in a regular year would have a chance. With guys who hit the ball out of the park, as many walks as they get, the hardest one would be the batting average.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: From Scott Rolen as he watched Joey Votto stroll into the clubhouse early Saturday afternoon: “Look at that, a self-proclaimed superstar and he shows up to work wearing a t-shirt, bathing suit and flip-flops.”
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TweetWhen it is preferable to be anonymous
CINCINNATI — When things are going right for the starting pitchers, when they are getting into the seventh inning night after night after night the way the Cincinnati Reds starters are doing, it makes a couple members of the team nearly invisible.
Normally, middle relief pitcher are invisible men, as anonymous as authors of threatening letters.
Such is the case for J.J. Hoover and Alfredo Simon. Hoover has made only three appearances in the last 11 days. Simon has made only three appearances in the last three weeks.
THAT’S GOOD. AND that’s bad. It means the starters are making the middle guys obsolete, but it also means the middle guys aren’t getting work. So how do they stay sharp so they are effective when the time comes that the bullpen phone rings for them?
“When are we supposed to use those guys when our pitchers are going seven innings?” asked manager Dusty Baker. “Everybody has a designated job and our starters are going seven innings in all our games.
“Nevertheless, it is very important that Hoover and Simon stay sharp,” said Baker. “It’s a hard thing for the front end of the bullpen to work hard to stay sharp. What you have to determine is how not to overwork and leave it all in the bullpen or when do you underwork and are not sharp in the game.
“Sometimes you realize you might have to work a little harder in the bullpen because sometimes you can decondition by just sitting out there,” Baker added. “And it doesn’t take long. The issue is — what are they supposed to do? How much is too much and how little is too little. So most of them run every day and then do a lot of work after games.”
WHILE IT IS A Catch-22, Baker prefers the extended work of his starters over the short outings when the bullpen wears a path from the outfield to the mound.
“Remember last year when we just kept having our starters going four and five innings?” said Baker. “Every day. Fans were yelling at me, ‘Get him out of there,’ and I’m saying, ‘Get him out of there? I’ve taken guys out of there the last four days. How many pitchers you think I have?’”
MIGUEL CAIRO started at third base Saturday, mainly because Colorado pitcher Jeremy Guthrie hadn’t figure out how to send Cairo back to the bench without first reaching first base.
Cairo was 4 for 5 against Guthrie, with a double. But, of course, manager Dusty Baker had other reasons, too.
“Guthrie throws mostly fastballs,” said Baker. “I have to play Cairo sometimes. I have to get him, Ryan Ludwick and Valdez going so they’ll be strong off the bench to help us. That’s a tough job already, especially if you never play.
“And let’s not forget what a great job Cairo did for us the last two years,” Baker added.
JAY BRUCE WAS back in the lineup Saturday after getting Friday off to reflect on things and forget about his 1 for 31 spell.
Asked what Bruce did on his day off, Baker said, “I don’t know. Whatever he wanted to do. I saw him messing around at shortstop during batting practice. That’s what I wanted. Told him to go have fun. Don’t hit in the cage, don’t hit in batting practice. Just have fun.”
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER was asked if there are any players in the majors today capable of winning the triple crown and he quickly said, “Josh Hamilton. Remember? He won the batting title in 2010 (.359) and batting average is the hardest one to get. He would be the guy who has the best chance to win a Triple Crown.
“But, oh yea, Matt Kemp, too. Big-time Kemp. Joey Votto would have a chance. Albert Pujols in a regular year would have a chance. With guys who hit the ball out of the park, as many walks as they get, the hardest one would be the batting average.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: From Scott Rolen as he watched Joey Votto stroll into the clubhouse early Saturday afternoon: “Look at that, a self-proclaimed superstar and he shows up to work wearing a t-shirt, bathing suit and flip-flops.”
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TweetRockies continue to dominate the Reds
CINCINNATI — What is it with the Colorado Rockies against the Cincinnati Reds — no matter how bad they are?
And they are bad this year. They came to Great American Ball Park Friday with a 16-27 record. Their starting pitchers this year are 8-18 with a 5.55 ERA.
That made them prohibitive underdogs on any tote board Friday because they were going against Johnny Cueto (5-1) and the Reds were on a six-game winning streak during which they beat up on noteworthies like the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves.
Final Friday? Colorado 6, Cincinnati 3. Since 2007, the Rockies are 26-8 against the Reds, the best record of any team against any other team over that span.
Cueto? Very pedestrian. He gave up five runs and 11 hits over 4 2/3 innings, including a two-run home run to Todd Helton in the second to give the Rox a 2-0 lead.
And the Reds were fairly feeble against a rookie, lefthander Christian Friedrich, who attended Eastern Kentucky University. He held the Reds to three runs and seven hits over five innings, walking one and striking out six.
Only Joey Votto was in a hitting mood, four of the Reds nine hits (two doubles, two singles) and they stranded seven.
JAY BRUCE WAS given what Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker called, “A fun day.”
Bruce, 1 for his last 31 that has dropped his average from .302 to .252, was given Friday night off and Baker told him, “Get a massage, go lift weights, sit in the Jacuzzi, get something to eat, fool around at first base during batting practice and just clear your mind.”
Baker said it is a one-day hiatus and Bruce will start Saturday and might even pinch-hit in Friday’s game.
“Sometimes you just need to clear your head and for Jay it’s time,” Baker added. Baker said watching who’s hot and who’s not and what they’re doing can help you, “If you pay attention. It’s hard to see yourself or watch anybody else when you’re struggling because most of the time you have your head down trying to figure things out. And it’s hard to watch with your head down.”
SCOTT ROLEN took a long session of fielding ground balls and throwing to first base during batting practice Friday but is not swinging a bat yet.
The media gathered around his locker and he said wryly, “This is a big gathering for what I have to say, but thanks for checking in.
“The last three days I feel I’m going in the right direction,” he said after testing his sore shoulder. “We’re still actively resting. I’m on the DL and I fought doing that but I’m on it now and ideally this is the last time. So if it takes me some extra time I’d rather do it that way and calm everything down.”
Rolen said when he comes back he plans to adjust some things that might help elevate his .174 batting average, “Change some things around with some stance issues and lowering my hands, because right now I’m not helping anything. As for a time frame for anything, I’m not putting any time on it in any capacity.
“Three or four days ago I didn’t even want to try to hit,” he said. “I can see it coming down the road, but right now I won’t even pick up a bat because I shouldn’t.”
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER was asked about guarding against a letdown after winning six in a row against quality teams and then facing a 16-27 team like the Colorado Rockies.
“No, you don’t guard against anything,” he said. “You just play. If you play well, you expect well. I had a friend who was a surfer and he said, ‘When you are riding a wave don’t think about falling off or you will fall off. Just ride it all the way to the beach and catch another one.’
“This is a totally different game, totally different series and these guys have been tough on us in the past because they can hit,” he said. “We have to keep them in the ballpark and hopefully we can keep hitting it out the park (10 home runs in the four-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves).”
And then they went out and proved it — don’t take any major-league team for granted, no matter how bad the record, no matter how bad they look.
THE CROWDS, while not large this week, were vocal and vociferous for the four-game series against the Braves and Baker said he appreciated the support of those who were there, “That was nice,” But he added. “Let’s face it, a third of them were here to see Chipper Jones and a third were Braves fans. But we don’t care who they like as long as they come out.”
A VETERAN NATIONAL League scout who has been in the game 40 years on Drew Stubbs: “He might be the consistently fastest guy from home to first I’ve ever seen. He is consistently a 3.8 seconds to 3.9 seconds. Deion Sanders ran it in 3.8, too, but he ran from the left hander’s batter’s box and was one of those guys who was on the run when he swung. Stubbs takes a full swing from the right side and still runs it in 3.8.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Dusty Baker, asked to analyze the team’s winning streak: “You don’t analyze the good. You accept the good and analyze the bad.”
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TweetBruce given a ‘Fun Day’ of rest
CINCINNATI — Jay Bruce was given what Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker called, “A fun day.”
Bruce, 1 for his last 31 that has dropped his average from .302 to .252, was given Friday night off and Baker told him, “Get a massage, go lift weights, sit in the Jacuzzi, get something to eat, fool around at first base during batting practice and just clear your mind.”
Baker said it is a one-day hiatus and Bruce will start Saturday and might even pinch-hit in Friday’s game.
“Sometimes you just need to clear your head and for Jay it’s time,” Baker added. Baker said watching who’s hot and who’s not and what they’re doing can help you, “If you pay attention. It’s hard to see yourself or watch anybody else when you’re struggling because most of the time you have your head down trying to figure things out. And it’s hard to watch with your head down.”
SCOTT ROLEN took a long session of fielding ground balls and throwing to first base during batting practice Friday but is not swinging a bat yet.
The media gathered around his locker and he said wryly, “This is a big gathering for what I have to say, but thanks for checking in.
“The last three days I feel I’m going in the right direction,” he said after testing his sore shoulder. “We’re still actively resting. I’m on the DL and I fought doing that but I’m on it now and ideally this is the last time. So if it takes me some extra time I’d rather do it that way and calm everything down.”
Rolen said when he comes back he plans to adjust some things that might help elevate his .174 batting average, “Change some things around with some stance issues and lowering my hands, because right now I’m not helping anything. As for a time frame for anything, I’m not putting any time on it in any capacity.
“Three or four days ago I didn’t even want to try to hit,” he said. “I can see it coming down the road, but right now I won’t even pick up a bat because I shouldn’t.”
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER was asked about guarding against a letdown after winning six in a row against quality teams and then facing a 16-27 team like the Colorado Rockies.
“No, you don’t guard against anything,” he said. “You just play. If you play well, you expect well. I had a friend who was a surfer and he said, ‘When you are riding a wave don’t think about falling off or you will fall off. Just ride it all the way to the beach and catch another one.’
“This is a totally different game, totally different series and these guys have been tough on us in the past because they can hit,” he said. “We have to keep them in the ballpark and hopefully we can keep hitting it out the park (10 home runs in the four-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves).”
THE CROWDS, while not large this week, were vocal and vociferous for the four-game series against the Braves and Baker said he appreciated the support of those who were there, “That was nice,” But he added. “Let’s face it, a third of them were here to see Chipper Jones and a third were Braves fans. But we don’t care who they like as long as they come out.”
A VETERAN NATIONAL League scout who has been in the game 40 years on Drew Stubbs: “He might be the consistently fastest guy from home to first I’ve ever seen. He is consistently a 3.8 seconds to 3.9 seconds. Deion Sanders ran it in 3.8, too, but he ran from the left hander’s batter’s box and was one of those guys who was on the run when he swung. Stubbs takes a full swing from the right side and still runs it in 3.8.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Dusty Baker, asked to analyze the team’s winning streak: “You don’t analyze the good. You accept the good and analyze the bad.”
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TweetMesoraco swings his bat like a broom
CINCINNATI — Six in a row, six games over .500, a four-game sweep over the Atlanta Braves — can life be any sweeter these days for the raucous Cincinnati Reds?
“I can’t remember any team I’ve ever been involved with sweeping four games from the Braves, that just doesn’t happen,” said Reds manager Dusty Baker. “That’s really tough against any team.”
It happened this week in Great American Ball Park behind some big pitching, some big defense and some big, big booming bats.
For the series, the Reds hit more home runs (10) than the Braves scored runs (eight) and all four Reds pitchers anchored it all with quality starts.
IT WAS HOMER Bailey’s turn Thursday during a 6-3 victory — six innings, two runs, four hits, one walk, six strikeouts.
And the massive blow was struck by catcher Devin Mesoraco, a grand slam home run in the sixth inning that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 lead.
It was Mesoraco’s first big-league grand slam, but two years ago in his debut at Class AAA Louisville he hit a walk-off grand slam and in his first at-bat the next day he hit another grand slam.
“I’ve been scuffling at the plate, but me and (hitting coach) Brook Jacoby have been working hard and I could feel it coming and it came at the right time,” said Mesorco.
While the big-pay guys like Jay Bruce (1 for 31), Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips (two double plays Thursday) have been strangely quiet, it has been guys like Todd Frazier, Zack Cozart, Chris Heisey and Mesoraco picking up the slack.
Mesoraco’s home run was a straight-as-a-ruler drive down the left field line, no hook, and Baker said, “He kept it fair, no hook, and that’s the way Hank Aaron used to hit them. It has been a lot of different guys in this series, mostly young guys, and you like that because it builds their confidence.
“We haven’t been hitting a lot of home run and they usually come in bunches,” said Baker. Owner Bob Castellini, the fruit and vegetable magnate, doesn’t sell bananas in as big a bunch as the Reds hit home runs this week.
MESORACO WAS pleased with Homer Bailey, except for one pitch — a home run by Michael Bourn in the fifth inning that gave the Braves the 2-1 lead. Bourn, who had 13 home runs in his first seven years in the majors in more than 2,800 at-bats, hit three in this series.
“I was not happy with that pitch, that we gave him a fastball,” said Mesoraco. “It was not a great call on my part or a great pitch on Bailey’s part.”
But it was a rare mispitch.
“He is throwing every pitch over for strikes — sliders for strikes, curveballs for strikes, fastballs for strikes and he is using his split-finger as a chase pitch,” said Mesoraco of Bailey, now 3-and-3.
IN AN UNUSUAL and extremely classy decisions, the Cincinnati Reds honored a retiring opponent before Thursday’s game, Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones.
Before the game, a writer asked Reds manager Dusty Baker, “Do you see Chipper being a Hall of Famer,” and before he answered Baker looked as if the guy three eyes, two heads and a purple mustache
“Come on, dude. That ain’t no tweeter question is it?” he said with a shake of his head.
“What’s he got four hundred and sixty-something home runs (469)?” said Baker. “A lot of guys are in the Hall with less than that. How his average (.304), his RBIs (1,5xxx), his runs scored (1xxx)? And that was mostly in the steroids era and that has to count for something in itself.
“He fits all the criteria,” Baker added. “He has been on winning teams, MVP, batting champion — all the areas other guys in the Hall have and some less. He is a switch-hitter and a third baseman, the position with the least number of players in the Hall.”
THAT NATURALLY led to the question of whether Dave Concepcion, a shortstop Baker played against belongs in the Hall of Fame.
“Yeah,” Baker said right away. “Yes, I do. He was a bad boy, man. He was just overshadowed by a great team. But you take him off that team and that team is not as great without him.
“A shortstop does a bunch of work and then when he learned to hit he became even more dangerous,” Baker added. “When he came up, he couldn’t hit…(pause).”
Somebody filled in the blank and said, “He couldn’t hit .200 when he first came up,” and Baker smiled and said, “Yes, I didn’t want to say that, because he’s my boy.”
Joe Torre, who finished with a .299 career average, was once asked if Concepcion was a Hall of Famer, and Torre said, “I would have hit over .300 for my career if he hadn’t played and taken away so many of my hits in the hole.”
DESPITE ONLY ONE hit in his last 27 at-bats, Jay Bruce was in right field Thursday, batting in his usual No. 5 sot behind Brandon Phillips.
Asked if he was trying to let Bruce swing his way out of the funk, manager Dusty Baker said, “That’s how he usually does it. If we a player I didn’t know, but I know him.
“Most of the time when you are going bad you are fouling off pitches you should hit and he is pulling everything,” Baker added. “He has the quick shoulder and quick hip right now (not waiting on pitches). Nobody likes the get jammed, but he needs a jam hit. And there are more hits on the handle than on the end of the bat.”
NICK MASSET played catch before Thursday’s game, 30 light tosses. That’s 24 more than the last time he tried to throw and quit in pain after six throws.
“He looked pretty good for his first time throwing the ball,” said Baker. “He felt a little something, which is natural. We’ll see after tomorrow, because he is slated to do it again (Friday).
“The real tell-tale day is the third day, after he throws again tomorrow,” Baker added. “You have to get the thought out of your head that something is wrong. That’s the real tough thing. Once you
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Mike Costanzo, a graduate of Coastal Carolina University, where Joey Votto was supposed to attend at the same time but opted to sign with the Reds: “Yeah, and he was going to be my roommate. Just think if some of that talent had rubbed off on me.”
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TweetBaker: Chipper, Davey are Hall of Famers
CINCINNATI — In an unusual, and extremely classy decisions, the Cincinnati Reds honored a retiring opponent before Thursday’s game, Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones.
Before the game, a writer asked Reds manager Dusty Baker, “Do you see Chipper being a Hall of Famer,” and before he answered Baker looked as if the guy three eyes, two heads and a purple mustache
“Come on, dude. That ain’t no tweeter question is it?” he said with a shake of his head.
“What’s he got four hundred and sixty-something home runs (469)?” said Baker. “A lot of guys are in the Hall with less than that. How his average (.304), his RBIs (1,5xxx), his runs scored (1xxx)? And that was mostly in the steroids era and that has to count for something in itself.
“He fits all the criteria,” Baker added. “He has been on winning teams, MVP, batting champion — all the areas other guys in the Hall have and some less. He is a switch-hitter and a third baseman, the position with the least number of players in the Hall.”
THAT NATURALLY led to the question of whether Dave Concepcion, a shortstop Baker played against belongs in the Hall of Fame.
“Yeah,” Baker said right away. “Yes, I do. He was a bad boy, man. He was just overshadowed by a great team. But you take him off that team and that team is not as great without him.
“A shortstop does a bunch of work and then when he learned to hit he became even more dangerous,” Baker added. “When he came up, he couldn’t hit…(pause).”
Somebody filled in the blank and said, “He couldn’t hit .200 when he first came up,” and Baker smiled and said, “Yes, I didn’t want to say that, because he’s my boy.”
Joe Torre, who finished with a .299 career average, was once asked if Concepcion was a Hall of Famer, and Torre said, “I would have hit over .300 for my career if he hadn’t played and taken away so many of my hits in the hole.”
DESPITE ONLY ONE hit in his last 27 at-bats, Jay Bruce was in right field Thursday, batting in his usual No. 5 sot behind Brandon Phillips.
Asked if he was trying to let Bruce swing his way out of the funk, manager Dusty Baker said, “That’s how he usually does it. If we a player I didn’t know, but I know him.
“Most of the time when you are going bad you are fouling off pitches you should hit and he is pulling everything,” Baker added. “He has the quick shoulder and quick hip right now (not waiting on pitches). Nobody likes the get jammed, but he needs a jam hit. And there are more hits on the handle than on the end of the bat.”
NICK MASSET played catch before Thursday’s game, 30 light tosses. That’s 24 more than the last time he tried to throw and quit in pain after six throws.
“He looked pretty good for his first time throwing the ball,” said Baker. “He felt a little something, which is natural. We’ll see after tomorrow, because he is slated to do it again (Friday).
“The real tell-tale day is the third day, after he throws again tomorrow,” Baker added. “You have to get the thought out of your head that something is wrong. That’s the real tough thing. Once you
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Mike Costanzo, a graduate of Coastal Carolina University, where Joey Votto was supposed to attend at the same time but opted to sign with the Reds: “Yeah, and he was going to be my roommate. Just think if some of that talent had rubbed off on me.”
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TweetThis could be ‘The Year of the 12’
CINCINNATI — The smile on manager Dusty Baker’s face lit the room like a strobe light and through a broad smile he said, “Year of the 12, man, year of the 12. That’s what my wife and son told me.”
Year of the 12? That would be Baker’s uniform number (12) coupled with the year 2012 (12).
It is beginning to look like magic, something special, as the Cincinnati Reds rescued another win Wednesday night, 2-1, over the Atlanta Braves — their fifth straight win, pushing them five games over .500 for the first time this season.
Year of the ’12?’ Well, reverse Todd Frazier’s No. 21 and what do you have? 12, that’s what.
FRAZIER, SO slump-shrouded recently (.184 in his previous 10 starts) that Baker benched him Tuesday, was back in the lineup at third base Wednesday and ended the game abruptly.
With one out in the ninth of a tie game, Frazier banged a Cristhian Martinez slider over the right field wall for a 2-1 walk-off victory.
“Hey, my first walk-off home run, how about that?” said Frazier. “The first of many, I hope.”
While he didn’t get the win, the team victory salvaged the day for starter Bronson Arroyo, who gave up one run (a home run to Dan Uggla that chipped pain off a chair in the upper deck), pitched 6 2/3 innings, giving up one run, four hits, two walks and struck out seven.
In his last two starts, the Reds have given Arroyo one run in 14 /13 innings.
AND WHAT DID Frazier do on his day off? He worked with hitting coach Brook Jacoby.
“That was really nice, especially with the way I’ve been going — striking outt way too much,” said Frazier. “On my day off I worked a lot with Jacoby, watching a lot of video. I needed to get my weight on my back side (to load up). Jacoby knows me, he understands me, so praise be to him.”
NEED IT BE said that Arroyo was aided and abetted by stupendous glove work by shortstop Zack Cozart, first baseman Joey Votto (a throw home to cut off a runner) and another from the seat of the pants play by second baseman Brandon Phillips?
“Defense has been huge, just play after play after play, even ones that are not highlighted,” said Arroyo. “And Brandon is always making plays.”
Said Baker, “We’re used and accustomed to seeing Brandon make those plays. It could have been bases loaded, so it might have been a game-saver.” He blocked the ball and it rolled away from him, but he retrieved it and from the ground made a rolling backhand flip for a force to end the inning.
Routine. And, yeah, maybe The Year of the 12.
ROOKIE SHORTSTOP Zack Cozart played in 39 of the first 40 Cincinnati Reds games. And he felt it. Not physically. Mentally.
So manager Dusty Baker gave him a Day of Rest in New York, some time to sit and reflect and contemplate — something to take his mind off a 3 for 28 skid.
And Baker also noticed something in his approach and chatted with Copzart about it. After that Cozart hit safely in his next three games, including two home runs.
“Everybody is going to go through slumps,” said Cozart. “It’s a matter of how quick you can kick your way out of it. The day off helped me mentally more than physically. And Dusty talked to me about some things he saw.”
When asked about it, Dusty quickly said, “Who told you that? How do you know about this?”
When told that Cozart volunteered it, Baker said, “He credited me with helping him? He didn’t have to do that. But we’re all here to help.
“Sometimes you get out of synch,” said Baker. “Usually it is something very minor that gets you out of synch and can get you back in synch. Sometimes it is something so minute that you can’t see it.”
And what was out of synch?
“He just wasn’t starting his swing soon enough,” said Baker. “If you watch, you see certain things. And you hope whatever you saw can be the thing to get the young man back under way. It is very discouraging to make outs, especially when you are getting pitches to hit and not hitting them hard. I could see the frustration on his face.”
Cozart started against Wednesday and had two of his team’s four hits and scored the first run in the 2-1 victory.
RELIEF PITCHER Nick Masset got the clearance from the medical staff to try to throw before Thursday’s game. He tried to test his shoulder in mid-April but shut it down after six pitches due to pain. Now he gets to see if he can throw in mid-May without any pain.
“We have our fingers crossed and hope he doesn’t feel anything,” said Baker. “We hope that he is healed. So we’ll see. If no pain or discomfort, he’ll progress as tolerated.”
The time frame remains at least a month before Masset could return ¬— and that’s if he can throw Thursday with no pain and no reaction.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER doesn’t just give sound advice to his players. He also helps out writers/softball player like Gary Schatz, author of the blog Full of Schatz — even if Dusty doesn’t know it.
Baker was talking hitting during spring training with Donald Lutz and told him, “Stay in the pocket, and by that I mean don’t come out of your crouch too soon, don’t stand up and come out of your crouch when the ball is coming.”
Schatz was listening and employed it into his softball. He was excited, eager to tell Baker about the double he hit Tuesday night.
Baker laughed and said, “Yeah, and Donald Lutz is killing that ball, ain’t he?” Lutz, 23, was signed out of Netherlands and never played baseball in his life until he was 15.
The 6-3, 235-pound first baseman/outfielder played 15 games during spring training and hit .320 with two homers and eight RBI. Now he is playing for Ken Griffey Sr. at high class A Bakersfield and leads all Reds minor-league players with 38 RBI while hitting .302 with 12 homers and 15 doubles.
LAST CHANCE this week to appear in Sunday’s Ask Hal column by sending questions to halmccoy1@hotmail.com. And while I’m asking for things, here is hoping one of the Reds’ biggest fans, Joe Greenberg, has a fantastic 90th birthday Thursday.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: From White Sox scout and former Reds pitcher Bill Scherrer as he looked at a statistical sheet: “These numbers for Aroldis Chapman? They look like high school numbers. It’s absurd.”
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TweetTip from Baker jump-starts Cozart
CINCINNATI — Rookie shortstop Zack Cozart played in 39 of the first 40 Cincinnati Reds games. And he felt it. Not physically. Mentally.
So manager Dusty Baker gave him a Day of Rest in New York, some time to sit and reflect and contemplate — something to take his mind off a 3 for 28 skid.
And Baker also noticed something in his approach and chatted with Copzart about it. After that Cozart hit safely in his next three games, including two home runs.
“Everybody is going to go through slumps,” said Cozart. “It’s a matter of how quick you can kick your way out of it. The day off helped me mentally more than physically. And Dusty talked to me about some things he saw.”
When asked about it, Dusty quickly said, “Who told you that? How do you know about this?”
When told that Cozart volunteered it, Baker said, “He credited me with helping him? He didn’t have to do that. But we’re all here to help.
“Sometimes you get out of synch,” said Baker. “Usually it is something very minor that gets you out of synch and can get you back in synch. Sometimes it is something so minute that you can’t see it.”
And what was out of synch?
“He just wasn’t starting his swing soon enough,” said Baker. “If you watch, you see certain things. And you hope whatever you saw can be the thing to get the young man back under way. It is very discouraging to make outs, especially when you are getting pitches to hit and not hitting them hard. I could see the frustration on his face.”
RELIEF PITCHER Nick Masset got the clearance from the medical staff to try to throw before Thursday’s game. He tried to test his shoulder in mid-April but shut it down after six pitches due to pain. Now he gets to see if he can throw in mid-May without any pain.
“We have our fingers crossed and hope he doesn’t feel anything,” said Baker. “We hope that he is healed. So we’ll see. If no pain or discomfort, he’ll progress as tolerated.”
The time frame remains at least a month before Masset could return ¬— and that’s if he can throw Thursday with no pain and no reaction.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER doesn’t just give sound advice to his players. He also helps out writers/softball player like Gary Schatz, author of the blog Full of Schatz — even if Dusty doesn’t know it.
Baker was talking hitting during spring training with Donald Lutz and told him, “Stay in the pocket, and by that I mean don’t come out of your crouch too soon, don’t stand up and come out of your crouch when the ball is coming.”
Schatz was listening and employed it into his softball. He was excited, eager to tell Baker about the double he hit Tuesday night.
Baker laughed and said, “Yeah, and Donald Lutz is killing that ball, ain’t he?” Lutz, 23, was signed out of Netherlands and never played baseball in his life until he was 15.
The 6-3, 235-pound first baseman/outfielder played 15 games during spring training and hit .320 with two homers and eight RBI. Now he is playing for Ken Griffey Sr. at high class A Bakersfield and leads all Reds minor-league players with 38 RBI while hitting .302 with 12 homers and 15 doubles.
LAST CHANCE this week to appear in Sunday’s Ask Hal column by sending questions to halmccoy1@hotmail.com. And while I’m asking for things, here is hoping one of the Reds’ biggest fans, Joe Greenberg, has a fantastic 90th birthday Thursday.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: From White Sox scout and former Reds pitcher Bill Scherrer as he looked at a statistical sheet: “These numbers for Aroldis Chapman? They look like high school numbers. It’s absurd.”
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TweetLatos discovers the seventh inning
CINCINNATI — For the second straight night, the boom of the bats was eye-catching and eye wash for the Cincinnati Reds, but it was what happened on the mound that was more significant.
The Reds hit three more home runs, two by Brandon Phillips, just enough to beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-3. In two nights, the Reds have hit seven home runs against the Braves and scored nine runs.
So it is of utmost importance what has transpired on the mound, especially for Mat Latos, who has pitched recently as if the fifth inning was a complete game.
On Tuesday he went seven innings, giving up two runs on five hits with one walk and eight strikeouts.
“I’ve been throwing a lot of pitches just to get to five innings,” said Latos. “I was stretched out to a little more than 100 pitches tonight (116). I was just tired of only going five innings and was ready to go seven.”
HE DIDN’T HIT 100 pitches until the sixth inning. The first batter he faced, Michael Bourn, homered. Bourn also later homered off Logan Ondrusek to draw the Braves within 4-3 in the eighth.
Phillips hit his first homer in the bottom of the first, a two-run shot to put the Reds in front, 2-1. Cozart hit his third home run in three games, making it 3-1, after four. The Braves scored one in the fourth and Phillips struck again in the bottom of the fourth, making it 4-2.
PHILLIPS HADN’T homered since April 24, 27 games ago, and said he had chats with hitting coach Brook Jacoby and with Atlanta superstar Chipper Jones before the game.
“I came in early and sat down with Jacoby and said I feel like I’ve got my legs back and he told me, ‘Come and look at this video,’” said Phillips.
He checked video from last year to this year and discovered he was standing more straight-up this year and Jacoby told me, ‘Just go out and lower your stance and see what happens.’”
What happened? Two home runs in his first two at-bats.
“Chipper told me I have great hands and I should start using them at the plate,” said Phillips. “Me and Chipper are cool. I looked at him in their dugout after the home runs and he just busted out laughing.”
AND THERE WAS, of course, the final touch. Aroldis Chapman, a.k.a. Speed Racer, pitched the ninth in 1-2-3 order with two strikeouts, showing that he was not distracted by the flood of publicity over his speeding tickets.
“A much bigger deal was made of it than it is,” said Baker. “You show me a young person who hasn’t gotten speeding tickets and I’ll show you somebody who doesn’t drive. We’ve just told him to slow down. Even though he doesn’t understand English that much, he said the policeman told him the same thing.”
Chapman was sitting in a large black chair in front of his locker late Tuesday afternoon and, fortunately, there was no steering wheel in front of him.
Neither Chapman nor the Reds addressed the elephant in the clubhouse, the apparent speed genes in Chapman, both on the mound and in an automobile.
Chapman was stopped early Monday morning in Grove City on I71, near Columbus, when his black Mercedes S63 flashed through a speed trap at 93 miles and hour and the cops must have thought they’d just spotted Dale Earnhardt Jr. after he made a wrong turn.
It was discovered that Chapman’s Kentucky driver’s license was suspended after he failed to appear in court after two speeding violations, one a 95 miles an hour beef in a 55 miles an hour zone.
And he had two outstanding tickets in Florida and both times he failed to appear in court there.
He has a court date in Grove City on June 6 and it is fairly certain his garage full of exotic cars will be parked for a while and he will have to hire a chauffeur to ‘Drive Mr. Chapman.’
Chapman has a Lamborghini with the license plate number ‘105MPH’ and the Mercedes S63 plate number is ‘104 MPH.’ And here we thought those were because his pitches have been clocked that fast. Now we discover that’s how fast he drives his cars.
FOR THOSE WONDERING, ‘Whatever Happened to Nick Masset,’ well, he is still around, still working to rehabilitate his sore shoulder.
But don’t look for him on the pitching mound any day soon. He is, at least, a month away from returning. At least.
Masset was in his clubhouse seat before Tuesday’s game, fairly perplexed about his situation.
Asked about his situation, Masset rubbed his chin and said, “Where should I start? I really don’t know.”
But he tried.
“I don’t have a whole lot of information,” he said. “I’m starting to feel really good, my strength is back, my mobility is there.”
But Masset was waiting to see team physician Dr. Tim Kremchek for tests and a workout program. Masset hasn’t thrown since mid-March, other than one day in early April when he tried to throw six pitches and there was too much pain.
He hopes to start throwing late this week, but that could be more hope than reality.
“I will be trying to throw this week to see where I am,” he said. “They don’t want me to do anything until I don’t feel a thing in my shoulder. Right now, it feels like I’m almost completely healed. And the next test is to try to throw and see how I rebound after I throw, how my recovery is.
“It is kind of like starting spring training all over again and it is a tough situation,” he added. “We’re going off feel and as long as I’m feeling good I’ll keep throwing, as long as I’m rebounding good.”
Said manager Dusty Baker, “Masset is the one who has to feel good, not just us feeling good about him. He is the one who knows, the one who will know.”
EVER WONDER what that wrap is that Joey Votto wears around his right forearm, covering his elbow. It is clear it is not a protective device.
Votto smiled when asked about it.
“It’s called a compression pad,” said Votto. “I don’t really need it. I wore it in the minors when I had a sore arm. I must have hit well when I wore it because I never quit wearing and I still wear it every day.”
ONE VETERAN National League scout’s observation on Atlanta pitcher Brandon Beachy, before Tuesday’s game: “I saw him last year and I thought he was the best pitcher I saw all year.”
Beachy was 7-3 with a 3.68 ERA in 25 starts and took a 5-1 record with the league’s best ERA, 1.33, into Mondays game. “Now watch the Reds beat him to death,” said the scout.
The Reds didn’t exactly emasculate Beachy, but they hit three home runs, scoring four runs on only six hits in seven innings, enough to hand him his second loss.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Asked if he scoreboard watches when the Reds are so close to the top, Manager Dusty Baker said, “I pay attention to the standings every day — in every division, both leagues — from the start to the finish. We’re only a quarter of the way through the season, but I’d rather be in our position right now than be way back.”
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TweetChapman: Speedy on and off the field
CINCINNATI — Aroldis Chapman was sitting in a large black chair in front of his locker late Tuesday afternoon and, fortunately, there was no steering wheel in front of him.
Neither Chapman nor the Reds addressed the elephant in the clubhouse, the apparent speed genes in Chapman, both on the mound and in an automobile.
Chapman was stopped early Monday morning in Grove City on I71, near Columbus, when his black Mercedes S63 flashed through a speed trap at 93 miles and hour and the cops must have thought they’d just spotted Dale Earnhardt Jr. after he made a wrong turn.
It was discovered that Chapman’s Kentucky driver’s license was suspended after he failed to appear in court after two speeding violations, one a 95 miles an hour beef in a 55 miles an hour zone.
And he had two outstanding tickets in Florida and both times he failed to appear in court there.
He has a court date in Grove City on June 6 and it is fairly certain his garage full of exotic cars will be parked for a while and he will have to hire a chauffeur to ‘Drive Mr. Chapman.’
Chapman has a Lamborghini with the license plate number ‘105MPH’ and the Mercedes S63 plate number is ‘104 MPH.’ And here we thought those were because his pitches have been clocked that fast. Now we discover that’s how fast he drives his cars.
FOR THOSE WONDERING, ‘Whatever Happened to Nick Masset,’ well, he is still around, still working to rehabilitate his sore shoulder.
But don’t look for him on the pitching mound any day soon. He is, at least, a month away from returning. At least.
Masset was in his clubhouse seat before Tuesday’s game, fairly perplexed about his situation.
Asked about his situation, Masset rubbed his chin and said, “Where should I start? I really don’t know.”
But he tried.
“I don’t have a whole lot of information,” he said. “I’m starting to feel really good, my strength is back, my mobility is there.”
But Masset was waiting to see team physician Dr. Tim Kremchek for tests and a workout program. Masset hasn’t thrown since mid-March, other than one day in early April when he tried to throw six pitches and there was too much pain.
He hopes to start throwing late this week, but that could be more hope than reality.
“I will be trying to throw this week to see where I am,” he said. “They don’t want me to do anything until I don’t feel a thing in my shoulder. Right now, it feels like I’m almost completely healed. And the next test is to try to throw and see how I rebound after I throw, how my recovery is.
“It is kind of like starting spring training all over again and it is a tough situation,” he added. “We’re going off feel and as long as I’m feeling good I’ll keep throwing, as long as I’m rebounding good.”
Said manager Dusty Baker, “Masset is the one who has to feel good, not just us feeling good about him. He is the one who knows, the one who will know.”
EVER WONDER what that wrap is that Joey Votto wears around his right forearm, covering his elbow. It is clear it is not a protective device.
Votto smiled when asked about it.
“It’s called a compression pad,” said Votto. “I don’t really need it. I wore it in the minors when I had a sore arm. I must have hit well when I wore it because I never quit wearing and I still wear it every day.”
ONE VETERAN National League scout’s observation on Atlanta pitcher Brandon Beachy, before Tuesday’s game: “I saw him last year and I thought he was the best pitcher I saw all year.”
Beachy was 7-3 with a 3.68 ERA in 25 starts and took a 5-1 record with the league’s best ERA, 1.33, into Mondays game. “Now watch the Reds beat him to death,” said the scout.
IT’S THAT TIME to get a jump on others by sending in your Ask Hal questions for Sunday. Do it now and have a good chance for them to appear in Sunday’s paper. Send them now to halmccoy1@hotmail.com.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Asked if he scoreboard watches when the Reds are so close to the top, Manager Dusty Baker said, “I pay attention to the standings every day — in every division, both leagues — from the start to the finish. We’re only a quarter of the way through the season, but I’d rather be in our position right now than be way back.”
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TweetLeake shines in pitcher’s box, batter’s box
CINCINNATI — The attention-getter Monday night was the big, booming bats — four home runs by the Cincinnati Reds (back to back to back in the fourth inning, plus two homers by Drew Stubbs, as the Reds whipped the Atlanta Braves, 4-1.
The news of importance, what strengthened hearts in the clubhouse, was the performance of one Mike Leake, long-haired surfer boy who stood on the mound for the Reds for eight innings as if he caught a big wave and was taking it to the beach.
He made his second straight good start and this one was sensational — eight innings, one run, two hits, one walk six strikeouts. And he hit one of the four home runs, too. Zack Cozart hit the other one.
LEAKE’S ONLY MISHAP was a solo home run by Atlanta third baseman and former Cincinnati Reds third baseman Juan Francisco.
For what he did, Leake took a direct-hit shaving cream pie in the face during his post-game interview, gamely aimed by fellow pitcher Homer Bailey. But it wasn’t for Leake’s eight one-run innings. “You hit a home run, you get a pie in the face. Will I ever get one? No.”
Leake needed only 98 pitches to get to the eighth, but it wasn’t manager Dusty Baker who took him out. It was Leake.
“I pulled myself because my back was tightening up a little bit,” he said. “When I sat down, it got tight. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Of his performance, Leake said, “I was attacking hitters, going after them, not worrying who was in the box. It’s nice to have a little attitude, which is what I had the last couple of outings.”
And because it was ex-teammate Francisco who hit the home run, Leake had an attitude about that, too. After the home run, he retired 14 in a row.
“I’ve finally sucked it up and I think I’m heading down the right track, “he said. “It kind of p—-ed me off that it was him (Francisco to hit the home run), of all people, but it was nice to get a run going where I could stay in the wind-up.”
STUBBS HOMERED in the first and Francisco tied it with his homer in the second. Then Leake homered in the fourth, followed by Cozart’s and Stubbs’s — back to back to back. Said Leake, “I started a trend.”
Said Stubbs, “Three home runs in a row is a little bit contagious and a little bit of luck. Whenever you see the guys in front of you hit homers, that kind of ramps you up to want to do it also. Today was the best day for a month, but everything was moving slow for me and I was able to put good swings on the ball inside the zone.”
BEFORE THE GAME, there were five video cameras and a dozen microphones and digital recorders pointed at manager Dusty Baker’s face when one media type asked:
“Where are you on Aroldis Chapman as a closer — is it a fluid situation?”
Baker shook his head and said softly, “I’m tired of talking about it, to tell you the truth. Just let us play and do our thing.”
What the media didn’t know at the time was that Chapman had been arrested at 12:53 a.m. Monday in Grove City, near Columbus, on an interstate. He was stopped for hot-pedaling a Mercedes 93 miles an hour (slower than his average fastball) and then arrested for driving on a suspended license he has a court appearance June 6. But he was at the ballpark Monday night.
After pitching in set-up the entire season, Chapman closed Sunday’s game in New York and recorded a save against the New York Yankees. And it was his fourth appearance in five days.
“We still have to monitor him because he still isn’t used to going three and four days in a row, as most closers do,” Baker said. “It is going to be a situation on who we feel is best on that day and hopefully he is rested and is the best guy for that day.
“It could be a number of guys and this is what happens when you lose your closer (Ryan Madson),” Baker added. “I talked to Aroldis about it a couple of weeks ago. Asked if he felt he had graduated to the point where he can handle it. You just don’t throw guys into it. Hopefully, though, he has graduated to the closer’s role. It depends upon how often we can use him.”
Baker said it has to be Chapman telling the coaching staff if he is up to pitching after two or three straight appearances and said, “We’re on the honor system here. I tell him, ‘Just make sure you tell me truth, because right now is not hero time. It’s May. Not August or September.”
There was a closing situation Monday, but it wasn’t Chapman trotting in from the mound. It was Jose Arrendondo sent in to protect Leake’s three-run lead. He retired the first two, but couln’t finish it. He walked the next two and Baker brought in Sean Marshall, the former closer.
On a 1-and-2 pitch to left hander Jason Heyward, Marshall threw a wild pitch, moving the runners to second and third. Then he flied out to right to end it.
AFTER MONDAY’S GAME, No. 41, the rest were just barely past the one-fourth portion of their season and Baker was asked to assess where the team is in his eyes.
“We’re still in the process of learning,” he said. “I know they play hard and they play smart, most of the time. We still have a few things to learn because we have a young team.
“Right now we’re still trying to mesh everything together — good pitching, good defense, good hitting,” he added. “There is still a long way to go and some things we have to get together.”
The Reds still have to do some hitting with runners in scoring position because they are 29th of all major-league teams. They are 13th of 16 National League teams in hitting (.238) and 14th in hits. But the Reds are second in relief pitching (10-6, 2.66) and sixth in fielding (.984)
AFTER FIVE DAYS in New York, richer of wins and thinner of wallets, the Reds returned to Cincinnati, but Chris Heisey won’t forget his time in Yankee Stadium.
“Those three games felt like more than they were, felt like more than a three-game regular-season series in May,” he said. “With the big crowds and all the tradition, it felt like a playoff atmosphere. It was the bright lights and the big city. I think we can take that experience and run with it.”
HOMER BAILEY, sweating in rivulets, walked into the clubhouse after doing his between-starts throwing in the bullpen, not facing hitters, and said, ‘I just threw a no-hitter.”
Somebody said it should have been a perfect game with no batters to face and he said, “Oh, no. I’m sure I threw a few walks in there. But I didn’t give up a hit.”
Bailey (2-3, 4.34), coming off a couple of strong outings, faces the Braves Thursday night.
BRANDON PHILLIPS, as guilty as the next guy over his team’s failure to hit recently, expects it to change.
“A lot of guys, like myself, are not hitting the way we are supposed to hit. But we will. We can be so much better than we are, yet here we are only a half-game out of first place.”
INTERNET RUMORS that say the Reds forced Scott Rolen onto the disabled list and that he will not return are totally incorrect and founded in no validity.
“It’s only been a week and I hope he is progressing well,” said Baker. “Even though we’ve played well, still need Scotty. His throws to first base are never off-line. Never. And you get spoiled by that. That’s’s not how it is everywhere — it’s not how it is for most teams.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: White Sox scout Bill Scherrer was in the press box Monday and somebnody reminded him of his time with the 1982 Reds (102 losses, the only Reds team ever to lose more than 100) and the former left handed pitchers said, “Don’t ever make fun of The Little Red Caboose.”
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TweetIs Chapman the closer? Wellll….
CINCINNATI — There were five video cameras pointed at Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker and at least 12 microphones and digital recorders in front of his face when one media type asked:
“Where are you on Aroldis Chapman as a closer — is it a fluid situation?”
Baker shook his head and said softly, “I’m tired of talking about it, to tell you the truth. Just let us play and do our thing.”
After pitching in set-up the entire season, Chapman closed Sunday’s game in New York and recorded a save against the New York Yankees. And it was his fourth appearance in five days.
“We still have to monitor him because he still isn’t used to going three and four days in a row, as most closers do,” Baker said. “It is going to be a situation on who we feel is best on that day and hopefully he is rested and is the best guy for that day.
“It could be a number of guys and this is what happens when you lose your closer (Ryan Madson),” Baker added. “I talked to Aroldis about it a couple of weeks ago. Asked if he felt he had graduated to the point where he can handle it. You just don’t throw guys into it. Hopefully, though, he has graduated to the closer’s role. It depends upon how often we can use him.”
Baker said it has to be Chapman telling the coaching staff if he is up to pitching after two or three straight appearances and said, “We’re on the honor system here. I tell him, ‘Just make sure you tell me truth, because right now is not hero time. It’s May. Not August or September.”
AFTER MONDAY’S GAME, No. 41, the rest were just barely past the one-fourth portion of their season and Baker was asked to assess where the team is in his eyes.
“We’re still in the process of learning,” he said. “I know they play hard and they play smart, most of the time. We still have a few things to learn because we have a young team.
“Right now we’re still trying to mesh everything together — good pitching, good defense, good hitting,” he added. “There is still a long way to go and some things we have to get together.”
The Reds still have to do some hitting with runners in scoring position because they are 29th of all major-league teams. They are 13th of 16 National League teams in hitting (.238) and 14th in hits. But the Reds are second in relief pitching (10-6, 2.66) and sixth in fielding (.984)
AFTER FIVE DAYS in New York, richer of wins and thinner of wallets, the Reds returned to Cincinnati, but Chris Heisey won’t forget his time in Yankee Stadium.
“Those three games felt like more than they were, felt like more than a three-game regular-season series in May,” he said. “With the big crowds and all the tradition, it felt like a playoff atmosphere. It was the bright lights and the big city. I think we can take that experience and run with it.”
HOMER BAILEY, sweating in rivulets, walked into the clubhouse after doing his between-starts throwing in the bullpen, not facing hitters, and said, ‘I just threw a no-hitter.”
Somebody said it should have been a perfect game with no batters to face and he said, “Oh, no. I’m sure I threw a few walks in there. But I didn’t give up a hit.”
Bailey (2-3, 4.34), coming off a couple of strong outings, faces the Braves Thursday night.
BRANDON PHILLIPS, as guilty as the next guy over his team’s failure to hit recently, expects it to change.
“A lot of guys, like myself, are not hitting the way we are supposed to hit. But we will. We can be so much better than we are, yet here we are only a half-game out of first place.”
INTERNET RUMORS that the Reds forced Scott Rolen onto the disabled list and that he will not return are totally incorrect and founded in no validity.
“It’s only been a week and I hope he is progressing well,” said Baker. “Even though we’ve played well, still need Scotty. His throws to first base are never off-line. Never. And you get spoiled by that. That’s’s not how it is everywhere — it’s not how it is for most teams.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: White Sox scout Bill Scherrer was in the press box Monday and somebnody reminded him of his time with the 1982 Reds (102 losses, the only Reds team ever to lose more than 100) and the former left handed pitchers said, “Don’t ever make fun of The Little Red Caboose.”
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TweetJust call Aroldis Chapman Mr. Closer
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave after a great Saturday night doing Dayton Dragons TV with personable Tom Nichols and wondering why 9,172 people show up to see a last place team that lost 14-3 to the Great Lakes Loons. I can come up with only two reasons: the Dragons folks are fantastic marketers and promoters and Dayton fans are the greatest.
IT LOOKS AS if The Changing of the Guard is here — Aroldis Chapman, Closer.
Manager Dusty Baker used former closer Sean Marshall for one left handed batter in the eighth inning. And it worked.
Then he used Chapman as the closer in the ninth inning. And it worked.
Cincinnati Reds 5, New York Yankees 2.
THE REDS MADE it easier for Chapman’s debut as a closer by scoring two runs in the top of the ninth so Chapman only had to protect a three-run lead instead of a one-run lead.
DESIGNATED HITTER Ryan Ludwick, who had three hits and three RBI, provided the extra two runs with a two-run double in that decisive ninth. Ludwick was supposed to be the DH for the entire Yankees series, but he was hit by a pitch Thursday against the Mets’ R.A. Dickey and he had a sore forearm for two days.
Chapman retired Nick Swisher on a pop to first base for the first out. Then he faced three straight pinch-hitters. Mark Teixeira hit one hard to third base for an infield hit. Russell Martin flied to right and then, on a 3-and-2 pitch, Chapman hum-fired a 98 miles an hour fastball past Andruw Jones to end it.
RETREAT TO THE eighth inning when the Reds led, 3-2. Curtis Granderson singled to open the inning on starter Johnny Cueto’s 108th pitch.
Manager Dusty Baker brought in Sean Marshall — the kind of spot he was acquired to do. He wasn’t acquired to be the closer, but was forced into the job when Ryan Madson went down for the season.
Marshall faced left hander Robinson Cano and biff, bang, boom, he struck out Cano on three pitches. Baker then brought in Logan Ondrusek and he retired A-Rod and Raul Ibanez. A-Rod mangled one to left that on a normal day easier would have reached the seats. But a stiff breeze blowing in held it up and left fielder Chris Heisey tracked it down on the edged of the warning track.
AS ADVERTISED, this one was a pitcher’s afternoon in the sparkling daylight on Yankee Stadium — Johnny Cueto against CC Sabathia.
Cueto gave up at least one hit in each of the first six innings, but the Yankees scored nothing. And the Reds scored nothing against Sabathia, either.
The Yankees broke through on Cueto in the sixth on Cano’s double and a home run by Raul Ibanez, who is 6 for 14 for his career against Cueto.
Those two runs looked as insurmountable at the K-2 with Sabathia dealing. That quickly changed.
Ludwick led the top of the seventh with a home run and one out later Ryan Hanigan also homered, tying it, 2-2.
And the Reds didn’t stop there, thanks to Sabathia. Zack Cozart beat an infield hit, then Sabathia walked three straight to force in the go-ahead run. Drew Stubbs walked, Joey Votto walked on a full count and Brandon Phillips also walked on a full count to force in the run.
That made Cueto a winner, pushing his record to 5-1 after he held the Yankees to two runs, eight hits with two walks and five strikeouts for his seven-plus inning.
Cueto was aided by some heavy-duty leatherwork, too. First baseman Joey Votto made three outstanding players, Heisey made a nifty running catch and second baseman Brandon Phillips started a double play, making the throw to first base from the second base bag on his knees.
And who said, “Never on Sunday.” The Reds are now 6-0 on Sundays. They took two of three from the Yankees and finished the nine-day trip 5-4.
They return home Monday night for the start of a four-game seres against the Atlanta Braves. And now the $30 Million Question. Chapman has pitched two days in a row. Will he be able to close Monday night, if necessary?
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TweetReds survive by skin of Arredondo’s teeth
UNSOLICITED OBSERVARTIONS from The Man Cave, watching the Reds-Yankees before leaving for a guest commentary appearance tonight with Tom Nichols on a Dayton Dragons TV broadcast.
FOR SURE, isn’t it time to look for a new closer for the Cincinnati Reds — Aroldis Chapman or Jose Arrendondo?
Sean Marshall evokes to many memories of The Bad Times of Coco Cordero.
Marshall was given a three-run lead to close out in the ninth Saturday and couldn’t get through the inning. He faced five batters and gave up four hits and two runs, plus the New York Yankees had the tying and winning run on base.
While Baker probably would have stuck with Cordero in the past three years, he didn’t stick with Marshall. He brought in Arredondo and he did it — to the final two outs for his first major-league save.
He retired Derek Jeter on a first-pitch fielder’s choice then got Curtis Ganderson on a roller to first base and the Reds escaped, barely, 6-5.
RYAN LUDWICK best prepare himself for a long squat in the dugout, other than pinch-hitting appearances, but Chris Heisey is playing left field these days as if he purchased the property.
Heisey had two more hits, helping Homer Bailey and Joey Votto get this victory.
Heisey began the game hitting .362 over his last 10 games and is now 8 for his last 19. In addition, he made a superb running catch in the fifth inning to rob Russell Martin of a double.
And the much-maligned Bailey cranked up another good one — three runs, seven hits, one walk, seven strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings. That was Bailey’s sixth quality start (three runs or less in six innings or more) in his eight starts - the same number of quality starts as Raul Ibanez.
FOR THE EIGHTH straight game, the Reds struck out 10 or more times (15 times Saturday) and Yankee starter Ivan “Super” Nova recorded eight of his first nine outs via strikeouts. Cano finished with 12 strikeouts in only six innings, but in between stirring up the Yankee Stadium breeze with whiffs, the Reds scored five runs off him.
The Reds were able to construct a 2-0 lead in the first two innings, scoring once in the first when Nova walked Drew Stubbs and Joey Votto before Brandon Phillips blooped a single to right.
They made it 2-0 in the second on a double by Devin Mesoraco and another double by Heisey.
THE YANKEES battled back to tie it. They scored a run in the third on a home run by catcher Russell Martin and a run in the fourth when Bailey walked the first batter, Curtis Granderson, and he came around to score on a double by Raul Ibanez.
Wilson Valdez, playing shortstop in place of of slump-ridden Zack Cozart, singled to start the fifth. Heisey dropped a perfect bunt and beat it, putting runners on first and second with no outs.
Doesn’t this call for a sacrifice bunt by Drew Stubbs? Nope. Instead Stubbs was permitted to hit and bounced into a force play.
Votto, though, made it all go away. Votto looked helpless Friday night, striking out three times, and he looked baffled and confused, when he struck out on a bad pitch in the third. This time, though, he pulled a three-run home run over the right-center wall for a 5-2 lead.
The Yankees retrieve one run off Bailey in the fifth when No. 9 hitter Jayson Nix, a brother to former Reds outfielder Laynce Nix, drilled a two-out home run to make it 5-3.
Bailey started the seventh and record an out, but also gave up two singles and manager Dusty Baker went to the bullpen. He brought in Logan Ondrusek, who hadn’t given a run all year until he gave up five runs in one innings Thursday against the New York Mets.
Ondrusek shook off that disaster by getting the last two outs on a fielder’s choice by Nix and a fly to right by Derek Jeter.
Aroldls Chapman, who like Ondrusek had his scoreless year dirtied up by the Mets Thursday, pitched a perfect eighth against the filet mignon of the Yankees order, striking out both Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano on 3-and-2 pitches, then finished off A-Rod on a pop to short.
AFTER STRIKING out his first two times against Ivan Nova, surprise designated hitter Mike Costanzo singled his third time up, his first major-league hit, then in the eighth he lofted a sacrifice fly to deep center, provided the Reds with an insurance run — a big, big run, the winning run, when the Yankees cut the ninth-inning 6-3 to a 6-5 final.
IT’S PROBABLY TIME for Dusty Baker to give Jay Bruce a day off and that may come Sunday when the Reds face lefthander CC Sabathia. Bruce is 0 for 13 and struck out three times Saturday.
SHOULD BE A fantastic pitcher’s duel Sunday in the finale — CC Sabathia against Johnny Cueto.
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TweetAncient Andy, Arroyo pitch dandies
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, wondering if this current Cincinnati Reds team is ever going to hit and they certainly aren’t going to be the hit-starved 1959 Go-Go White Sox because, unlike those White Sox, they don’t even try to steal bases.
FOR 7 2/3 INNINGS Friday night, Cincinnati’s Bronson Arroyo and New York’s Andy Pettitte put on the best pitching performance one will ever see this side of Justin Verlander.
The final score was New York 4, Cincinnati 0, but it was 1-0 with two outs in the eighth inning.
Arroyo had given up only one run and that scored on a ground ball by A-Rod and in one inning he had the bases loaded with no outs and escaped without giving up a run.
On this night, though, Arroyo and the Reds ran into a 39-year-old lefthander making only his second major-league start in two years.
Pettitte retired after 2010, but he quickly became bored with the life of leisure and returned this month. On Friday he pitched as if he spent all of 2011 sitting next to the Fountain of Youth drinking the magic water.
Pettitte went eight innings, gave up no runs, four hits, one walk and struck out nine.
THE FOOTPRINT for this game was laid in the first inning when Zack Cozart reached third base with one out and didn’t score.
He struck out, but catcher Chris Stewart missed the pitch for a passed ball and then threw the ball into right field, enabling Cozart to take second.
Drew Stubbs bunted Cozart to third, but Pettitte struck out both Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips. Pettitte struck out Votto twice, both on bad pitches, and Votto was 0 for 4 with three strikeouts.
STUBBS LED the sixth with a single, then Yankee catcher Chris Stewart made up for his first-inning passed ball/throwing error by making a perfect peg to wipe out Stubbs trying to steal second — and that was the end of the Reds.
Nine of the last 10 Reds went down and Boone Logan closed it in the ninth with a 1-2-3 inning.
New York scored the game’s only run in the first seven innings in the fourth, an inning that started with back-to-back hits by Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano. Granderson scored on a slow roller ground out to shortstop by A-Rod.
And that’s it stood in the eighth inning with two outs and nobody on. And Arroyo had two strikes on Cano. The next pitch nearly landed in Brooklyn, a second deck home run to make it 2-0. A-Rod singled and Raul Ibanez pulled a home run into the right field seats to make it 4-0.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER had announced that Ryan Ludwick would be his designated hitter, but instead used Miguel Cairo, who went 0 for 3 and didn’t get the ball out of the infield. But at least he was not one of Pettitte’s nine strikeouts.
STUMBLED UPON the Dodgers-Padres game on MLB-TV Thursday night and saw an intriguing pitching match-up — LA’s Aaron Harang against San Diego’s Edinson Volquez.
Guess how that turned out? Not a guess, right?
Volquez was all over the place in the early going and gave up five runs (three earned), seven hits and three walks in five innings. Some things never change.
Harang pitched seven shutout innings, giving up four hits, no walks and struck out seven. Some things do change.
The Dodgers led, 7-0, when another former Red, Todd Coffey, entered the ninth and gave up an unearned run. The announcers said the portly Coffey’s nickname is Big Pot.
EVERYBODY KNOWS that New York Yankees first baseman Wally Pipp had a headache one day and couldn’t play. He was replaced by Lou Gehrig — for the next 2,130 games in a row.
What nearly nobody knows is that Pipp sealed his fate much earlier than the day he had the headache. It was Pipp who spotted Gehrig playing first base at Columbia University and it was Pipp who told the Yankees, “You have to sign this guy.”
Speaking of the Yankees, most people remember Yogi Berra for his Berra-isms, some of which he actually said.
He was said to have once told somebody asking for directions, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Also, he reportedly was asked how he wanted his pizza sliced, in six or eight pieces, and he said, “Better make it six, I can’t eat eight.”
Berra, though, was one of baseball’s best all-time hitters. How about in 1950? Berra hit .322 with 28 homers, 124 RBI and 116 runs scored. Those numbers pale to the fact that Berra struck out only 12 times. All year.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Why is it always me sitting on the throne when the toilet paper runs out?
TweetA major meltdown in Flushing Meadows
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave while watching the Cincinnati Reds refuse to knuckle under to Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, building a 4-0 lead, then frittering it all away in a 9-4 disgusting defeat. And I can’t resist lecturing the Aroldis Chapman Must Start faction in Reds Country, despite the fact Chapman blew a save Thursday.
THE INFALLIBLE Man proved fallible Thursday at Citi Field against the New York Mets.
Aroldis Chapman, working on back-to-back games for the first time this season, entered the game in the seventh inning, asked to protect a 4-3 lead, but he blew the save.
It appeared to be a stroke of genius by manager Dusty Baker, but instead it just turned into just a stroke.
Three of the first four Mets hitters in the seventh were lefthanders and lefthanders were hitting .087 against Chapman.
But first Chapman had to retired right hander David Wright, leading the league with a .402 average. Chapman walked him a full count.
Lefty Lucas Duda singled to center and lefty Daniel Murphy lobbed a shallow fly to center on which Drew Stubbs got a poor break. He tried to make a sliding catch but the ball bounced off his glove for an error, loading the bases.
Chapman’s string of scoreless innings then ended when pinch-hitter Justin Turner hit a sacrifice fly to right, tying the game — a blown save for Chapman.
The drama wasn’t over, though. After Chapman struck out Ronny Cedeno, he walked pinch-hitter Jerry Hairston Jr. to refill the bases, but squirmed free by striking out Mike Baxter on three pitches.
THE REDS CONSTRUCTED a 4-0 lead by the fifth inning against knuckleballer R.A. Dickey on Joey Votto’s sixth home run in the fourth and a three-run fifth on Ryan Hanigan’s run-scoring double, a sacrifice fly by pitcher Mat Latos and a passed ball by Mets catcher Mike Nickeas.
Latos put runners on base in each of the first four innings and got away with it, but not the fifth. He had two outs and one on, but walked David Wright and Lucas Duda doubled for two, cutting it to 4-2.
Latos started the sixth and when he walked Ike Davis and gave up a single to Ronny Cedeno on his 100th pitch, his day was done. J.J. Hoover replaced Latos and third baseman Todd Frazier bobbled a sacrifice bunt by Nickeas for an error, filling the bases with no outs.
The only run scored on Mike Baxter’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-3 and set up Chapman’s blown save.
AND IT WAS A day for Reds’ pitchers to have their perfect records blemished. Not only was it Chapman, but Logan Ondrusek’s streak ended in a barrage bombardment in the eighth, five runs, the exclamation point provided by Ronny Cedeno’s two-out three-run homer.
With one out, Rob Johnson dropped a perfect bunt up the third base line for a single. On a 2-and-2 pitch, Ondrusek appedared to have Wright struck out, but the pitch was called ball three. The next pitch was air-mailed over Drew Stubbs head in center for a double that scored Johnson from first base for a 5-4 lead.
And to add insult, the Mets added another four more on a bloop and a blast with two outs — a blooped run-scoring single to left by Justin Turner and the three-run blast by Cedeno.
WHAT IS IT THAT some fans and peripheral media don’t understand about Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen instead of in the rotation.
Are they so thick-headed they can’t understand or is it that they don’t want to understand, they just selfishly want to see the guy on a regular schedule so they know when he will pitch.
The most recent absurdity to surface is the argument, lame as it is, “Well, pitching in set-up he won’t win the Cy Young.” So what? Since when is winning the Cy Young more important than winning the National League Central?
And then there’s the one, “Well, the Reds would have a good chance to win the division with Aroldis in the rotation.
Say what? Prove that. And if the standings are correct as of Thursday morning, the Reds are in second place, withers to withers with the St. Louis Cardinals, 2 ½ games back.
Manager Dusty Baker keeps explaining it over and over, with the caveat that, yes, some day Chapman WILL be in the rotation. But not now.
And yet he might as well try to push a bowling ball uphill with his nose instead of trying to make folks understand why Chapman is, for now, in the bullpen.
THE REDS ARE 12-2 when Chapman pitches. Would he have won 12 games by now pitching in the rotation? Of course not. Would the Reds have won all 12 of those games if Chapman wasn’t pitching in the bullpen? Most likely not.
What fans and peripheral media don’t understand, or fail to acknowledge, is that Baker lost three important members of his bullpen before the season began. Not one. Not two. Three. He lost closer Ryan Madsen and two set-up guys, lefthander Bill Bray and righthander Nick Masset.
Help was needed. There was a hole in the bullpen wider than the Mississippi delta. Chapman was the natural choice and what a choice he was.
Despite Thursday, Chapman has only given up one run, seven hits and seven walks in 20 1/3 innings while striking out 36 of the 78 batters he has faced.
In the bullpen, Chapman can pitch every other day, sometimes two out of three if he pitches only one inning. He can pitch four times in a week and have a hand in several victories.
In the rotation he would pitch every fifth day and he would not win every time out (see: Cueto, Johnny). If he doesn’t win, they have to wait five days to use him again. If he wins, that’s one win in 10 days. Even if he wins two in a row that’s two wins in 10 days.
AND HERE IS the big rub right now: who knows how well he might pitch over the course of six or seven innings when hitters get two or three cracks at him? There is no way he can pitch in the rotation as well as he pitches right now for one bombs-away, fire-at-will inning.
Everybody knows how great the starting staff is for the Philadelphia Phillies. Check where they are in the standings. Ask manager Charlie Manuel how many games his bullpen has blown in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings this year becausehe doesn’t have a pull-the-light-switch guy in the bullpen.
Class dismissed — but it’s certain many still won’t pass the course.
TweetChapman is where he is needed most
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave — couldn’t wait until after todays Reds-Mets game because the Aroldis Chapman discussions just keep coming and coming and coming.
WHAT IS IT THAT some fans and peripheral media don’t understand about Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen instead of in the rotation.
Are they so thick-headed they can’t understand or is it that they don’t want to understand, they just selfishly want to see the guy on a regular schedule so they know when he will pitch.
The most recent absurdity to surface is the argument, lame as it is, “Well, pitching in set-up he won’t win the Cy Young.” So what? Since when is winning the Cy Young more important than winning the National League Central?
And then there’s the one, “Well, the Reds would have a good chance to win the division with Aroldis in the rotation.
Say what? Prove that. And if the standings are correct as of Thursday morning, the Reds are in second place, withers to withers with the St. Louis Cardinals, 2 ½ games back.
Manager Dusty Baker keeps explaining it over and over, with the caveat that, yes, some day Chapman WILL be in the rotation. But not now.
And yet he might as well try to push a bowling ball uphill with his nose instead of trying to make folks understand why Chapman is, for now, in the bullpen.
THE REDS ARE 12-2 when Chapman pitches. Would he have won 12 games by now pitching in the rotation? Of course not. Would the Reds have won all 12 of those games if Chapman wasn’t pitching in the bullpen? Most likely not.
What fans and peripheral media don’t understand, or fail to acknowledge, is that Baker lost three important members of his bullpen before the season began. Not one. Not two. Three. He lost closer Ryan Madsen and two set-up guys, lefthander Bill Bray and righthander Nick Masset.
Help was needed. There was a hole in the bullpen wider than the Mississippi delta. Chapman was the natural choice and what a choice he was.
He is 3-0. His ERA is 0.00. He has given up six hits and five walks in 19 1/3 innings while striking out 34 of the 70 batters he has faced.
In the bullpen, Chapman can pitch every other day, sometimes two out of three if he pitches only one inning. He can pitch four times in a week and have a hand in several victories.
In the rotation he would pitch every fifth day and he would not win every time out (see: Cueto, Johnny). If he doesn’t win, they have to wait five days to use him again. If he wins, that’s one win in 10 days. Even if he wins two in a row that’s two wins in 10 days.
AND HERE IS the big rub right now: who knows how well he might pitch over the course of six or seven innings when hitters get two or three cracks at him? There is no way he can pitch in the rotation as well as he pitches right now for one bombs-away, fire-at-will inning.
Everybody knows how great the starting staff is for the Philadelphia Phillies. Check where they are in the standings. Ask manager Charlie Manuel how many games his bullpen has blown in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings this year becausehe doesn’t have a pull-the-light-switch guy in the bullpen.
Class dismissed — but it’s certain many still won’t pass the course.
TweetKomeback Kids bite The Big Apple
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, wondering why Major League Baseball continues to snub Cincinnati for an All-Star game, which hasn’t been in the Queen City since 1988. The 2013 game will be in Citi Field, which opened after Great American Ball Park and 2014 has to be in an American League city. Why Citi Field? Two words. New and York.
Kirk Nieuwenuis, Mike Baxter, Lucas Duda, Daniel Murphy, Justin Turner, Mike Nickeas.
Who are those guys? Those, sports fans, are the New York Mets. Not the 1962 Mets who lost 120 games, the 2012 Mets who are contending for the National League East title so far this year.
THOSE MYSTERY MEN didn’t faze the Cincinnati Reds Wednesday night, as they once again came from behind to win a game, 6-3, in Citi Field, the first of five games in five days in New York City (one more against the Mets, then three in Yankee Stadium).
Probably the best news of the night for the Reds was a solid start by Mike Leake, after a wobbly first inning in which he threw 26 pitches and put three men on base. But none scored.
Leake, still 0-5 with a no decisilon this night, gave up three runs and seven hits in six innings, keeping the Reds in the game until his teammates could put something together in the late going.
He left with a 3-1 deficit, but the Reds stormed back, scoring four in the eighth inning.
The comeback began in the seventh with Todd Frazier, who stepped into the box on a 2 for 19 slide with 10 strikeouts.
But Frazier homered to right field, cutting it to 3-2.
The Reds did little against starter Johan Santana — two runs, six hits over 6 2/3 innings. But there were just waiting for the arrival of the Mets bullpen, easy marks so far this season, third worst bullpen in the National League.
And they didn’t disappoint.
Jon Rauch, all 6-foot-11 of him, started the eighth inning and Cincinnati’s bats reverberated. Drew Stubbs singled and Joey Votto doubled. Brandon Phillips singled to score Stubbs and tie it, 3-3.
Jay Bruce, taking a night off, pinch-hit for Ryan Ludwick against left-handed Tim Burdyk.
Remember Burdyk?
He pitched for Houston in 2010 and on September 28 Bruce hit a walk-off home run off him to clinch the National League Central championship.
And Bruce nearly did it again. His deep fly to right came close to flying out of the park, but was caught in front of the wall, enabling Votto to score the go-ahead run for a 4-3 lead.
Frazier than put a point of emphasis on the inning with a two-run home run over the center field wall, his second home run of the night.
AND TALK ABOUT sheer monotony, with three straight lefthanders coming to bat in the eighth, Reds manager Dusty Baker brought in lefty Aroldis Chapman and, as always, it was no contest as Chapman flicked aside the three Mets he faced like gnats off his wrist.
He struck out Lucas Duda with a sharp-breaking slider, he retired Daniel Murphy on a slow roller to first base, then struck out Ike Davis with another knee-buckling slider.
A MAJOR REASON why Joey Votto has only 24 RBI so far this season, other than the fact he gets pitched around, is that Votto has led off innings 27 times this season — not what one wants to see with your No. 3 hitter.
LAST CALL THIS week for Ask Hal questions for this Sunday’s paper. Send them to halmccoy1@hotmail.com.
TweetCueto hits a crater of a pot hole
UNSOLILCITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, missing absolutely nothing about the trips I made to Atlanta — the stifling heat, the snarled traffic, the ball park with no personality and, for sure, that infernal ‘Chop Chant.’
Nobody said Johnny Cueto’s march to the Cy Young Award would be without a few potholes and guard rail scrapings.
And it happened Tuesday night in Turner Field when the Atlanta Braves turned him into a human batting machine, particularly in the third inning.
In fact, Cueto had given up only one run in his previous 24 1/3 innings, but the Braves bashed him for five in three innings, the most he has given up all year. In fact, the Braves scored more in one inning — four in the third — than Cueto had given up in any game he pitched.
When Michael Bourn singled in the fourth, Atlanta’s seventh hit, it was the most hits Cueto has given up this year.
ATLANTA MANAGER Fredi Gonzalez, realizing that lefthanders were hitting .293 against Cueto this year, filled his lineup with five lefthanders and it paid off. Five of the eight hits off Cueto came from lefthanders, including a second-inning solo home run by Brian McCann that gave the Braves a 1-0 lead.
Cueto left after four innings, his shortest work day of the year and now awaits his Sunday start in Yankee Stadium.
With the 6-0 lead when Cueto left, a Braves victory was pretty much ordained. Atlanta starter Tim Hudson was 125-2 for his career when given a lead of three or more runs. Now it’s 126-2.
THE REDS DIDN’T score until the seventh when they banged four hits off Hudson and scored twice, including a leadoff single by Todd Frazier, who is 2 for 18 with nine strikeouts during his four straight starts at third base since Scott Rolen landed on the disabled list.
Joey Votto, 0 for 4 with two walks in the two-game series and 0 for 9 lifetime against Hudson, singled in the seventh, the 26th straight game he has reached base at least once (34 for 35 this season).
But with a chance to make the game close, Brandon Phillips flied out with two on to end the inning.
Chris Heisey, 3 for 3 Monday, had three more hits Tuesday in his third straight start in left field.
Heisey and Ryan Hanigan singled in the eighth, affording the Reds another opportunity to slink back within striking distance, but pinch-hitter Ryan Ludwick flied to left.
SOME INTERESTING STUFF from Mike Cawood, associate athletic director at Coastal Carolina University, a school in Conway, S.C., close to the sands of Myrtle Beach.
Joey Votto, Mike Costanzo and Dave Sappelt all have Coastal Carolina connections.
Costanzo, the recent infielder purchased from Class AAA Louisville to make his major-league debut Saturday at age 28, was an All-American at CCU.
Was he good? Oh, yeah. He was one of six finalists for the Dick Howser Award for national player of the year while playing at CCU 2003-05.
The Votto connection? Votto had signed to play at Coastal Carolina and would have been there at the same time as Costanzo. But Votto reportedly put on a show at a summer showcase tryout and was drafted by the Reds before he could matriculate from Toronto to Conway.
SAPPELT, THE OUTFIELDER who tore up spring training for the Reds in 2011, then was traded last winter in the deal that brought Sean Marshall to the Reds, played at CCU, too, and was a national semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award, playing in 2006-08 right after Costanzo left.
COSTANZO, AS THE story goes, only went to CCU because a friend and high school teammates, Jerry Oakes, signed with the school. But like Votto, Oakes was drafted out of high school and signed a pro contract.
And like Costanzo, he bounced around the minors for several years, before giving it up. He returned to CCU for his education four years ago, saying he regretted not playing college ball, and he graduates this summer.
Votto does not regret his decision.
THE LEGEND OF Billy Hamilton continues to grow (already) as he appears to be on his way to stealing about 1,346 bases this year. This from Baseball America about the wing-footed shortstop playing at Class A Bakersfield:
(ONE) Hamilton scored the winning run in a game this year on a sacrifice pop-up to the second baseman.
“The ball didn’t leave the infield,” said Bakersfield manager Ken Griffey Sr. “It was a tough play for the second baseman because the infield was playing in. He had to turn his back to catch it running away from home plate. By the time he turned around to throw, Billy was scoring.”
(TWO) Hamilton scored the winning run in a game last year for Class A Dayton from second base on a slow roller to third and Hamilton never broke stride rounding third and beating the first baseman’s throw home.
(THREE) Playing shortstop at Dayton last year, Hamilton caught a deep fly ball to left field when left fielder Juan Duran lost the ball in the lights, a diving catch with his back to the infield. “I looked at Duran and he looked at me with his hands in the air. I just took off running and dove and the ball landed in my glove,” said Hamilton. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done.”
So far.
TIME TO SEND those Ask Hal questions for this week’s edition. Need them by Thursday morning, so send them ASAP to halmccoy1@hotmail.com.
TweetBailey, bullpen work some magic
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave and while I write this I’mk watching the first-place Cleveland Indians (say what?) swcore in the ninth inning to beat the Minnesota Twins, the same team who in spring training looked as if it was odds-on to lose 100 games.
DESPITE ALL THE hand-wringing and head-shaking from impatient Cincinnati Reds fans, if they check the National League Central standings this morning they will discover that their team is only 1 ½ games out of first place.
Mark this one down. It will take only 85 or 86 victories to win the papier mache NL Central. The division-leading St. Louis Cardinals are good, but not that good.
And the difference could be bullpens, where the Reds are three arms better than the Cardinals.
ANOTHEAR CHAPTER in the amazing saga of Aroldis Chapman was written Monday night in Atlanta during a 3-1 Reds victory over the Braves.
Much-maligned Homer Bailey put together a solid start — 6 2/3 innings, one run, six hits, two walks, three strikeouts.
Manager Dusty Baker permitted Bailey to trudge to the mound to start the seventh. He gave up an infield dribbler for a hit with one out. Bailey retired pinch-hitter Eric Hinske on a fielder’s choice for the second out.
But Bailey now was at a season’s high 114 pitches and the batter was Michael Bourn, who had tripled against Bailey earlier.
BAKER BROUGHT in the practically perfect (well, so far this year he IS perfect) Logan Ondrusek and he retired Bourn on a soft fly to center. Ondrusek has inherited 15 baserunners this year and stranded all 15.
ONE OF THE THINGS fans have been howling about all year is that Baker takes out a pitcher who faces only one or two hitters in an inning instead of letting him go back out.
Well, Baker permitted Ondrusek to go back out in the eighth — Chapman’s inning. But Chapman pitched two innings Saturday and Baker probably wanted to stay away from him if possible.
It wasn’t possible. Ondrusek gave up a leadoff single to Martin Prado and a one-out walk Dan Uggla.
Now it was Chapman time, one of the few times Chapman has entered a game this season in mid-inning, faced with runners on base, the game-tying runners.
Brian McCann flied to right and Prado moved from second to third. Chapman walked Chipper Jones to fill the bases, bringing up left-hander Jason Heyward.
It was, as they say, no contest. He jumped ahead of Heyward 0-and-2. He threw a 100 miles an hour fastball on the second strike, then threw a 101 miles an hour fastball for ball one. With Heyward geared for something in triple digits, Chapman dropped a 90 miles an hour slider off the plate and Heyward flailed feebly for strike three.
NOW WOULD BAKER send Chapman out for the ninth or go to closer Sean Marshall? He stuck with the closer plan and brought in Marshall for the ninth.
Pinch-hitter Matt Diaz singled to center to start the inning, but Eric Hinske flied to center. And Marshall had the Braves right where he wanted them.
First he had to face Michael Bourn, who was 0 for 11 with seven strikeouts against Marshall. Now it is 0 for 12 with eight strikeouts. And then it was Martin Prado, 0 for 6 against Marshall. Now it is 0 for 7 when Marshall struck him out, too, to end it.
THE REDS TOOK a 1-0 lead in the fourth when Jay Bruce and Chris Heisey banged back-to-back two-out singles. The Braves thought they were out of the inning when Todd Frazier rolled a meek grounder to short. Shortstop Tyler Pastornicky fielded and flipped to second for an inning-ending force. He thought. Second baseman Dan Uggla was not covering second and the ball rolled far enough that Bruce scored.
Atlanta tied it in the fifth on Bourn’s triple to the right field corner and a short sacrifice fly to right. Bruce’s throw home beat the fleet Bourn, but the throw was to the first base side of home plate and catcher Devin Mesoraco couldn’t make the snatch-and-tag play.
THE REDS SCORED the necessary runs to win this one in the eighth off hard-throwing relief pitcher Jonny Venters.
It started with a dribbler single up the third base line by Drew Stubbs. Stubbs took second on a wild pitch and scored on a double off the top of the left field wall by Brandon Phillips to make it 2-1. With two outs, Chris Heisey also doubled for the third run as Heisey went 3 for 3 — and maybe there is a glimmer of hope for some production out of left field.
All that was left was for the bullpen to finish it up and, as usual, the bullpen locked the gates.
MANY PLAYERS around baseball used pink bats on Mother’s Day to call attention to breast cancer research.
Joey Votto was not one of them. He used his regular black Louisville Slugger model, “Because it is the best bat I’ve ever had.”
And it showed when he hit three home runs and made baseball history as the first player to hit three home runs with the last being a walk-off grand slam home run.
As a result, the Hall of Fame wants the bat, “But I didn’t really want to give it to them. But I am,” said Votto. Hey, if heaven can wait, why can’t Cooperstown?
Votto may have been on the phone immediately after Monday’s game, a call to Cooperstown requesting the return of his Black Beauty. His eight-game hitting streak ended with an 0 for 2 and two walks.
JOSH HAMILTON HAS 18 home runs and the San Diego Padres, as a team, have 13. And the Minnesota lTwins are narrowly ahead of Hamilton with 20, while the Chicago Cubs have 21 and the Houston Astros 22. The Reds? After Joey Votto’s three Sunday they have 30.
REDS BROADCASTER Jeff Piecoro is part-owner of the Newport Pizza Company and it is worth a visit to the shop at Sixth and Monmouth in Newport, Ky. During Sunday’s 3 ½-hour rain delay, Piecoro had several boxes delivered to the press box and it disappeared fastert than a $100 bill in a casino.
TweetAnd ‘Mighty Votto’ did not strike out
CINCINNATI — Mighty Mudville prevailed. Mighty Joey did not strike out. And it was a mother of a day on Mother’s Day — nine hours at the ball park that ended as dramatically as any baseball game can end.
Joey Votto, down to his last strike against Washington closer Henry Rodriguez with his team trailing by a run and the bases loaded, crushed a walk-off grand slam home run on a sloppy track to give the Cincinnati Reds a 9-6 victory.
As if that wasn’t enough, Votto hit two other home runs, just missed another one and ripped a double that could have been a home run if he had provided some lift.
Teammate Drew Stubbs said it best: “It wasn’t far from him hitting five home runs. Let’s hope he is back to being Joey.”
THERE WAS MUCH that had to happen for Votto to walk to the plate in the final circumstances.
First of all, after Votto’s first two solo home runs, the third run was provided by rookie Mike Constanzo, a pinch-hit sacrifice fly during his first major-league at-bat and he said, “It was awesome that it was Mother’s Day and I gave the ball to my mother.”
Those three runs, though, only had the Reds within three of the Nationals, down, 6-3, with two outs and two on in the eighth inning. Jay Bruce flied to right. Third out? Inning over? Nope. Rookie Bryce Harper lost the ball in the twilight, lostit in the low, gray rain clouds and the ball crash landed 30 feet behind him. Bruce had a two-run double and it was 6-5.
FAST FORWARD TO the ninth on this wet, wet day that made the Reds resemble Mudville on the wet track, made soggy by an all-day rain that delayed the start of the game from 1:10 to 4:45. And only a couple of thousand fans stuck it out.
Rodriguez came into the game with eight saves and on Saturday he struck out the side in the ninth on 10 pitches. So there he was again, poised to put down the Reds to complete a Washington sweep and to end the season’s series with the Nats owning the Reds, six games to one.
Ryan Hanigan started the ninth with a single to left on 3-and-2. Wilson Valdez bunted pinch-runner Devin Mesoraco (the tying run) to second. Miguel Cairo popped out for the second out and there seemed to be no joy in Mudville.
But Drew Stubbs walked. Chris Heisey looked totally overmatched and fell behind 0-and-2, swinging feebly at strike two. But Rodriguez never came close with the next four pitches and walked Heisey, filling the bases.
“We worked Rordiguez for a couple of walks and got our guy up there,” said Stubbs.
That guy, of course, was Votto — that guy who homered in the first with none on, homered in the fourth with none on, flied to the warning track in center in the sixth, doubled to the wall in the eighth and…
Oh, yeah. And. His walk-off grand slam, on a 2-and-2 fastball, was his second career grand slam, his third walk-off home run and his second three-homer game.
“Ended the game with a slam, three home runs, six RBIs — that’s as good a day as you’ll see outside of Josh Hamilton,” said manager Dusty Baker, referring to Hamilton’s four homer, a double and eight RBI for Texas last week. “I tell the guys always, ‘Ya gotta believe, ya gotta believe and if ya got an out left and you have a chance.”
VOTTO WAS AS COOL as the day-long rain after his extraordinary afternoon.
“Usually in those situations, I just try to put the ball in play and make something happen,” said Votto. “I took a couple of good swings and fouled them back, then I shortened up my swing and the ball ended up carrying out of the ballpark, which is not that typical when you shorten up and just try to put the ball in play.”
Typical? Not a thing was typical about this day, especially Votto’s day.
Asked if he thought the ball was going over the fence when he hit it, Votto smiled and said, “I thought the ball was going to hit the light standard and bring down the sparks.” That, of course, was reference to the movie The Natural and this game was better than anything Bernard Malamud could write.
“When Rodriguez is throwing his pitches for strikes (like Saturday) he is really difficult,” said Votto. “I’ve had a difficult with him before, but I got a couple of pretty good pitches to hit.”
Votto has been tinkering and experimenting with his hitting mechanics and it all came together on this day.
“I’m not saying this because I had a good day, but I’ve noticed some things, teammates have noticed some things, and I’ve taken those things into practice and games,” he said. “It has been a work in progress and been really frustrating. I probably hit more barrels today than I have all season.”
He must have been driving on I-75.
THERE IS NO DOUBT that the Cincinnati Reds are striking out enough to stir up their own tornado, or at least a windstorm.
Amazingly, though, their 258 strikeouts entering Sunday’s game aren’t even close to being most in the National League. In fact, Arizona has 278, San Diego has 275, New York has 265 and Washington has 264.
Pittsburgh has the same as the Reds, 258, Atlanta is only one behind at 257 and St. Louis has 253.
Truly, it is the Era of the Whiff.
AND WHILE REDS manager Dusty Baker is full up to here with the strikeouts, he is even more full over fans and media constantly harping on the Reds swinging at first pitches.
“You have to attack the fastball and that’s one thing we have to start doing as a unit,” he said. “Everybody is asking, ‘How come this guy is swinging at the first pitch?’ Don’t you want them to take a pitch?’
“Man, we’re taking fastballs,” Baker added. “And they’re all getting ahead of us. This game is not designed for two strikes and four balls. If that’s the case, none of us would have hit.”
What do pitchers always say? The best pitch in baseball is strike one on the first pitch. So why wouldn’t you look to swing at one when it may be the best pitch of the at-bat.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know where people get this, ‘Why did he swing at the first pitch?’ They want to get ahead of you, especially with runners in scoring position,” said Baker. “We’re too deep in the counts, drowning deep.”
ZACK COZART WAS absent from Sunday’s lineup, replaced by Wilson Valdez. Said Baker, “We have 20 games in a row, brother. Seems like every time I give him one (a day off), he comes back better and stronger.
“And it isn’t as much giving Cozart a day off as it is to get Valdez a day to play, too,” he added. “With 20 in a row, I’m going to have to give everybody a day somewhere along the line.”
FOR THE SECOND straight game since Scott Rolen went on the disabled list, Todd Frazier was at third base and Baker was asked if that would be the norm.
“That’s on Frazier,” said Baker. “It will be Frazier, it will be (Miguel) Cairo. I know what the strengths and weaknesses are of each guy. It doesn’t take other team’s long to figure out what we know. So, it is up to Frazier.”
BEN McCLURE, a scout for 31 years for Toronto (21 years), San Diego (5 years) and for the past five years with Milwaukee, was in the stands Saturday night, holding his radar gun, and said he saw something he has never seen before.
“I can count on one hand how many times a pitcher has registered 100 on my gun,” he said. “It doesn’t count unless it is on my gun. Well, on Saturday I not only had two pitchers in one game throw 100, I saw two in one inning (Aroldis Chapman, Henry Rodriguez). That’s never happened before on my gun.”
AFTER A TWO-DAY stop in Atlanta, the Reds travel to New York for five days — two against the Mets and three against the Yankees.
“I’ve never done that,” said Baker, referring to staying in the same city to play two teams and stay in the same hotel.
“You never sleep in New York, even when you go to your room,” he said. “There’s noise. Doors slamming all the time, day and night. People coming in 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning. And you have sirens and horns and taxis horns.
“And the second thing is that when you leave New York you think somebody broke into your room and stole some money because you always come up light,” he said. “It’s the truth. I’m on the 52nd floor and I’m checking the windows and saying, ‘Damn, I know I had a couple more hundred.’ Hey, you pay $20 for a drink. And you pay $35 bucks for a room service hamburger and French fries. I always ate those slower and enjoyed every bite.”
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, fans. The game Sunday was supposed to start at 1:10, but it rained and rained and rained and the game was not postponed. They kept announcing each hour that team officials and the umpires would meet and each time they announced another meeting.
Meanwhile, fans wandered around trying to stay dry, many left. Was this fair to fans who had after the game Mother’s Day functions to attend?
And it was still drizzling at 4:45 when the scheduled 1:10 game commenced.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Manager Dusty Baker on his team not hitting the opposing pitchers: “Guess what? I don’t care how good they are, you still have to hit them. I’m tired of tipping my cap to whoever is out there. How many days in a row can tip your hat?”
TweetBaker: Swinging at first pitch OK
CINCINNATI — There is no doubt that the Cincinnati Reds are striking out enough to stir up their own tornado, or at least a windstorm.
Amazingly, though, their 258 strikeouts entering Sunday’s game aren’t even close to being most in the National League. In fact, Arizona has 278, San Diego has 275, New York has 265 and Washington has 264.
Pittsburgh has the same as the Reds, 258, Atlanta is only one behind at 257 and St. Louis has 253.
Truly, it is the Era of the Whiff.
AND WHILE REDS manager Dusty Baker is full up to here with the strikeouts, he is even more full over fans and media constantly harping on the Reds swinging at first pitches.
“You have to attack the fastball and that’s one thing we have to start doing as a unit,” he said. “Everybody is asking, ‘How come this guy is swinging at the first pitch?’ Don’t you want them to take a pitch?’
“Man, we’re taking fastballs,” Baker added. “And they’re all getting ahead of us. This game is not designed for two strikes and four balls. If that’s the case, none of us would have hit.”
What do pitchers always say? The best pitch in baseball is strike one on the first pitch. So why wouldn’t you look to swing at one when it may be the best pitch of the at-bat.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know where people get this, ‘Why did he swing at the first pitch?’ They want to get ahead of you, especially with runners in scoring position,” said Baker. “We’re too deep in the counts, drowning deep.”
ZACK COZART WAS absent from Sunday’s lineup, replaced by Wilson Valdez. Said Baker, “We have 20 games in a row, brother. Seems like every time I give him one (a day off), he comes back better and stronger.
“And it isn’t as much giving Cozart a day off as it is to get Valdez a day to play, too,” he added. “With 20 in a row, I’m going to have to give everybody a day somewhere along the line.”
FOR THE SECOND straight game since Scott Rolen went on the disabled list, Todd Frazier was at third base and Baker was asked if that would be the norm.
“That’s on Frazier,” said Baker. “It will be Frazier, it will be (Miguel) Cairo. I know what the strengths and weaknesses are of each guy. It doesn’t take other team’s long to figure out what we know. So, it is up to Frazier.”
BEN McCLURE, a scout for 31 years for Toronto (21 years), San Diego (5 years) and for the past five years with Milwaukee, was in the stands Saturday night, holding his radar gun, and said he saw something he has never seen before.
“I can count on one hand how many times a pitcher has registered 100 on my gun,” he said. “It doesn’t count unless it is on my gun. Well, on Saturday I not only had two pitchers in one game throw 100, I saw two in one inning (Aroldis Chapman, Henry Rodriguez). That’s never happened before on my gun.”
AFTER A TWO-DAY stop in Atlanta, the Reds travel to New York for five days — two against the Mets and three against the Yankees.
“I’ve never done that,” said Baker, referring to staying in the same city to play two teams and stay in the same hotel.
“You never sleep in New York, even when you go to your room,” he said. “There’s noise. Doors slamming all the time, day and night. People coming in 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning. And you have sirens and horns and taxis horns.
“And the second thing is that when you leave New York you think somebody broke into your room and stole some money because you always come up light,” he said. “It’s the truth. I’m on the 52nd floor and I’m checking the windows and saying, ‘Damn, I know I had a couple more hundred.’ Hey, you pay $20 for a drink. And you pay $35 bucks for a room service hamburger and French fries. I always ate those slower and enjoyed every bite.”
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, fans. The game Sunday was supposed to start at 1:10, but it rained and rained and rained and the game was not postponed. They kept announcing each hour that team officials and the umpires would meet and each time they announced another meeting.
Meanwhile, fans wandered around trying to stay dry, many left. Was this fair to fans who had after the game Mother’s Day functions to attend?
As of this posting, at 3:15, they were still waiting. And waiting. And waiteing.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Manager Dusty Baker on his team not hitting the opposing pitchers: “Guess what? I don’t care how good they are, you still have to hit them. I’m tired of tipping my cap to whoever is out there. How many days in a row can tip your hat?”
TweetLatos, Reds succumb with a whisper
CINCINNATI — Matt Latos looked unhittable for three innings — 10 up, 9 down for the Cincinnati Reds’ tattooed titan.
But he staggered through the fourth and fifth innings, needing 66 pitches to cover those two innings.
Through it all, though, he gave up only one run, a leadoff home run in the fifth to Wilson Ramos, a home run that tied the game, 1-1.
After five innings, Latos was at 109 pitches, although he had given up only three hits — along with five walks.
Jose Arredondo came out for the sixth and his first pitch landed in the left field seats, a home run by Danny Espinosa that was enough to beat the Reds, 2-1 — Washington’s second straight win over the Reds this weekend at Great American Ball Park.
That assures that the Reds won’ win this series after winning five of the last six (two games to one) and splitting the other at one game apiece with the Chicago Cubs.
ZACK COZART, the first hitter for the Reds, singled to open the bottom of the first, eventually scoring on a ground ball by Brandon Phillips and that was the total extent of the Reds offense.
Except for Todd Frazier, who had two hits of the Reds’ five hits while subbing in for Scott Rolen, who landed on the disabled list before Saturday game, that first inning was the extent of the Reds’ offense.
Arolidis Chapman pitched the eighth and ninth for the Reds and was his usual Unhittable Me — no runs, one hit, no walks, four strikeouts.
BUT THE NATS have somebody equally dazzling, equally ferocious, equally hard-throwing in Henry Rodriguez.
He came in to protect the 2-1 lead for starter Jordan Zimmerman and nearly struck out the side on nine pitches, throwing mostly 100 miles an hour.
His first eight pitches were strikes — three to Jay Bruce, three to Todd Frazier, then the first two to Ryan Ludwick before he threw a ball. Then he finished it off with a checked-swing strike three.
FOR NOW, DEFEAT-PLAGUED pitcher Mike Leake (0-5, 7.11) is expected to take his act to the mound on Thursday on Broadway — well, at least in Citi Field in Flushing against the New York Mets.
For one thing, there are few options for the Cincinnati Reds because nobody is drawing attention in Louisville, not Jerry Francis, not Brett Tomko, not Andrew Brackman, not anybody.
“We haven’t covered it yet, but I’d like to think he’ll start,” said Manager Dusty Baker. “You don’t like to have somebody looking over your shoulder like you are on death row, or something. We are going to a bigger ballpark in New York, which will help, too.
“Right now he is off to a bad start, but there is such a thing as just bad starts, you know?” Baker added. “We know he can pitch, so hopefully we can get him straightened out and hopefully he stays positive and confident that he can still pitch. A lot of it depends upon the state of mind he is in.”
Baker paused and said, “So, as of right now, yes, he’ll pitch.”
IT WASN’T A day game after a night game, but third baseman Scott Rolen was not in the lineup, replaced by Todd Frazier.
That’s because Rolen was examined by team doctors late Saturday afternoon and it was discovered he has a strained left shoulder.
He was placed on the disabled list and the Reds recalled
Baker said it wasn’t just a day off, it was more because Rolen was not feeling well and was scheduled to see a doctor just before game time.
The contract of Louisville third baseman Mike Costanzo, 28, was purchased. He has been in the minor leagues eight years since the Reds signed him off an independent league roster in 2005.
“Yes, Rolen is struggling a little bit (.174, two homers, 11 RBI), but he isn’t feeling real good,” said Baker before the DL announcement. Rolen fought it as long as he could, but for the good of the team, he gave it up in hopes that 15 days of rest can make a difference.
“I called the park at noon and said, ‘This isn’t working,’” said Rolen. “I’m hurting and I am in pain. I’m not healthy. As much as I went to help the team, I’m hurting the team.”
So, being the team player that he is, Rolen is stepping aside.
“I’m not taking competitive at-bats and, actually, they are going the wrong way,” he added. “I fought to stay on the field because I want to play the whole season, no DL, so I didn’t want to talk about the pink elephant in the room.”
But the elephant brayed loud enough for all to hear, Rolen couldn’t catch up to even the most mediocre of fastballs.
“We’ll address this, take some time off to get the inflammation out of there that is in there now,” said Rolen. Asked how long it bothered him, he said, “That’s a good question. How about seven years. But that’s an easy excuse and I’m responsible for my bat-bats when I walk out there and I haven’t taken good at-bats and haven’t been helpful for the team.”
WONDER CHILD Bryce Harper took ten stitches in his forehead after Friday’s game when he banged his bat against a wall and the bat bit back, clobbering his forehead and opening a wound.
Dusty Baker said it is a part of youth, a learning curve, and recalled when he was young with the Atlanta Braves and threw a batting helmet.
“Hank Aaron came up behind me and grabbed me by the neck,” said Baker. “He told me, ‘Pick up that helmet, walk to the rack and put it where it belongs, then go sit in the dugout and figure out you are going to get that pitcher next time.’”
Baker said he didn’t see the Harper incident, few did, but his son, Darren saw it on television. Said Baker, “That’s a good lesson for my son to see — the repercussions of your actions.”
JOEY VOTTO has a cereal out, Votto’s, they gave away a Joey Votto bobblehead doll Saturday night and on Sunday they are giving away Jay Bruce cereal bowls.
Relief pitcher Sean Marshall checked it all out and said, “Well, I guess the Joey Votto bobblehead can now eat his Votto’s out of a Jay Bruce cereal bowl.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Dusty Baker on winning his 1,500th game Wednesday in Milwaukee: “I hope I’ve made it easier, by whatever success I’ve had, on the people of color.”
Baker on the short three-day homestand: “I emptied my suitcase when we got home Wednesday, repacked it on Thursday and on Sunday I’ll hug my kid, kiss my wife, pet my dog and hit the road again.”
TweetLeake stays, but Rolen goes to DL
CINCINNATI — For now, defeat-plagued pitcher Mike Leake (0-5, 7.11) is expected to take his act to the mound on Thursday on Broadway — well, at least in Citi Field in Flushing against the New York Mets.
For one thing, there are few options for the Cincinnati Reds because nobody is drawing attention in Louisville, not Jerry Francis, not Brett Tomko, not Andrew Brackman, not anybody.
“We haven’t covered it yet, but I’d like to think he’ll start,” said Manager Dusty Baker. “You don’t like to have somebody looking over your shoulder like you are on death row, or something. We are going to a bigger ballpark in New York, which will help, too.
“Right now he is off to a bad start, but there is such a thing as just bad starts, you know?” Baker added. “We know he can pitch, so hopefully we can get him straightened out and hopefully he stays positive and confident that he can still pitch. A lot of it depends upon the state of mind he is in.”
Baker paused and said, “So, as of right now, yes, he’ll pitch.”
IT WASN’T A day game after a night game, but third baseman Scott Rolen was not in the lineup, replaced by Todd Frazier.
That’s because Rolen was examined by team doctors late Saturday afternoon and it was discovered he has a strained left shoulder.
He was placed on the disabled list and the Reds recalled
Baker said it wasn’t just a day off, it was more because Rolen was not feeling well and was scheduled to see a doctor just before game time.
The contract of Louisville third baseman Mike Costanzo, 28, was purchased. He has been in the minor leagues eight years since the Reds signed him off an independent league roster in 2005.
“Yes, Rolen is struggling a little bit (.174, two homers, 11 RBI), but he isn’t feeling real good,” said Baker before the DL announcement.
Rolen fought it as long as he could, but for the good of the team, he gave it up in hopes that 15 days of rest can make a difference.
“I called the park at noon and said, ‘This isn’t working,’” said Rolen. “I’m hurting and I am in pain. I’m not healthy. As much as I went to help the team, I’m hurting the team.”
So, being the team player that he is, Rolen is stepping aside.
“I’m not taking competitive at-bats and, actually, they are going the wrong way,” he added. “I fought to stay on the field because I want to play the whole season, no DL, so I didn’t want to talk about the pink elephant in the room.”
But the elephant brayed loud enough for all to hear, Rolen couldn’t catch up to even the most mediocre of fastballs.
“We’ll address this, take some time off to get the inflammation out of there that is in there now,” said Rolen. Asked how long it bothered him, he said, “That’s a good question. How about seven years. But that’s an easy excuse and I’m responsible for my bat-bats when I walk out there and I haven’t taken good at-bats and haven’t been helpful for the team.”
WONDER CHILD Bryce Harper took ten stitches in his forehead after Friday’s game when he banged his bat against a wall and the bat bit back, clobbering his forehead and opening a wound.
Dusty Baker said it is a part of youth, a learning curve, and recalled when he was young with the Atlanta Braves and threw a batting helmet.
“Hank Aaron came up behind me and grabbed me by the neck,” said Baker. “He told me, ‘Pick up that helmet, walk to the rack and put it where it belongs, then go sit in the dugout and figure out you are going to get that pitcher next time.’”
Baker said he didn’t see the Harper incident, few did, but his son, Darren saw it on television. Said Baker, “That’s a good lesson for my son to see — the repercussions of your actions.”
JOEY VOTTO has a cereal out, Votto’s, they gave away a Joey Votto bobblehead doll Saturday night and on Sunday they are giving away Jay Bruce cereal bowls.
Relief pitcher Sean Marshall checked it all out and said, “Well, I guess the Joey Votto bobblehead can now eat his Votto’s out of a Jay Bruce cereal bowl.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Dusty Baker on winning his 1,500th game Wednesday in Milwaukee: “I hope I’ve made it easier, by whatever success I’ve had, on the people of color.”
Baker on the short three-day homestand: “I emptied my suitcase when we got home Wednesday, repacked it on Thursday and on Sunday I’ll hug my kid, kiss my wife, pet my dog and hit the road again.”
TweetLeake has turned into a flood for Reds
CINCINNATI — Brandon Phillips on Twitter: “This weekend we play Babe Ruth and the Washington Nationals.”
And he probably didn’t mean Rick Ankiel, Adam LaRoche or even Ryan Zimmerman, did he?
He was talking about 19-year-old super-rookie Bryce Harper, of whom Phillips said he is calling Babe Ruth, but with utter respect, “Because he is a great ballplayer and he deserves this attention. He’s can be like another Ken Griffey Jr. to this game.”
When Harper hits his first home run, he’ll be the first 19-year-old to hit one in the majors since, uh, Ken Griffey Jr. in 1989.
Bryce didn’t homer Friday, nor did he get a hit, but they weren’t needed because his Washington Nationals teammates used and abused Reds starter Mike Leake en route to a 7-3 victory.
THE REDS ARE in the midst of a 20-game stretch with no days off and are beginning a walk-the-plank period in their schedule, playing 14 games against teams over .500.
As Brandon Phillips said, “Every win is very crucial and this is a very important time in our schedule that will either make us or break us.”
What manager Dusty Baker didn’t want was for the bullpen to be broken early in this stretch of games.
“You really hope that your starting pitching throws well or you’ll put a real taxing on your bullpen,” he said. “You don’t want to have to go through a lot of bullpen management.”
So what does Leake do? Three innings, seven hits, six runs, two homers and a 6-0 deficit when he departed, forcing Baker to use four more pitchers over the final six innings (Alfred Simon, Jose Arredondo, J.J. Hoover, Sam LeCure).
Leake is now 0-5 with a x.xx earned run average and is at the point where the Reds have to be asking, “What do we do with this guy?”
SAID BAKER, “This is what we didn’t want to happen in the first game of 20 in a row. I didn’t want to use up all of my bullpen this early in this stretch.”
As for Leake, Baker shook his head and said, “We’re concerned. We’re all concerned. We’ve been concerned. As far as we know, he’s healthy and it is just a matter him not getting ahead of anybody, always pitching from behind. You pitch from behind and you are asking for trouble. Yeah, we’re concerned. Big-time.
“We’re thinking and doing all we can do at this time and the rest of it is up to the player,” Baker added.
Leake is as baffled as his manager and everybody else wearing a Reds uniform.
“I’m not getting the job done, missing spots, not hitting spots,” said Leake. “I just have to figure it out. It’s probably in my head somewhere and I just have to find it. I’m making it easy on hitters right now and I’m not making it tough, not getting them uncomfortable. I’m putting it in the hitter’s hands instead of mine.”
PHILLIPS HAD SOME pink t-shirts made up by Louisville Slugger for Mother’s Day on Sunday and the shirts read: “Real Men Swing Pink.” Phillips and several teammates also will swing pink bats Sunday to call attention to breast cancer.
“I’ll be giving away some of these pink shirts and pink bats to my fans on Twitter,” he said. “BP Claus is coming back. Dat Dude Santa.”
THE REDS ARE in the midst of 20 straight games during which they play 14 games against teams over .500 — Atlanta six games, New York Mets two games, New York Yankees three games (all on the road) after the current three games against the Nationals.
And it appears The Real Brandon Phillips is back and ready to produce after fighting a sore hamstring for most of April.
“I’m starting to feel a whole lot better and my legs are feeling better,” said Phillips. “I’m starting to run the bases and Dusty is giving me the open (green light to steal) and thank you, Lord.
“I feel like I don’t have the handcuffs on me any more, so I’m very happy about that,” he added. “I have one stolen base and, wow, yay. Dusty gave me the hold sign a lot when I was on base, but now I’m feeling better so I can get some stolen bases and key hits to get this thing going.”
Phillips went into Fridays game with three straight two-hit games and had two more hits Friday in the defeat.
WASHINGTON MANAGER Davey Johnson managed the Reds in 1995, the year Barry Larkin won the NL MVP and now that Larkin is on his way to the Hall of Fame, Johnson remembers him fondly.
“I’ve been asked who is the best player I ever managed,” said Johnson. “My answer is always, ‘Barry Larkin.’ He was a complete player. He played the leading position on the field, shortstop, he could hit anywhere in the lineup 1 to 4, he stole bases whenever you needed them, great defensively, led by example.”
Media types were stunned, knowing that Johnson managed the star-stuffed 1986 New York Mets and a team of stars in Baltimore and a team of stars in Los Angeles.
“I’ve managed a of great ones, but for what he did and the way he played he was arguably the best player I’ve managed,” Johnson said.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Washington Nationals manager Dave Johnson, fired by Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott after the 1995 season: “Hey, I did everything I could for that team. I even rode the elephant at Marge’s party.”
TweetOff the cuff stuff on an off day
UNSOLICITED WAYWARD OBSERVATIONS while sitting in The Man Cave with the TV off (no game tonight), awaiting the arrival of the Washington Nationals this weekend.
ANYBODY NOTICE the top three RBI players in the American League — Josh Hamilton, Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Dunn? Wonder what they all have in common?
THE FIVE-GAME suspension of Philadelphia pitcher Cole Hamels for admitting he hit Bryce Harper on purpose is a bad joke. His suspension is for one start and the Phillies can back him up one day and he really won’t miss a start.
If a position player is suspended for five games, it is five games. Hamels should have been suspended for 25 games so he would miss five starts.
IT WAS SPRING Training, 1978, and a bunch of writers and manager Sparky Anderson were seated by the pool at the International Inn in Tampa, headquarters of the Cincinnati Reds.
A beautiful young woman dressed (barely) in a string bikini walked by and Sparky asked, “Who is that?”
A writer said, “That’s Connie Bair, wife of relief pitcher Doug Bair.” Said Sparky, “Well, Doug Bair just made the team.”
And he did.
THE GUESS HERE is that so far the St. Louis Cardinals are not missing Albert Pujols, and not just because the Cardinals are in first place and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim/Disneyland/Orange County are in last place.
So far for their 10-year $250 million investment, the Angels are getting a .198 batting average with one homer and 11 RBI from Pujols.
The Cardinals signed Carlos Beltran to replace Pujols at $26 million for two years and they are getting, so far, a .284 average with 10 homers and 27 RBI.
To be fair, though, let’s check back in August.
I’VE LOST 33 pounds since February 18 and, frankly, I don’t miss the LaRosa’s pizza, Nathan’s hot dogs, Dairy Queen ice cream, Five Guys burgers and fries and El Cazador Mexican food. If you believe all that, I have an Arizona desert investment proposition for you.
But I’m not lying about the 33 pounds.
ONE OF MY dogs, Paige, is housebroken but does have an accident once in a while. When she does, she always goes into my home office to do her business on the Cleveland Browns helmet pictured on the rug.
Said Associated Press sportswriter Joe Kay, “She must be a Browns’ season’s ticket holder.”
MY FAVORITE major-league baseball venue is PNC Park in Pittsburgh — a beautiful venue with a gorgeous panoramic view of downtown Pittsburgh and the Roberto Clemente Bridge across the Allegheny River.
The view is spectacular because the press box is so high flights coming in to Pittsburgh International Airport fly below us.
Now if they’d just quit putting one of baseball’s ugliest teams in the place year-after-year.
PAT CORRALES is known mostly as one of Johnny Bench’s back-up catchers, so he didn’t play much and on the team he was as anonymous as the third baseman who played with Tinkers to Evers to Chance.
But Corrales holds an amazing distinction. He is the only manager in baseball history to get fired with his team in first place. The Philadelphia Phillies were in first place in 1983, but only one game over .500 (43-42), when Corrales was canned. And the Phillies went on to win the National League East.
Wonder if they gave him a World Series ring for those 43 wins?
WOULDN’T YOU love to see a 100-yard match race at River Downs between Drew Stubbs, Tony Campana (Cubs outfielder from Springboro) and Billy Hamilton?
Hamilton plays for the Bakersfield Blaze (what better nickname for a team on which Hamilton plays) and he has 32 steals (seven caught) in 29 games.
The fastest baseball player I ever saw was Deoin Sanders. He once hit a stand-up triple to the left field corner and the opposing pitchers said, “I know he had to cut across the mound from first to third, but I never saw him. I just felt the breeze on my back.”
HAVE TO differ with colleague Doug Harris when he wrote in the Dayton Daily News that the baseball Hall of Fame is watered down with the likes of Eddie Murray. Murray is one of only four Hall of Famers with both more than 500 home runs and more than 3,000 hits. That’s not water, Doug, that’s wine.
TweetBreath-taking starters, breath-holding relievers
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave with budding sports journalist and my most loyal reader, Nate Lowe, as Zack Greineke and Johnny Cueto moved baseball back to the Dead Ball Era.
If pitching is your bag, then there was two grocery carts full of it Wednesday in Miller Park, one pushed by Milwaukee’s Zack Greinke and one pushed by Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto.
Zack Greinke pitched eight shutout innings (two hits) and Johnny Cueto pitched seven scoreless innings (five hits).
And then the fun began.
If hold-your-breath excitement is what floats your boat, then you should have been aboard for the ninth inning in what turned out to be a 2-1 Reds victory.
GREINKE LEFT FOR a pinch-hitter after eight magnificent innings, showing why he is 13-0 for his career in Miller Park.
Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke brought in his closer, John Axford, to pitch the top of the ninth and he continued what Greinke started (no walks, 11 strikeouts). Well, Axford imitated Greinke for two batters. He struck out both Chris Heisey and Zack Cozart.
Then the Reds looked as if they were swinging papier mache bats, but it worked. Three straight bloop hits scored two runs for a 2-0 lead.
It started with a two-out broken bat bloop single to center by Drew Stubbs. The Milwaukee outfielders played with their butts scraping the walls, trying to prevent a double. It didn’t work. Joey Votto still doubled, a bloop into right that second baseman Ricky Weeks nearly leaped and caught. But it fell in shallow right and Stubbs scored. By the time right fielder Corey Hart came in to pick up the ball, Votto was at second.
Brandon Phillips then checked his swing, nearly stopping the bat in mid-swing, but the ball kissed off the wood and looped lazily into center field and Votto scored to make it 2-0.
ALL THAT WAS left was for closer Sean Marshall to retire the Brewers in the bottom of the ninth to end it.
Marshall was not up to the chore. Ryan Braun led the bottom of the ninth with a home run and it was 2-1. Marshall struck out Aramis Ramirez on a full count and he was two outs away from his sixth save in seven chances.
Corey Hart nearly homered, but center fielder Stubbs caught the ball with his back to the wall. Now Marshall was only one out from the save.
He fell behind Jonathan LaCroy 3-and-0, then slipped two strikes past him. He was one pitch away from the save. But LaCroy then fouled off five straight breaking balls before ripping the sixth straight breaking ball into left field for a single.
NOW THE TYING run was on base. He went to 3-and-2 on pinch-hitter Lu Aoki — again one pitch away from the save. But Aoki reached out and slapped Marshall’s 36th pitch into left field for a dunk single.
Now the winning run was on, too, and Marshall’s day was done, in favor of Logan Ondrusek.
He made it doubly exciting when he walked pinch-hitter George Kottaras on five pitches to fill the bases.
Travis Ishikawa, Milwaukee’s third straight pinch-hitter, inexplicably swung at the first pitch and popped up to left field and it was over.
Finally.
Neither Greinke nor Cueto received a win and both deserved one. But neither took the loss, either, and it is for certain neither deserved a loss.
The Reds didn’t get a sniff off Greinke — two baserunners in eight innings, a double by Drew Stubbs in the fourth and a single by Brandon Phillips in the seventh.
Cueto, still 4-0 but now with an earned run average barely visible to the naked eye at 1.10, wasn’t as overwhelming as Greinke, but he was just as stingy with the runs.
The Brewers had chances in the second when they had two on with one out, but Taylor Green bounced into a 6-4-3 double play.
The Brewers left the bases loaded in the third. Nyjer Morgan singled with two outs, Ricky Weeks walked on four pitches and Braun squirted a grass-eater slowly up the third base line for an infield hit.
Cueto pulled the shades down, though, by getting Aramis Ramirez on a grounder to short, with first baseman Joey Votto making a gymnastics stretch to catch Cozart’s wide throw.
Cueto retired 12 of the last 13 he faced and became a dugout spectator, along with Greinke, to watch the late dramatics.
AFTER CUETO and before Ondrusek, Aroldis Chapman pitched the eighth inning and as usual it was 1-2-3 and the Brewers couldn’t touch his fastballs and sliders. They couldn’t have hit him if they swung tennis racquets against a beach ball.
Chapman struck out two of the three and his last hitter, Ricky Weeks, is still asking teammates if Chapman actually threw the baseball because he hasn’t spotted one yet — three fastballs, all 100 or over and the last one freight-trained by the blinking Weeks at 101 miles an hour.
HERE’S AN idea for Manager Dusty Baker to contemplate. Most fans want to see Chapman in the rotation. A better idea? Marshall has two losses, a blown save and Wednesday’s mishap already on his closer’s ledger. Why not Chapman? Exactly. Why not?
BY STEALING THIS one away from the Brewers, the Reds are 5-0-1 in their last six series. They’ve won five two games to one and split a rain-interrupted series with the Chicago Cubs one game to one.
TweetSome ugly warts pop up on Reds
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, wondering who were those impostors wearing Cincinnati Reds uniforms Tuesday night against a Milwaukee team that has more players wearing bandages and slings than baseball gloves.
When a baseball team has won 11 of its previous 15 games, best record in the National League since mid-April, it isn’t the best thing to say, “Stop, the bandwagon, I want to jump off,” just because the bandwagon hit a large pothole.
But some ugly warts appeared Tuesday night on the Cincinnati Reds in Miller Park during an 8-3 drubbing they took from the medically-challenged Milwaukee Brewers.
(1)Left field remains a black hole. Neither Ryan Ludwick nor Chris Heisey can purchase a base hit, even if they plastered $100 bills on their foreheads.
(2)Third base, when occupied by Scott Rolen, is a sink hole as Rolen more and more resembles a fast-fading star. Rolen did have a run-scoring double in the eighth, but it only made it 8-3. The double tied Rolen with Babe Ruth for 48th on the all-time doubles list. But Ludwick flied to left with two on to end that threat.
IT WAS A night when the Reds were the Cincinnati Ugly Sisters.
STARTING PITCHER Homer Bailey pitched like Beatle Bailey or Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey.
DREW STUBBS, batting .364 since moving to the No. 2 spot in the batting order, returned to fanning the breezes, striking out his first three at-bats.
THE BULLPEN EVAPORATED for the first time in eight games. It hadn’t given up a run in 23 1/3 innings when the night began.
The game was still retrievable in the fourth inning when the Reds were only down, 3-0. But the Brewers loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth against Bailey.
J.J. Hoover was brought in to clean up the mess, but he put more spots on the carpet by giving up a three-run triple to Aramis Ramirez, making it 6-0. Those runs weren’t charged to the bullpen.
But the streak ended the next inning when Sam LeCure gave up a double to catcher Jonathan Lacroy and a two-out run-scoring single to the pitcher, Milwaukee starter Yasmani Gallardo.
ADDING INSULT, Brewers shortstop Cesar Izturis, who hadn’t homered in two years, sent one over the fence against Jose Arredondo.
THIS ONE, THOUGH, falls at the feet of Homer Bailey. If there were only two outs per inning, Bailey would have pitched a perfect first two innings.
But he needed three outs. After getting the first two outs in the first and second inning, he still gave up runs — two in the first and one in the second.
With two outs in the first, Ryan Braun singled on a 3-and-2 pitch. Bailey hit Aramis Ramirez with a pitch. He walked slump-shrouded Corey Hart with a pitch, filling the bases. Catcher Jonathan Lacroy was 1 for 7 for his career against Bailey and Bailey threw two strikes past him. On 0-and-2, Lacroy shot a two-run single to center.
Bailey finally got the third out of the first inning on his 42nd pitch.
He retired the first two in the second, too, but Nyjer Morgan singled on a 0-and-2 pitch. Ricky Weeks, batting .179, walked, bringing up MVP Braun. He bounced a ground rule double over the left field fence to make it 3-0.
It was a rolling stone gathering no moss speeding downhill on the Reds from there.
The Reds had an opportunity in the fourth when it was still 3-0. Joey Votto doubled and Brandon Phillips reached on an error. Two on, no outs. Jay Bruce popped to short, Rolen popped to first, Ludwick walked to fill the bases, but Devin Mesoraco popped out to second on a full count.
ON A POSITIVE PLAIN, Jay Bruce continued his sizzling scenario with a two-run home run in the sixth, his 10th of the season.
MEANWHILE, some guy named Josh Hamilton hit four home runs and a double for the Texas Rangers. Josh Hamilton? The name sounds familiar.
THERE IS HOPE that the Reds can still win the series Wednesday afternoon when Johnny Cueto faces Zack Greinke. The Reds have won four of their last five series, winning all four by two games to one and they split a two-game rain-shortened series against the Chicago Cubs.
TweetReds, Arroyo hang one on Milwaukee
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATINS from The Man Cave, thankful there is a roof over the cave because it never quit raining, although this roof isn’t retractable like the one they kept closed Monday in Milwaukee’s Miller Park.
When you talk about bizarre and unusual games, Monday’s game in Milwaukee was in the Top Ten, a 6-1 Cincinnati Reds victory.
In six of the seven innings against Milwaukee starter Marcus Estrada, the Reds had no runs and one hit.
But in one inning, the fourth, the Reds attacked home plate like the Charge of the Light Brigade. They couldn’t wait to get up there against Estrada.
In the first three innings, Estrada retired the first nine Reds in order, although there were signs of trouble because Estrada wore out his outfielders chasing balls down to the walls.
But in the fourth the first five Reds punched hits and all five scored. The Reds were swinging in the fourth like Mike Tyson swung at jaws and like Tiger Woods swings at a tee shot.
Zack Cozart nearly homered in the first inning, driving one to the wall. But he started the fourth by clearing the wall. Drew Stubbs doubled and Joey Votto drove him home with another double. Brandon Phillips singled and Jay Bruce hit a three-run home run so far that three Native American trackers and a bloodhound probably still haven’t found the ball and it was 5-1. It was Bruce’s ninth homer of the year and if he ever hit one farther (more than 460 feet) they need the world’s longest tape measure to see how far it went.
THE BENEFICIARY of that inning was Reds starter Bronson Arroyo. He gave up a first-inning home run to Ryan Braun and nothing more — 6 2/3 innings, one run, six hits, one walk and nine strikeouts. Some of the strikeouts were aided by umpire Dan Iassogna. His strike was as large as Zimbabwe. But he was calling them for both sides, getting glares on called strikes by hitter after hitter after hitter.
For the year, Arroyo has walked only four and struck out 27 and well on his way to wiping out the nightmare that was 2010.
Arroyo’s only troubles appeared in the fourth and seventh. The first two Brewers singled in the fourth, but Arroyo struck out Corey Hart, coaxed a pop-up from Jonathan Lacroy, walked Travis Ishikawa on a full count to fill the bases, then retired Cesar Izturis on a liner to right.
In the seventh, Arroyo gave up two hits, the second a two-out single by pinch-hitter George Koutaris. It was Arroyo’s 110th pitch and he turned the baseball over to Mr. Perfect, Logan Ondrusek.
Ondrusek pitched 1 1/3 innings, then Sean Marshall pitched a scoreless ninth, pushing the bullpen’s scoreless stretch to 23 1/3 innings over a span of eight games.
THE REDS MADE a roster move before the game, activating Miguel Cairo off the disabled list and outrighted Willie Harris to Class AAA Louisville.
Cairo celebrated his return with a run-scoring pinch-hit double in the ninth, his first at-bat of the season.
NEVER TOO EARLY to send those Ask Hal questions for Sunday. Some are trickling are in already. Send them to halmccoy1@hotmail.com - and remember, we like off-beat questions.
TweetFrazier needs to stay right where he is
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, watching the magnificent view of downtown Pittsburgh when the camera aimed above the center field stands in my favorite ball park, PNC. Unfortunately, there are nearly always more empty blue seats than fans inside the place. The Primanti Brothers sandwiches are enough of a lure to get some fans into the park.
The Cincinnati Reds had a decision to make before Monday’s game in Milwaukee — and it should be no decision at all. It is as clear as an empty champagne glass.
Miguel Cairo is scheduled to come off the disabled list, so the Reds had to rid somebody off their roster. The easy decision, but wrong one, would be to send Todd Frazier back to Class AAA Louisville — because he has options.
IF THEY DO THAT, then somebody needs to come up with a solid reason — and there is no solid reason. The evidence as to why Frazier should stay was as solid as a smoking gun in an assassin’s hand Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Frazier started at third base and what did he do?
(A) Starting pitcher Mat Latos was in a first-inning mess when he hit leadoff batter Jose Tabata and walked two guys. With one out, Nate McLouth blasted one toward left field. It never got there. Frazier snagged it, saving at least two runs.
(B) Frazier homered on the first pitch he saw in the game, giving the Reds a 2-0 lead in the second inning.
(C) After lining hard to deep right in the fourth, Frazier doubled in the sixth.
And that’s just Sunday’s work. Frazier has been solid as a pinch-hitter and a top-shelf replacement at third base when Scott Rolen rests.
LET’S GO ONE step farther. Everybody loves Scott Rolen, especially his glove, but his bat right now is feeble. Doesn’t Frazier deserve more starts at third — and not just on day games after night games when Rolen rests his weary bones?
Who should go instead of Frazier? That’s easy. Willie Harris. And let’s not save him because he is the only left handed bat on the bench. He is 3 for 35 this year, so left, right or in the middle, he isn’t helping this team. And if they want to keep Harris for some inexplicable reason, Wilson Valdez is another non-contributer who can go.
Harris and Valdez don’ts have options. So what? Do the Reds really want to keep non-performers around?
AFTER A SHAKY first inning (hit by pitch, two walks), Mat Latos was not only lights out, he never permitted the the Pirates to tug on the light switch to turn it on.
For six innings, Latos gave up no runs, only two singles, the two walks in the first inning, the one hit batter in the first and he struck out a career-high 11. Rerds pitchers struck out 18.
The Reds were facing Charlie Morton, who was 4-0 against them last year and gave up only three total runs in those four games.
But this wasn’t the same Charlie Morton, who appears to have altered his delivery. The Reds scored five off him in six innings and won, 5-0.
DRES STUBBS, who had three hits, including a home run, and a stolen base, walked with one out in the first, only his sixth walk this year. Morton tried to pick him off and threw the ball away and Stubbs sprinted to third, scoring on a single by Joey Votto — the 18th straight game in which Votto has reached base at least once.
Frazier’s home run with two outs in the second made it 2-0.
It was Stubbs again in the third after Zack Cozart walked. Didn’t the situation call for a sacrifice bunt? Nope. Manager Dusty Baker permitted Stubbs to swing away and he cleared the right-center wall with a home run to make it 4-0.
And it was Stubbs in the forefront again in the fifth when the Reds made it 5-0. He opened the inning with an infield hit to shortstop — for him, it is hit slow rollers to the left side and it is a base hit.
Stubbs stole second on the first pitch, then took third on Joey Votto’s fly ball and scored on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Phillips — smallball at it’s finest.
LATOS, WHO NEEDED 26 pitches to travel that shaky first inning, left after six, but the bullpen of J.J. Hoover, Aroldis Chapman and Alfredo Simon finished the shutout, giving the Reds bullpen 21 straight scoreless innings. Chapman contributed 1 1/3 perfect innings — four hitters, two strikeouts.
Now it is off to injury-wrecked Milwaukee for a three-game series, beginning Monday night in Miller Park.
DON’T FORGET TO join me at noon Monday for an on-line chat, an hour of answering your questions and comments. Join me at noon by going to daytondailynews.com/sports and clicking on the chat. Talk to you then.
TweetOl’ McDonald sends Reds to losing farm
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave after none of my three Kentucky Derby choices sniffed finishing in the money (Union Rags, Gemologist, Hansen) — so my Derby record remains intact, oh-for-lifetime).
The Cincinnati Reds might as well have been singing Old McDonald Saturday night — Ol’ McDonald had curve, e-i-e-i-o.
Pittsburgh Pirates starter Jame McDonald, using his curveball over and over and over again, mesmerized the Reds for seven innings, striking out seven during a 3-2 victory over the Reds.
Mike Leake was good, but not good enough. During his seven innings he only gave up four hits, but he walked a career-high walks and two home runs and the result was that he was tagged with his fourth loss without a win.
THE REDS hit into four double plays and two of them were of the bizarre variety.
The Reds scored a run in the seventh inning and Scott Rolen was on first base with one out. Ryan Ludwig flied to center. Rolen tagged up at first and tried to advance to second but was thrown out. It was a rather bold attempt, but knowing the Reds struggle to score runs, it wasn’t a totally dunderhead move.
In the fourth, Joey Votto doubled, a goofy double. He hit it down the left field line and stood in the batter’s box, turning his back on the ball and walking out of the box, believing the ball was foul. But it dropped on the foul-line and fortunately for Votto the ball hopped into the stands down the left field lilne, a ground rule double.
Votto took third on a ground ball. Jay Bruce grounded to first baseman Casey McGehee, who stepped on first for the out and when Votto tried to score, McGehee threw him out at the plate — although it appeared Votto’s slid across the plate ahead of the tag.
It was that kind of a night for the Reds.
LEAKE HAD two outs and nobody on in the third when he gave up a double to Jose Tabatha and Neil Walker nearly sank a riverboat on the Allegheny River with a down-range home run to make it 2-0.
Jay Bruce tripled past diving center field Andrew McCuthen to lead off the seventh and scored on Scott Rolen’s single. That’s the inning that ended with Rolen trying to move from first to second on the fly ball.
Leake, though, gave that run back in the bottom of the seventh when pinch-hitter Alex Presley hit a two-out home run, pushing the lead back to two runs, 3-1.
The Reds scored once in the eighth when Devin Mesoraco led with a single, the fourth time in five innings the leadoff batter reached base. Zack Cozart doubled him home. The Reds then filled the bases, but Brandon Phillips struck out.
Jose Arrendondo gave up a one-out single to Andrew McCuthen in the eighth, but picked him off base, a fortuitous play because he then filled the bases with two walks and a hit.
Clint Barmes helped out, too, when he swung at ball four on a 3-and-2 pitch to end the inning and leave it at 3-2.
The Reds, though were helpless in the ninth against Pittsburgh closer Joel Hanraham, who was 40 for 44 in save situations and four-for-four this year.
Now he is five-for-five after Jay Bruce flied to center, Scott Rolen popped to short and Ryan Ludwick popped to second base.
TweetMarmol Meltdown saves the Reds
CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Reds found the perfect antedote for a large dose of embarrassing slump-itis. Take a few pitches from Carlos Marmol and call me in the morning.
The Reds were on the cusp of two frightful losses to the Chicago Cubs on hot, humid afternoon in Great American Ball Park.
They lost Wednesday, 3-1, on three hits. They were behind, 3-0, on three hits off Rayn Dempster going into the ninth inning Thursday — faced with playing 18 innings and scoring one run on six hits against the freakin’ Cubs.
That’s were Carlos Marmol intervened. He is the Cubs closer and so far this year he hasn’t closed anything but a bunch of steel doors on his fingers.
And he did it again Thursday He walked Willie Harris, which is tough to do. He walked Joey Votto on four pitches. Third baseman Ian Stewart booted a ground ball and a run scored to make it 3-1. Jay Bruce singled to right, filling the bases. Ryan Ludwick walked on a full count, forcing in the second run.
Rafael Dolis replaced Marmol and induced a double play out of Devin Mesoraco, but the tying run scoreed, sending the game into extra innings.
The rest was anti-climactic with Les Miserable Cubs.
The game ended on Scott Rolen’s no-outs sacrifice fly after a leadoff single by Zack Cozart and a throwing error by pitcher Dolis on Chris Heisey’s sacrifice bunt that put Cozart on third.
Neither Cozart nor Rolen started the game.
As for Marmol, Cubs manager Dale Sveum says removal of Marmol as the team’s closer is a strong possibility and Marmol doesn’t disagree.
“Lose a game like that? I’m embarrassed right now,” said Marmol, who had saved Wednesday’s game with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
Reds manager Dusty Baker said the key to facing Marmol is: “Swing at strikes. Sometimes when he throws strikes he is unhittable. But you make him throw strikes, that’s the key, and hopefully he’ll throw some balls.”
He threw a lot of them Tnursday.
A PLAYER WAS standing in a hallway before Thursday afternoon’s game, gazing at a lineup card that was hanging on a bulletin board.
Somebody asked him, “Are we trying today?”
Said the player, “Doesn’t look like it.”
That player wasn’t starting pitcher Homer Bailey, although he certainly would have been entitled to make that comment.
The lineup looked like one of those spring training split-squad lineups — the team that is sent on the road.
It contained: Willis (3 for 31, .097) Harris at third base and Chris in center field and Wilson (.231) Valdez at shortstop and Devin (The Reds are 1-9 when he catches) Mesoraco. The only ‘every day’ players in the lineup were Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce.
IT WAS LIKE the day pitcher Pete Harnisch looked at a similar lineup and said out loud in his Jersey accent, “Hey, Skippah, are we tryin’?”
Ryan Dempstser hand-fed the Reds scrambled goose eggs for eight innings. so Harris didn’t hit (0 for 3, strikeout)and Valdez didn’t hit (0 for 4, two strikeouts). Joey Votto had two of the three hits and Ryan Ludwick owned the other off Dempster.
Homer Bailey wasn’t awful, except he lived up to his first name and the three runs came on three solo ‘homers’ by Starlin Castro, Ian Stewart and Giovanny Soto.
AS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION engineer who put the lineup together, manager Dusty Baker, it is something like why not? The regulars only had three hits the night before and scored one run. It is almost like try-anything time.
BAKER CALLED IT, “mass substitution,” and said, “This isn’t a matter of giving guys a rest, it is more like giving some guys playing time. We need these guys to be ready when you need them. Sometimes you do it one at a time and sometimes you just do a mass substitution.
“And some of the guys I’m not playing haven’t had a whole bunch of success against Ryan Dempster,” he added. “I do want to rest Zack Cozart and give Wilson Valdez some playing time at shortstop.”
But it was a matter of giving Drew Stubbs some rest and relaxation time and Baker said, “He was going pretty good, but he has begun to scuffle a little bit (1 for 12, four strikeouts) and we want to stop it before it gets chronic.”
Harris was at third base in place of Scott Rolen, who is hitting .178 and is 1 for 11.
Asked if Stubbs is like Jay Bruce, a victim of inconsistency — ingot-hot for a week and iceberg-cold the next, Baker said, “It is one of the perils of being a young player. If all young players were consistent this job would be easy.”
BOTH STARTING PITCHERS Thursday, Cincinnati’s Homer Bailey and Chicago’s Ryan Dempster, were pitching on their birthdays. Unbelievably, Elias Sports Bureau determined that it was the first time in baseball history, EVER, that both starting pitchers in a game were celebrating birthdays together. Bailey turned 26 and Dempster turned 35.
Baker managed Dempster when he was the Cubs skipper and Dempster also piched for the Reds one year, a year after he underwent Tommy John surgery and was not fully recovered so was not the pitcher that he is today.
“Somebody is going to be happy and somebody is going to be sad on their birthday,” said Baker. It was Demptster with the birthday smile and Bailey with a birthday frown.
Said Bailey, “Pretty cool. Found out about it right before the game and they gave me four balls to sign — one for me, one for Dempster, one for the baseball Hall of Fame and one for the Reds Hall of Fame.”
THE DEATH OF former NFL star Junior Seau hit Baker hard and he said he thought about the former San Diego Chargers linebacker most of Wednesday after it broke on the news.
“Shocking,” said Baker. “I knew him, but we were not tight buddies or anything like that. I knew him through some Chargers players that I knew for a long time. Hey, we don’t know for sure that it was suicide yet. I would like to think not. I talked to my son (Darren) for a long time about it. Forty-three years old? Boy, that’s young.”
Asked about how well fandom really knows its athletes, Baker said, “Not really very well. Not much at all. I always said I should have been a musician because music reflects who you are and what you are more than what we do on the athletic field. Most athletes have two faces — a competitive face and a real life face.”
AS FOR SEAU and his problems, Baker said, “We do have one of the greatest jobs in the world, but we still have problems, too. Just because you are rich or famous, that doesn’t mean you don’t have problems.”
Baker smiled and said he remembers what Pete Rose once told him about off-the-field problems.
“I admire guys, the great ones who have the ability to shut out their problems while they are playing,” he said “That’s the strong-minded ones or the crazy ones — one of the two.
“Rose told me you have to use the baseball park as a sanctuary because your problems are still there when you get off the field,” said Baker. “And he was one of the best I’ve ever seen at doing that.”
There is the story that when his first wife, Karolyn, filed for divorce, on that same night Rose went 5-for-5.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: I was better in basketball and football and I like them both better than baseball, but I signed for professional baseball because I figured I could make money for a long time, the longevity of it.”
TweetSamardzija: Can’t spell him, can’t hit him
CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Reds could neither spell Samardzija nor hit him Wednesday night in Great American Ball Park.
Jeff Samardzija, a former All-American wide receiver at Notre Dame, now pitches for the Chicago Cubs and on Wednesday he had the Reds begging to buy a vowel during a 3-1 Cubs victory during which the Reds scraped together only one run and three hits off him in 7 2/3 innings.
Bronson Arroyo used up 99 pitches to travel seven innings and only gave up three runs on nine hits, but two of those hits left the playing area — solo home runs by Bryan LaHair and Ian Stewart.
The Reds had only six baserunners and only two reached second base — Joey Votto, who struck and reached first on a wild pitch, then scored the team’s only run and Jay Bruce, who doubled.
Down 3-1 in the ninth against Cubs closer Carlos Marmol, The Reds went down meekly and mildly as Drew Stubbs took a called third strike on 3-and-2, Joey Votto flied to the wall in left field and Brandon Phillips took a called third strike for the second time in the game, both times disputing umpire Dana DeMuth.
“That’s the best (pitching) we’ve seen against us this year,” said manager Dusty Baker. “Usually he doesn’t have that kind of control. But he was 95 and 98 all night and when he left he was 96 and 98. It wasn’t us tonight, it was him.”
Of Arroyo, Baker said, “He just missed location (on the two home run pitches), the only two mistakes he made all night. When a guy is dealing against you like that, you can’t give up much and he didn’t. It was just all Samardzija tonight.”
Easy for you to say.
So the Reds’ flirtation with 500 sunk one below again, down to 11-12 and 4 ½ games behind the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals.
WHEN IT COMES to baseball bats, Louisville Slugger is the begin-all and end-all for most players.
Most.
Ever hear of Marucci bats? Me neither — not until I read a piece in Men’s Journal this month.
A few years ago, Jack Marucci’s young son wanted a wooden bat to use in Little League instead of one of those aluminum things that go ‘ping’ in the night. He wanted real wood, like the big leaguers use.
Marucci searched and searched for a wooden bat that his son could use, but couldn’t find one. So he went to his garage in Baton Rouge, La., and made one.
Soon he was making them for his son’s teammates and it began getting out of hand so he began charging $15, what it cost for him to make them. Then it became a hobby.
One day he mentioned it to a friend, who happened to be Eduardo Perez, a former Cincinnati Reds infielder and a son of Hall of Famer Tony Perez. Eduardo asked Marucci to make him one, so he did. Then Marucci was stunned to turn on the TV one night and see Perez using his bat.
A monster was born. Now more than 300 major leaguers, about one-third of them, use Marucci bats — including Albert Pujols.
Three Reds players use Marucci — Todd Frazier, Miguel Cairo, Willie Harris.
Frazier pulled his model out of his locker Wednesday, a black beauty with ‘M’ on the barrel.
“When you get to big-league camp for the first time you are allowed to pick out 12 free bats,” said Frazier. “I decided I wanted to try something new so I got on-line and found Marucci. They are sweet bats, man, really hard wood.”
Marucci’s wood comes from Pennsylvania and its quality was so good that he bought the mill that supplies him. He claims a solid Marucci bat can add 12 to 15 feet on hard-hit balls, “Maybe the difference in five home runs.”
When told that, Frazier said, “Oh, yeah? I’ll take that.”
WHEN THE REDS and Cubs were rained out Tuesday, there was consideration for the teams to play a doubleheader Thursday instead of just the scheduled 12:35 game.
Instead it was decided to play a doubleheader in August when the Cubs come back to Cincinnati.
And Reds manager Dusty Baker was so happy he could have jumped and clicked his heels without losing the toothpick out of his mouth. Why? A doubleheader would have messed up his pitching rotation.
BRONSON ARROYO WAS scheduled to pitch Tuesday, but he came back Wednesday night with an extra day of rest.
Baker was asked if an extra day for Arroyo was good, bad or indifferent, Baker said, “It’s good for Bronson at this point in time of the year. He has been having a little problem with his lower back again and this gave him an extra day of treatment.”
But had the Reds have to play a doubleheader Thursday, Baker’s rotation would be a mess.
He would have had to pitch Homer Bailey and Mike Leake on Thursday, “And that really would have messed up our rotation. Then we would have had to get somebody in here for Friday in Pittsburgh (from Class AAA Louisville) and send somebody out we didn’t want to send out. Some guys would then have been off almost a week.”
When the Cubs return and play a doubleheader, the Reds will be in the midst of playing 17 games in 16 days, another way to shred a rotation. But Baker said, “We’ll be in good shape by then with our pitchers.”
BAKER WOULDN’T BITE when it was mentioned that Jay Bruce is coming up on 2,000 at-bats and he is only 25 years old, so his figures to put up big, big numbers.
“You don’t know,” said Baker “A lot of water has to go under that bridge They thought Bob Horner was going to break all of Hank Aaron’s records, too. Never happened. You just have to live and play. Nobody can predict or project anything.
“That fact that he has 2,000 at-bats at 25 just means he got here quicker,” said Baker.
SOMEBODY ASKED Baker if he was aware of what shortstop Billy Hamilton is doing at high Class A Bakersfield — 29 steals in 23 games, .398, 18 strikeouts, 14 walks.
“Yep, I’m glad for him,” said Baker. “Keep progressing, keep progressing on his total game, not just the highlights, the stolen bases. The total game. He is a great kid and he is playing great. You want him to stay healthy and he is doing a lot of running.
“He’s like a little kid — how do you stop him from running,” Baker added. “Remember when you were a kid and your mom told you, ‘Stop running, boy,’ and you don’t until you bump your heard on a corner of table. But… .run while you can run.”
A JOHNNY ROCKETS restaurant across the street from Great American Ball Park is selling a Dusty’s Bacon Burger in honor of Dusty Baker, but it isn’t held together by a toothpick nor does it come wrapped in wrist bands.
QUOTE OF THE DAY — “I was told a long time ago that staying in the majors is a lot harder than getting to the majors. My rookie year I was standing on first base and Ron Fairly told me that. I thought I was going pretty good and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about until three or four years later. I thought I’d be here forever.”
TweetWaving the ol’ Marucci wood
CINCINNATI —When it comes to baseball bats, Louisville Slugger is the begin-all and end-all for most players.
Most.
Ever hear of Marucci bats? Me neither — not until I read a piece in Men’s Journal this month.
A few years ago, Jack Marucci’s young son wanted a wooden bat to use in Little League instead of one of those aluminum things that go ‘ping’ in the night. He wanted real wood, like the big leaguers use.
Marucci searched and searched for a wooden bat that his son could use, but couldn’t find one. So he went to his garage in Baton Rouge, La., and made one.
Soon he was making them for his son’s teammates and it began getting out of hand so he began charging $15, what it cost for him to make them. Then it became a hobby.
One day he mentioned it to a friend, who happened to be Eduardo Perez, a former Cincinnati Reds infielder and a son of Hall of Famer Tony Perez. Eduardo asked Marucci to make him one, so he did. Then Marucci was stunned to turn on the TV one night and see Perez using his bat.
A monster was born. Now more than 300 major leaguers, about one-third of them, use Marucci bats — including Albert Pujols.
Three Reds players use Marucci — Todd Frazier, Miguel Cairo, Willie Harris.
Frazier pulled his model out of his locker Wednesday, a black beauty with ‘M’ on the barrel.
“When you get to big-league camp for the first time you are allowed to pick out 12 free bats,” said Frazier. “I decided I wanted to try something new so I got on-line and found Marucci. They are sweet bats, man, really hard wood.”
Marucci’s wood comes from Pennsylvania and its quality was so good that he bought the mill that supplies him. He claims a solid Marucci bat can add 12 to 15 feet on hard-hit balls, “Maybe the difference in five home runs.”
When told that, Frazier said, “Oh, yeah? I’ll take that.”
WHEN THE REDS and Cubs were rained out Tuesday, there was consideration for the teams to play a doubleheader Thursday instead of just the scheduled 12:35 game.
Instead it was decided to play a doubleheader in August when the Cubs come back to Cincinnati.
And Reds manager Dusty Baker was so happy he could have jumped and clicked his heels without losing the toothpick out of his mouth. Why? A doubleheader would have messed up his pitching rotation.
BRONSON ARROYO WAS scheduled to pitch Tuesday, but he came back Wednesday night with an extra day of rest.
Baker was asked if an extra day for Arroyo was good, bad or indifferent, Baker said, “It’s good for Bronson at this point in time of the year. He has been having a little problem with his lower back again and this gave him an extra day of treatment.”
But had the Reds have to play a doubleheader Thursday, Baker’s rotation would be a mess.
He would have had to pitch Homer Bailey and Mike Leake on Thursday, “And that really would have messed up our rotation. Then we would have had to get somebody in here for Friday in Pittsburgh (from Class AAA Louisville) and send somebody out we didn’t want to send out. Some guys would then have been off almost a week.”
When the Cubs return and play a doubleheader, the Reds will be in the midst of playing 17 games in 16 days, another way to shred a rotation. But Baker said, “We’ll be in good shape by then with our pitchers.”
BAKER WOULDN’T BITE when it was mentioned that Jay Bruce is coming up on 2,000 at-bats and he is only 25 years old, so his figures to put up big, big numbers.
“You don’t know,” said Baker “A lot of water has to go under that bridge They thought Bob Horner was going to break all of Hank Aaron’s records, too. Never happened. You just have to live and play. Nobody can predict or project anything.
“That fact that he has 2,000 at-bats at 25 just means he got here quicker,” said Baker.
SOMEBODY ASKED Baker if he was aware of what shortstop Billy Hamilton is doing at high Class A Bakersfield — 29 steals in 23 games, .398, 18 strikeouts, 14 walks.
“Yep, I’m glad for him,” said Baker. “Keep progressing, keep progressing on his total game, not just the highlights, the stolen bases. The total game. He is a great kid and he is playing great. You want him to stay healthy and he is doing a lot of running.
“He’s like a little kid — how do you stop him from running,” Baker added. “Remember when you were a kid and your mom told you, ‘Stop running, boy,’ and you don’t until you bump your heard on a corner of table. But… .run while you can run.”
A JOHNNY ROCKETS restaurant across the street from Great American Ball Park is selling a Dusty’s Bacon Burger in honor of Dusty Baker, but it isn’t held together by a toothpick nor does it come wrapped in wrist bands.
QUOTE OF THE DAY — “I was told a long time ago that staying in the majors is a lot harder than getting to the majors. My rookie year I was standing on first base and Ron Fairly told me that. I thought I was going pretty good and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about until three or four years later. I thought I’d be here forever.”
TweetBaker: Better things ahead for Reds
CINCINNATI — After a 4-8 start during which fans wanted Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker tarred, feathered, quartered and shipped to Juneau to put on ice — and they wanted a lot of the players trucked out with him — the Reds finished April 11-11, winning seven of their last 10.
And they are in second place, only three games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central.
“How do I feel right now about the month? I feel great,” said Baker. “One month down and five to go — and hopefully some more games after the regular season ends.
“It was a short month because we started late, but now it’s a new month and we want to continue this as if it is late April,” he added.
What has been most noticeable in late April is that the Reds are coming back from deficits and scoring late to win games.
“That’s what you have to do and the good teams come back,” said Baker “And the real good teams pad the lead when they have a lead. That’s what we have to do, pad the lead and get insurance runs because you can’t always count on coming back. Our guys are feeling really good about themselves right now.”
That’s because not only is the team beginning to hit, th bullpen continues to be semi-automatic and after a slow start the rotation inhabitants are pitching in. After Johnny Cueto won on Opening Day, the starters went 12 games before a starting pitcher, Bronson Arroyo, won another game.
OVER THE 10-GAME span that finished April, Reds pitchers were 7-3 with a 2.73 earned run average and the starters were 5-2 with a 3.03 ERA.
“Yes, we’re getting great pitching and that’s the key,” said Baker. “The better your starters are the better the chance you have to win and to come back in games.”
“We lost some tough games in April (three in extra innings, four by one run and two by two runs),” said Baker. “But it isn’t how you start, it’s how you finish. Now that we’ve struggled to get back to .500, we can put some distance on .500.”
JAY BRUCE, last week’s National League Player of the Week, is on the same page, paragraph and sentence as his manager.
“We’re going in the right direction and we’re going to be just fine,” he said. “You can’t make a true judgment after one month. We’re in a fine position. Our pitching is doing well and our hitting is coming around. That’s all we can ask for.”
MIGUEL CAIRO WAS eligible to come off the disabled list Tuesday and successfully tested his left hamstring by running the bases early Tuesday, but he was not taken off.
“Everything was good when I ran the bases, no problems,” he said. “But that’s not like running the bases in a game. For me, right now, it is mental more than anything. You don’t want to go out and practice running the bases and hurt it again.”
Baker is enthusiastic and optimistic about a quick return for his best bench player and top-grade pinch-hitter. “Miguel is getting better, getting better big-time,” said Baker. “Hopefully he’ll go out a couple of days (to the minors) on rehab because he hadn’t played that much prior to his injury. It isn’t like it is mid-June or July and he’s had a lot of at bats.”
Cairo went on the DL April 17 and had appeared in only four games with nine at-bats.
“We certainly need Miguel, he has been a big part of our team, and we anticipate some time on the next road trip that he’ll be back.”
PAUL JANISH CAN’T catch a break. Well, he caught one Saturday in Norfolk, Va., but it was a bad break. He was struck by a pitch that fractured his left wrist.
Instead of sulking when he was sent to Class AAA Louisville at the end of spring training after being the starting shortstop last year, Janish was tearing it up — .315, two homers (both on Openng Day), four RBIs and seven doubles for the last place Bats (9-16).
“I heard that (about his broken wrist) and he was playing well, too,” said Baker. “I heard he was one of the few guys playing well down there so far.”
STARTING THIS coming Monday, you and I can talk to each other. The Dayton Daily News web-site is putting together an on-line chat for us and we’ll do it on most Mondays when the Reds are off or on the road.
Details are forthcoming and watch for them in the DDN newspaper and on the Dayton Daily News web-site.
AND DON’T FORGET those Ask Hal questions. Send them now and you have a chance to make Sunday’s DDN. Send them to halmccoy1@hotmail.com.
QUOTES TO NOTE (poetry corner):
Dusty Baker on his pitchers: “Everybody is going to have their time to shine and you hope some guys shine the whole time.”
Jay Bruce on the team’s pursuit of a championship: “You have to keep your eyes on the prize.”
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