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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 > 2008 > April > 27
Sunday, April 27, 2008
High voltage Volquez
As soon as fans evacuate the glorious ballpark in San Francisco that is AT&T Park, the sea gulls swoop in. Scores of them. As I write this, at least 30 are walking around the infield, cawing and strutting.
Most of them are on the pitcher’s mound. On this day they recognized the locale of greatness, where earlier Cincinnati pitcher Edinson Volquez wasn’t cawing, but he certainly was strutting.
It is hard to lay that greatness label on a 24-year-old guy who has pitched in only 25 major-league games, five this year for the Reds, but the man is good. Real good.
He is 4-0 right now with a 1.23 earned run average in five 2008 starts after the Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 10-1. He gave up five hits. He struck out a career-best 10.
How good is he? He said his best pitch Sunday was a curve. His catcher, Paul Bako, said that, well, the curve was better than usual, but his fastball and changeup were better.
Three pitches from which to chose - and one zips up there at 97 miles an hour and another at 78 miles an hour.
What a contrast Sunday. On the other side, lefthander Barry Zito tried to pitch for the Giants, a guy that cost them $126 million. He wishes he had one of the three pitches Volquez displayed.
The Reds beat on him like raindrops from heaven for six runs in the first inning and it was as clear as the skies over San Francisco Bay that Zito soon would be 0-6.
Meanwhile, Volquez is 4-0 for his five starts, wearing the same No. 36 once worn by his fellow Dominican and his mentor, Mario Soto. Any veteran player knows Soto had one of the all-time best changeups, but he didn’t complement his with a 97 miles an hour fastball.
That’s OK, though, because 93 miles an hour was good enough for Soto.
The Reds hope that Bronson Arroyo paid attention. When the Reds open a three-game series in St. Louis tonight, Arroyo takes the mound, lugging a 0-3 record, a 7.56 ERA and no game pitched behind 5 2/3 innings among his six starts.
But back to the good stuff. Volquez. Everywhere he goes he leaves folks wide-eyed.
Said San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy, “That kid’s got a great arm. We knew it coming into the game. He’s been throwing the ball well and we knew we needed a well-pitched game because of the way he has been throwing.
“You’ve got a kid out there throwing 95 to 97 with that kind of change-up. That’s a tough job for a lineup. I’m not surprised looking at his numbers and why they are where they are because he has a really good arm.”
Now a smidgen of bad stuff. Second baseman Brandon Phillips has his nose out of joint. After getting three hits (two homers) Sunday, he refused to talk to any media, telling them, “Just get out of my space and leave me alone. I don’t feel like talking. Nobody talks to me when I’m going bad. They just write crap. When I’m going good, everybody wants to talk to me. So just leave me alone.”
And he was left alone. There was too much good to contemplate over the last two days, 10-9 and 10-1 wins over the Giants, to play games with a moody second baseman. That wide smile can fool you. It isn’t always there in the clubhouse.
But if he wants to be left alone, so be it.
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TweetBaker and Bonds converse
Dusty Baker told a gaggle of Bay Area writers Sunday morning, “Don’t worry about Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds is fine. The man can disappear in plain sight. You wonder how a guy like that can do it, but he does. You never know where he might be.”
Baker smiled sheepishly, as if he knew that moment where Bonds was. And maybe he did.
Baker, who managed Bonds in San Francisco, said he talked to Bonds on the phone a couple of weeks ago.
Later, a writer asked Baker point blank, “Did Bonds ask about coming back and playing for you?” Said Baker, “No, not at all. That did not come up from him or me.”
And will Bonds play baseball again?
“We talked about a lot of things, not much about baseball,” Baker said. “Hey, the longer he is out, the less likely he will come back. And the longer he is out, who knows, the less likely he may want to come back. I’m sure he has enough money and if you have enough money and your time is being occupied by what you like to do, maybe you enjoy that.”
Asked about Ken Griffey Jr. approaching 600 home runs and the connection with Bonds and his chase of legends, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, Baker said, “Bonds called Griffey not too long ago. He asked Griffey how I was doing, but we’d just talked two weeks ago.”
Baker said he knows Bonds can still hit, but he also knows the longer he is away from the game the longer it will take for him to find his timing.
“Barry didn’t sound like he was missing the game to me, not at all,” said Baker. “Everybody misses the game, but there is some of the crap you don’t miss. In Barry’s case, he should have been the happiest man in the world. But he wasn’t. He had to read all that bad stuff about himself. You have to stop reading and don’t pay attention.”
That’s tough, though, when the whole world associates you with steroids and human growth hormone and lying to the grand juries.
“Barry is doing fine,” said Baker. “Don’t worry about him.”
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