Edgewood vs. Northwest
Graham vs. Kenton Ridge
Math Day at UD Arena
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
April 2008
April Fool’s Month
A question for Bronson Arroyo as he does his pool laps: Can you cry under water?
The reason we ask is because what the Cincinnati Reds did the last two days in St. Louis is enough to push the most hardened Reds fans into crying jags.
A 17-loss April also means, well, maybe there IS crying in baseball.
Arroyo straightened himself out Monday and pitched the Reds to a victory over the St. Louis Cardinals for a three-game winning streak, the longest of the season. Three? The longest? You betcha, buddy.
Then the Reds play the next two games as if a baseball is a foreign object — hitting it or catching it. Once again they couldn’t buy an important base hit from a street person with a hundred-dollar bill.
Before Thursday afternoon’s yawn-inducer, somebody pointed out to manager Dusty Baker that the Reds hadn’t had a winning road trip since 2006, that they were 1-17 in their last 18 road trips.
“Really? Are you kidding me?” he said with a shake of his head. Yep, Dusty, it is how a team constructs seven straight years of losing — and don’t blame it on seven years of bad luck because Jack McKeon broke a mirror in the manager’s office when they didn’t bring him back after the 2000 season, the team’s last winning season (85-77).
Timeout while I light up a cigar in Jack’s memory, or go kick a base in Lou Piniella’s memory. Or maybe I’ll scribble Adam Dunn’s name on a lineup card in the leadoff spot in memory of Bob Boone.
During Thursday’s 5-2 loss, the middle of the batting order would have done just as well to take the capsule ride up to the top of the Gateway Arch.
Ken Griffey Jr., Brandon Phillips and Adam Dunn neither scored a run nor drove one in. Phillips was 0-for-4 with two punchouts and stranded four. Dunn had two hits that meant nothing and Griffey had a hit and a walk that also equaled nothing.
So, let’s see. Is there one ‘r’ in moribund? I know there is one ‘r’ in boring. And there is one ‘r’ in Harang but damn few w’s — and it isn’t his fault.
The guy is 1-4 with a 2.98 ERA in seven starts. He has six quality starts. The Reds have given him 22 runs (3.1 per game).
So for the second straight year the Reds have a four-time loser in April. Last year it was Eric Milton, who did NOT produce six quality starts and who did NOT have an ERA under 3.00.
The troupe is 3-3 on the trip. After resting in Buckhead (who can rest in Buckhead with its bars, bistros and restaurants?), the Reds open a three-game series in Atlanta Friday night.
Me? I get to go home tonight, rest a day in the abode, then cart my wife, Nadine, off to Atlanta with me, where her son, Chad, is a nuclear engineer. Hey, baseball writer/nuclear engineer? Same thing, right?
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TweetMeet me in St. Louis
Anybody who plans to visit St. Louis, stay at the Westin on Spruce. And this is not a free commercial. I paid (well, the newspaper did) full boat for my stay.
But it is one of America’s great hotels, probably my favorite. Sweet, large rooms, marble bathrooms, plush carpeting and fixtures. And you can look out your window and see Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch.
The MetroLink train runs right next door - one way to the airport and the other way across the Mississippi to the Casino Queen, for those inclined to contribute to the Illinois economy. I always hope I break even because I need the money.
Just down the street is Charley Gitto’s, my favorite out-of-town Italian restaurant and second favorite anywhere behind Momma DiSalvo’s right there in Kettering. Gitto’s is stuffed with photos of celebrities, including at least five of Tommy Lasorda, so you know it must be good Italian food.
Charley sends food to the visiting team’s clubhouse for the first game of each series, so the Reds celebrated Monday’s win with Gitto’s best.
Anyway, t’was a short night - back at the hotel after Tuesday’s horror show at 1 a.m., up at 7 to pack, check out and hit the clubhouse by 10 for a meeting with manager Dusty Baker.
As I passed the old Marriott near where the old park stood (now a large hole in the ground with visions of big things to happen - sort of like the big hole next to Great American Ball Park), I thought of the only time I missed the first pitch of a game.
It was a Sunday morning after a Saturday night game. I left the window cracked on my 18th floor room that overlooked the old Busch. As I awoke, I heard a spooky voice: “Now batting for the Cardinals, No. 23, Ted Simmons.” It was the bottom of the first and I made it by the top of the third.
Anyway, when I got to the park Thursday morning, that’s when it was discovered that Baker’s revamped pitching rotation has been revamped again.
Before Tuesday’s game, the rotation for a three-game weekend series in Atlanta was to be Edinson Volquez, Matt Belisle and Johnny Cueto. Bronson Arroyo was shoved back to Tuesday, seven days of rest.
Then Cueto was stuffed and mounted by the Cardinals Tuesday night - 1 2/3 innings, seven runs (six earned) and eight hits.
Quick change time.
On Wednesday morning Baker said the rotation in Atlanta now is Volquez, Belisle and Arroyo. Cueto is being moved back to Tuesday, giving him six days of rest.
To me, that makes sense. Arroyo pitched fairly well Monday and may have relocated his AWOL fastball. Cueto is struggling - 0-3 with a 6.74 ERA over his last four starts.
In addition, Baker and GM Walt Jocketty have put out a call for Mario Soto, Cueto’s mentor, to join the team for some reconstruction work.
“Mario practically raised him as a pitcher, taught him the change-up,” said Baker. “I said in spring training that I’d like Soto to join us about once a month to help Cueto and Edinson Volquez.”
Just leave Volquez alone, OK? Just pat him on the back and say, “Just keep on keeping on.” Or as Abe Lincoln once said when people complained about Gen. U.S. Grant’s drinking, “Find out what brand he drinks and give it to the other generals.”
Of Cueto, Baker said, “Based on his last couple of starts, moving Cueto back gives him a little more time to collect his thoughts and give him a couple of bullpen sessions instead of one. His change-up has been up and he has lost confidence in his slider. We’ll get Mario Soto on the case, big-time.”
Or as he was known during his days in the Reds rotation: Mario Speedwagon.
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TweetCueto cuffed by Cards
When the media arrived in front of Johnny Cueto’s dressing stall Tuesday night, his clothes were gone and that meant one of two things:
ONE - Not only did the St. Louis Cardinals beat the bejabbers out of him on the Busch Stadium grass, but they stole his pants, too.
TWO - He had no hankering to rehash a personal train wreck.
It was the latter and there are only so many ways in Spanish to say, “I got mugged.”
In only 1 2/3 innings, shortest work day of the year by a Cincinnati Reds starter, Cueto gave up seven runs (six earned) and eight hits en route to a 7-2 defeat.
Cause for concern? How about a bit of dismay?
Since he held the Arizona Diamondbacks to one hit and struck out 10 in his major-league debut April 3, Cueto is 0-3 in his next four starts with a 6.74 ERA.
Not good, not good.
I didn’t mean to do it, but I started a war in the Brennaman family during the second inning on the radio when I pointed out that Cueto has not been good in his last four starts.
Young Thom jumped to Cueto’s defense, saying he is young (22) and that he shouldn’t be on a short leash just because this team wants to win this year, that he should be given a full chance.
Old Marty (Marty and I are very old) agreed with me that he should have a short leash. Don’t let the dogs eat him alive. Protect him, if need be.
Marty and I agree that if Cueto stays in the rotation regardless of what happens because he is young and learning, than the Reds can’t do it both ways. If they are going young, then where is Homer Bailey and where is Jay Bruce?
Reports indicate that Bailey still is too inconsistent and that Bruce is striking out way too much (21 times in 90 at-bats). But if they are going to stick with Cueto and make the major-league experience a learning experience, then Bailey and Bruce should be learning up here, too.
As I said to Marty, and he agreed, “You can’t have it both ways.” Thom was in the throes of apoplexy and Marty said, “Settle down, son. You’re going to have a heart attack.”
Maybe Cueto will settle everybody down and throw a gem next time. He has enough pressure on him, being a 22-year-old who speaks no English and was pitching at Class A Sarasota at this time last year.
To me there is added pressure. His best friend, his compadre, the guy he is always with, Edinson Volquez, is 4-0. Cueto sees that and wants to do as well. More pressure.
Maybe Edinson stole his pants.
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TweetOf erors and mstkes
To Reds Authority (and other malcontents):
I wanted to send this message to you personally, Reds Authority, but you have your e-mail blocked (big surprise).
As for errors and mistakes on the blog, permit me some explanation. First of all, the blog is added work, something I love to do, but added work nonetheless - done in addition to what I write for the paper.
So, for example, when I could have left the press box at midnight Monday, I stayed to write the Arroyo/Encarnacion blog and got back to the hotel at 1 a.m. I have no editors. I write it and post it. I do it quickly so I can get it out there to you folks.
On Tuesday, I had lunch then went back to the hotel and wrote the Phillips blog and sent it before I went to the ballpark for my regular work.
As I said, I love doing it and I do it to try to inform and entertain, provide some insight and some material that doesn’t make the paper.
If there are errors and typos, I apologize. I don’t do it on purpose.
It kind of aggravates me, though - all the sniping and sometimes it makes me wonder if it is worth the extra effort. For 98 percent of you, it is worth it to me. It’s the two percenters who pick, pick, pick that make me think I should abandon and stick to the newspaper.
I don’t get paid extra to blog two or three times a day. I just love to do it. Then I read the comments and cringe.
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TweetBrandon Phillips: the enigma
For those who are Brandon Phillips fans - and there should be legions because he is a multi-talented player who is a star headed for super stardom - this is not an anti-Phillips post.
I, too, am a Phillips admirer. The guy can play - hit, field, throw, run. What else is there?
His smile is dazzling and he loves the fans. He doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t drink and that, too, is admirable.
If only he would lighten up with the media - and I don’t just mean me. He is currently on an anti-media sulk. After hitting two home runs in San Francisco Sunday, he refused to go on the Foxsports/Ohio post-game show with Jeff Picaro. He refused to talk to the San Francisco writers after the game and he refused to talk to me, telling me, “Stay out of my space.”
That’s fine. I’ll stay out of his space. I don’t need his quotes to write about him. And I won’t hold it against him. Some will.
I did that once and still can’t forgive myself. In 1980, I had an NL Cy Young Award ballot. Steve Carlton was 24-9 with the Phillies. He would not talk to the media at all, ever. But he received every Cy Young vote but one.
Mine.
And I did it only because he yelled at me once when I tried to interview him. He did the same with other writers, but they still voted for him. I should have. I didn’t. I voted for LA’s Jerry Reuss, who was 18-6 with a 2.51 ERA. I used the lame excuse, “Well, I saw him beat the Reds four times that year.”
I wouldn’t do that now, but some might. Some out-of-town writers might hold it against Phillips if he is rude with them or refuses interviews. And he is good enough that there might come a time when he gets MVP votes.
The writers in Cleveland warned me. “Phillips is great as long as things are going good, but he’ll turn on you, just wait,” one said. The guy was right.
What probably started this was a column last week by my talented cohort, Dayton Daily News columnist Tom Archdeacon. I wasn’t there when this happened, but I’m told when Archdeacon asked about his slump, Phillips said, “I’m not in any slump.” And he was rude to Arch.
OK, so 5 for 36 isn’t a slump? If it isn’t, what is it? I saw Phillips react the same way when another writer referred to Brandon’s troubles as, “A slump.”
When I tried to talk to him Sunday, after he yelled to get out of his space, he said nobody talks to him when he is going bad (So it’s not a slum, just “going bad”), they just write crap about him. Then they want to talk when he is going good.
He should be happy about that. If nobody talks to him when he is going bad he doesn’t have to answer questions about slumps. Most players prefer to talk just when they are going good.
We won’t get into his habit of standing at home plate and watching home runs, as he did after his second home run Sunday in San Francisco. It infuriated the Giants - which I found a bit amusing, because their former teammate, Barry Bonds, was a master of the Home Run Stare.
But it is going to get Phillips and his teammates thrown at.
As I said, I do NOT hold this against Phillips. I’ll respect his space and leave him alone and I won’t withhold any votes for awards. But the guy can be so engaging when he wants to be engaging. And he can be one big turnoff.
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TweetEverybody into the pool
So here we are in St. Louis, where from the rooftop press box in Busch Stadium III I can see Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania.
A moment ago an American Airlines flight on its glide path to Lambert Field flew UNDER us. I’m looking DOWN on the Gateway Arch.
On the field, it looks as if two armies of red ants are doing battle.
Nowhere do I see a swimming pool. Not one. Bronson Arroyo finds them, though, and uses them to his advantage. He may look like Ichabod Crane, but he is doing his best to be another Johnny Weissmuller (for the old folks) or Mark Spitz (for the younger set).
Those are swimmers, folks.
And that’s what Arroyo credits with the velocity he found Monday on his fastball that helped him record his first victory this year, 4-3, over the St. Louis Cardinals.
With his velocity drooping at 88 the last two starts, Arroyo decided to try something different in his training routine. Swimming. Find a Y. Find a Boys Club. Even a Girls Club. So he and strength/conditioning coach Matt Krause went swimming four straight days to strengthen Arroyo’s shoulders.
Suddenly his fastball was back to 90 and 91 and for the first time this season he finished six innings, giving up three runs and six hits.
Afterward, he felt like shouting, “Here’s a news flash! Cannonball,” then jumping butt first into the nearest bank fountain.
“I finally had some zip on the ball, much stronger than any other start,” he said. “It’s great when you feel you can beat guys by throwing a fastball by them, especially when you get behind in the count.
“I felt like my stuff was there, other than the lack of a fastball,” he said. “You look at guys like Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, guys I played with in the past, and the times they were down three or four miles an hour on their fastball, even they had trouble getting guys out. You give guys a lot more time to react when you are throwing 84, 85, 86 miles an hour than if you get it up there 90 and 91.”
OK, are you ready for this? Manager Dusty Baker believes that in the near future third baseman Edwin (E as in Error) Encarnacion can win a Gold Glove. Know what? I agree.
EE makes incredible plays, out of the ordinary plays. Then he botches a 22-hopper right at him or picks up a routine ground ball and throws it to Pete Rose Way.
On Monday he made two wondrous plays. The first, a diving stop in the seventh with the Reds up one run with two runners on base, ended the inning. Then he ended the game with the tying run on base with an injury-defying slide against the dugout fence to snag a foul ball.
Said Baker, “Eddie saved the game with that play on Molina (in the seventh). That was a tough play, a great play, sliding into the fence to end the game. He has made some great plays. It’s just a matter of consistency and keep working. Because he works hard. He is conscious of it and does extra work and some day he has a chance to win Gold out there.
“Most of his errors are throwing or simple errors,” Baker said. “He guides the ball. But he has been playing some baseball.”
Encarnacion agrees.
“When you focus, you have opportunities to make plays like that,” he said. “On that last pop fly, I say in my mind, ‘I’m going to catch that ball no matter how.’ I don’t care if I hit the wall or the fence. Defense is how your team wins the game. That’s how we win tonight. Defense is part of winning games.”
Gold?
“I know I can do it, I just have to keep working, going forward, and I know I’ll play great defense the rest of my career.”
Maybe he can go swimming with Arroyo.
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TweetKrivsky’s final say
Wayne Krivsky is finding it difficult to sever his ties with the Cincinnati Reds after he was fired and says, “I must be crazy because I hope the Reds win every game the rest of the year and I still get on-line every morning to check how the minor-league teams did.”
And before he fades into the woodwork, Krivsky wants to clear a few things off his desk and his mind.
One of the things he wants known is that Dusty Baker was his choice to manage the Reds and he told owner Bob Castellini at the time, “Dusty Baker is my man and he is the guy for the job.” And Krivsky added, “It was my recommendation and Bob agreed.”
Krivsky said he held the advance scoutomh job open for interim manager Pete Mackanin for if he didn’t find a job, but he hooked on with the New York Yankees.
Then there was the trade of outfielder Josh Hamilton for pitcher Edinson Volquez (a deal that so far works both ways) and the signing of pitcher Josh Fogg.
“When I’m told before the season that I better win, I’m going to get all the pitching I can get,” he said. “Fogg was a $100,000 gamble, what we would pay him if he didn’t make the team. He made it so it cost $1.5 million and I still think it’s a good deal.
“When Homer Bailey didn’t make the team and Matt Belisle was injured, who did we have for our fifth starting spot? Nobody,” he said. “That’s where Fogg fit in. He made $3.7 million from the Rockies last year.”
And then there was the $3 million paid to outfielder Corey Patterson.
“I was told to get him signed, whatever it takes,” said Krivsky, who signed him for $3 million. Patterson was paid $4.7 million last year.
And Mike Stanton? “Stanton and the $3.5 million is on me,” he said. “And Juan Castro ($975,000), but I had something going with the Los Angeles Dodgers when I was let go. I told (new GM) Walt Jocketty to please try to find something for Castro.”
Krivsky kept quiet about pitcher Rheal Cormier and it was thought the Reds had to eat his salary when they released him. But when the Reds traded outfielder Chris Denorfia to Oakland the A’s agreed to pay Cormier’s $2 million, “And, actually, with interest we got $2.08 million,” said Krivsky.
Well, hey, now that we’ve seen Toronto eat about $10 million to dump Frank Howard and the penny-pounding Pittsburgh Pirates pour Heinez ketchup on $10 million for Matt Morris and eat it, how bad is Stanton’s $3.5 million?
As Krivsky said, “If you haven’t had at least one bad contract or made one bad decision, then you haven’t been a general manager.”
So true, so true.
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TweetCoffey, Bray trade places
Flights from Dayton to San Francisco, from San Francisco to St. Louis: 8 1/2 hours, 171 songs on an iPod while drinking one coffee, one orange juice and eating two cookies thoughtfully provided by the airlines.
And when I arrived in St. Louis I discovered that Todd Coffey didn’t make it, but Bill Bray did.
Coffey, the much-troubled righthanded relief pitcher, was optioned back to Class AAA Louisville, lugging his 6.48 ERA over 14 appearances with him. The final chapter was Saturday in San Francisco when Coffey came into the game in the ninth inning with a 10-5 lead and gave up two doubles and a walk, forcing manager Dusty Baker to go to closer Francisco Cordero to rescue a 10-9 victory.
Bray has been ready for a while - probably since the minor-league season began. The 24-year-old lefthander missed the first half of spring training with shoulder inflammation, but has been impeccable at Louisville - 1.04 ERA in eight appearances over 8 2/3 innings, during which he has given up only four hits, walked three and struck out 14.
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TweetHigh 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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TweetBelisle by the Bay
It has been 50 years? Wow. Time flies when you go west.
Fifty years ago Horace Stoneham took the New York Giants and fled west to San Francisco, talked into the deed by Walter O’Malley, so he could move his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.
To honor the deed (they think differently in New York and Brooklyn), the SF Giants are issuing commemorative tickets to honor events and people in the team’s 50 years in the Bay Area.
On Saturday, Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker’s visage was on 84 sets of tickets to honor his 840 victories as Giants manager, most of any manager in San Francisco.
And he won his first game in this town as Reds manager, beating the Giants, 10-9, despite another shoddy effort by Matt Belisle. He pitched five innings and gave up four runs and five hits.
He was the winning pitcher because his teammates bashed and battered a bevy of Giants pitchers for 14 hits, scoring in six of the nine innings.
Nevetheless, they tried to give it away in the ninth. Todd Coffey, trying to protect a 10-5 lead, gave up back-to-back doubles and walk, forcing manager Dusty Baker to go to Francisco Cordero with a 10-6 lead.
And Cordero made it dicey by giving up a two-run triple by Eugenio Velez and he scored on a ground ball to make it 10-9 and force Cordero to get two more outs - which he did.
“Didn’t want to go to Cordero, but whew, if we had lost that one it would have been Heartbreak Hotel,” said Baker.
That’s where Coffey should be right now, a one-night stop there before he goes to Louisville for some major adjustments. Can Bill Bray be far away. Maybe in St. Louis Monday?
Belisle, who is on a leash so tight it has to feel it around his throat, staggered early. Every time the Reds gave him a lead he handed it right back.
The Reds scored one in the first on a single by Brandon Phillips, but Belisle gave it right back in the bottom of the first via a leadoff triple by Fred Lewis and a ground ball.
Incredibly, Belisle had opposing pitcher Brad Hennessey 0-and-2 with two outs. After running the count to 3-and-2, Belisle fed Hennessey a fat fastball and he lined it for a run-scoring hit and a 2-1 Giants lead.
The Red scored two in the third to take a 3-2 lead, one scoring on a wild pitch and the other on Phillips’ double - and it appears B.P.’s batting doldrums are over.
But…Belisle did it again, giving up a run in the third for a 3-3 tie.
By now one might think the Reds are thinking, “Why try? This i9s monotonous.”
Nevertheless, Joey Votto led the fourth with a double and scored on Paul Bako’s single. and the Reds were back in front, 4-3.
Then an amazing thing happened in the fourth. Belisle didn’t give up a hit. Zip, zero, zilch. In the first seven innings he pitched for the Reds this year he had given up at leaswt one hit in every inning.
Can we call that progress?
The Giants brought in a 39-year-old pitcher named Keeichi Yabu, who was 84-106 for his 11 years with the Hanshin Tigers. Now there’s a free agent worth pursuing.
Anyway, he walked Adam Dunn with two outs in the fifth, balked him to second and gave up a run-scoring double to Edwin “Good-Hit, No-Field” Encarnacion. In the previous half inning EE booted a ground ball, his seventh.
Now it was Belisle’s turn again. And he was up to it. The first Giants hitter in the fifth, Fred Lewis, drowned a Rawlings in McCovey bay - the 46th ball to land in the drink on the fly (35 by Barry Bonds) and the first by a Giants hitter this year. That cut it to 5-4 after five.
When Paul Bako homered to lead off the sixth, manager Dusty Baker had seen enough and pinch-hit for Belisle, who had given up four runs and five hits in his five innings.
Is that good enough to run him out there again? His turn comes up again Thursday, an off day. If Las Vegas laid odds on it, I’d say it is 6 to 5 that Belisle gets skipped.
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TweetStuff from real life
What you see during an eight-block walk to the ballpark on a bright, cloudless San Francisco day with the temperature in the 80s:
Traffic on Third Street was stopped when a long parade of marchers filled the street, singing and chanting. They were protesting rape. Huh? Who is the world is FOR rape?
During a short cut through a public botanical garden, I watched a man and his big faun-colored dog stop at a drinking fountain. The man turned on the water, not for him, but his dog, Gretchen. The pooch put her front pays on the rim of the fountain and slurped from the faucet a couple of times and jumped down.
The man felt the stream and detected it was warm. He ran it a while until he got cold then said, “C’mon, Gretchen. It’s cold now.” The dog put its paws back on the fountain and slurped away.
Meanwhile, as I watched this, puffing my cigar, a security woman walked up and said, “Sir, there is no cigar-smoking in the botanical garden?” Meanwhile, Gretchen slurped away.
I was thirsty. I didn’t drink. And I put out my cigar.
When I got to the park, Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker and his son, Darren, were getting out of a car. Baker walkekd over and said, “I just visited my aunt and my father. Both are in bad shape. My dady (Johnny Baker Sr.) is coming to the game tonight, but I know he won’t be able to stay the entire game. Man, it’s tough. It’s really tough.”
Baker said when he and Darren left Dusty’s father, Darren looked up and said, “Daddy, grandpa can’t talk.”
Sometimes - well, most of the time - baseball is not as important as real life. Baseball is a diversion. Life is reality. Too many of us forget that.
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TweetWestward, ho - or ha?
All semblance of his residence here is gone. No photos. No memorabilia. No historical markers in plain view.
You know who we’re discussing here. Barry Bonds. The Giants let him go after last season and it is as if he never existed. He is the all-time leader in home runs, but as far as the San Francisco Giants and AT&T Park are concerned, he was a figment of some marketing guru’s imagination.
He was swept away like a dead fish in McCovey Cove.
OK, so there is one concession. After the local media fussed about it, the Giants put up a small barely visible orange shield on a brick wall in deepest center field, unreadable and unnoticeable from most locales inside the park.
But they took down the Splashdown Count, a running total of the home runs that landed in McCovey Cove, saying Bonds was the only one who drowned baseballs anyway.
With that little bit of historical data, the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants began a three-game series in AT&T and the Reds didn’t care about the Bonds landmarks, they are just happy he wasn’t in San Francisco’s lineup.
Meanwhile, on the Louisville front, Homer Bailey had his worst start of the year Friday against Indianapolis, giving up four runs and six hits in six innings, with two of the six hits home runs. He also walked three and hit a batter while striking out six.
Time out while I run outside the pressbox before the game starts to purchase a churro. Love churros. Maybe I’ll get two so I’ll have one for the seventh inning.
I’m back. Got two. Now I need to keep the sugar away from the keyboard or this PowerBook G4 will be doing some sweet-talking.
Brnadon Phillips isn’t in the lineup. He’s 6 for 38 over his last 10 games and is having difficulty discerning the difference between whether he should takes strikes and swing at balls or take balls and swing at strikes.
Manager Dusty Baker had Edwin Encarnacion batting cleanup for the first time this year, hoping to take advantage of his 14-game hitting streak. But he chatted with EE before the game, imploring him not to change what he has been doing.
“I hated to bat cleanup,” said Baker. “All of a sudden you’re saying, ‘Hey, I’m THE cleanup hitter. I gotta do something special.’ Nah, it’s just a spot in the order and you shouldn’t change. But I couldn’t transfer that to my process.”
Encarnacion led the team with six homers, mostly with nobody on, and Baker hoped by placing him fourth in the order that there might be some people occupying bases when he connects.
The Reds were facing a lefthander, Jonathan Sanchez, and Baker’s 10-year-old son, Darren, had a scouting report for his dad: “He’s tough, dad. We have to get to him early.”
Ryan Freel led the game with a single, a quick start. But when Jerry Hairston bunted Freel to second, after Hairston was thrown out at first Freel overran second base and was picked off.
Then nothing. Sixteen Reds went down feebly before Reds start Aaron Harang tried to take matters into his own bat, slashing a two-out double in the sixth. But Freel struck out.
The Reds were down1-0 at the time after a one-out opposite-field excuse-me double over the third base bag in the fourth by Eugenio Velez and a two-out, two-strike double by Bengie Molina.
San Francisco added two runs in the eighth, one on Ken Griffey Jr.’s throwing error and another on a sacrifice fly, for a 3-0 lead.
That’s the way it stood - two hits for the Reds - until Phillips led the ninth with a pinch-hit home run and Freel singled, ending Sanchez’s night. Brian Williams came on to strike out Jerry Hairston and get Encarnacion on a pop up, ending the game and his 14-game hitting streak.
The Reds lost the opening game of a series this year for the ninth straight time.
Sanchez was a 27th-round draft pick in 2004, but on this night he looked like a lefthanded Nolan Ryan, striking out 10 Reds while giving up four measly hits. But then it is the Reds, who are the moment are as danerous as a banana slug.
Poor Aaron Harang. He is 1-3 despite a 2.74 ERA. When he pitches the Reds feel as if they don’t have to score runs. They don’t, then they lose.;
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TweetJocketty’s first days
Walt Jocketty knew it was coming because he is getting the same thing from all sides:
“What about Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce, Walt? Are you going to bring them up soon?”
The Cincinnati Reds new GM is neither going to make a rash judgment nor a judgment by himself.
He is on this trip that begins tonight in San Francisco and by the time the team gets to St. Louis Monday he will be joined by most of the front office staff for a summit meeting.
“What I want to do is set up meetings, I’ll have some here and some in St. Louis,” he said. “I’m going to talk to front office people like Scott Nethery (Assistant GM), ‘J’ Harrison (Director of Professional Scouting), Bob Miller (Vice President and Assistant GM), is here in San Francisco and Dick Williams (Director of Baseball Business Operations) is coming tomorrow.
“I had a conference call today with Terry Reynold (Director of Player Development),” he added. “I want to talk to Dusty and the coaches, too. Those guys, but everything. That’s one of the things I believe in - soliciting the opinions of a lot of people. In time you learn who to rely on more than others. I don’t think it’s healthy to take it all on yourself - both physically and mentally.”
On the day he was named GM, Jocketty said he was contemplating a talk in front of the team, sore of a State of the Walt meeting to get a feel and to try to inject positive thinking into what right now is mostly negative vibes.
That’s on hold.
“I’m going to wait and get Dusty’s opinion on that, see if he thinks it’s needed,” said Jocketty.
Asked if he felt like a GM again, if he was back in the ol’ GM groove, Jocketty said, “The way the phone has been ringing, I sure do,” he said. “Mostly it is well-wishers and people looking for jobs.”
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TweetAny heart in San Francisco?
The bags are packed and the alarm clock is set for 4 a.m. for a long, long flight Friday to San Francisco.
What was that old novelty song? “Please, Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go.”
Well, I do. I love San Francisco and dinner at the Cathay House is worth the uphill jaunt up the steep hill under the main entrance to Chinatown and the breath-absorbing trek halfway up California Street.
And then there is whatever it is they are calling the San Francisco ball park — AT&T Park is the latest name, I believe. My favorite park.
Maybe Friday night the Cincinnati Reds can win the first game of a series for the first time this year. Maybe. They are 0-8 so far.
Before the game there will be a lovefest for Reds manager Dusty Baker. Unlike Chicago, where the fans turned on him, San Francisco still loves him.
Then they have to play the game. After going 3-6 on a three-city trip and 2-5 at home, the Reds have lost 11 of 16 and look as lively as a jar full of bees in a freezer.
A team never looks good when it loses, but the Reds are taking it to dizzying heights. They are falling so far behind in the wafer-thin NL Central that they need field glasses and a Sherpa to show them first place.
Last place is a lonely place. And it is time for people to stop saying, “It is only April?” As Baker says and as Jeff Brantley says and as I say, “Losses in April count the same as losses in September and all those defeats cannot be retrieved in September.”
The Reds, of course, are being pushed by media and fans to bring up Homer Bailey - right now - and Jay Bruce - right now.
Baker would like to see them, too - when the organization thinks they are ready. He doesn’t want to rush them and abort the progress of two 21-year-old futures.
The question? Are they ready? Will they be better than what now occupies the roster, where a lot of dead weight squats.
Bailey is 3-1 with a 1.03 ERA at Class AAA Louisville with 16 strikeouts and four walks in 26 1/3 innings. I’ve been told that Bailey was instructed to pretty much toss his curve ball into File 13 and go with his fastball, slider and changeup. That’s a tough thing because Bailey always relied on that curve and likes to revert to it when he gets in trouble.
The main thing, though, and Baker mentioned this, is that reports indicate Bailey has cut down on his pitch-count, which killed him this spring and got his ticket punched to Louisville.
Bruce is hitting .315 with three homers and 12 RBIs at Louisville. One of the last things Wayne Krivsky said, AFTER he was fired and before he walked out the door, was about Bruce.
“Everybody in our organization agreed it was the right thing to do to send Bruce to Louisville,” he said. “What most people forget is that two-thirds of Bruce’s at-bats last year were at Class A Sarasota. Give the kid time.”
How much time? Is it time? Do the Reds go for it now with the two kids or do they hold back and make sure they are ready for the bigs?
I say, “Bring ‘em up. Now. They certainly can’t hurt what this team is doing right now. Who knows, they might help.” If they’re overmatched, they can always be returned to sender.
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TweetKrivsky: a clarification
A few of you who read this blog have misinterpreted something and perhaps should read things a little closer.
A few took me to task on my first Wayne Krivsky firing blog, saying my opinion was influenced because he didn’t communicate with the media.
Nothing is further from the truth. If you read closely, you would have seen that I said Krivsky was a good friend BEFORE he got the Reds job, WHILE he had the Reds job and STILL remains a friend.
I didn’t care that much that he didn’t reveal secrets to the media. My point was that he was not a great communicator - not with the media, not with the people in the front office. Because this was his first GM gig, he was very protective of it.
Because he didn’t communicate with two top people in the organization, Larry Barton, Jr., and Johnny Almaraz, both of those excellent baseball people quit - big losses for the organization.
But to say I didn’t like Krivsky because he wouldn’t tell him club secrets is a misnomer. I merely used my experiences with him as an example of his problems communicating.
He was my friend and is my friend and I wish him well. To those who admonished me politely, I hope this explains it. To those who delve in character assassination, well, I laugh at your vituperation and hope other readers laugh with me.
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TweetArroyo assaulted again
What should the Cincinnati Reds do with Bronson Arroyo - and let’s play nice here…no vulgarities and nothing to do with guns, knives and garrotes.
Take away his guitar? Make him grow corn rows again the way he did a couple of years ago when he went 10 games without a win, vowing to wear the hideous hair-style until he won a game?
Send him back to Boston doesn’t work. They don’t want him. Nor does Pittsburgh.
For the fifth time this year, Arroyo couldn’t make it past 5 2/3 innings. This time he made it through only 3 2/3 innings, giving up eight runs and 10 hits to the Houston Almighty Astros.
His fastball, normally at 91, was at 88 and spun up there with a smile and a message, “Hit me, hit me, hit me.” And the Astros hit them.
Arroyo, a No. 2 on this team and probably a No. 4 or No. 5 on most other teams (we all know Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez are ahead of him) has a 7.56 ERA. Now I’m no pitching coach, but something tells me that isn’t very good.
For the moment manager Dusty Baker is making no noises about moving Arroyo out of the rotation, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Dustman isn’t knocking on new GM Walt Jocketty’s door with his first request: “Homer Bailey, please?”
Arroyo, Baker and pitching coach Dick Pole all are dumbfounded.
“I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try,” said Baker about putting corn rows in Arroyo’s hair. “They may not look like corn rows.”
That’s OK because Arroyo isn’t looking like a pitcher right now.
“Boy, I know he is going crazy and we’re trying to help him figure it out and right now we don’t have any answers,” said Baker. “He had better location tonight, but he didn’t have the velocity he had before.
“He’s looked at video, tried that, and I asked Dick (Pole), ‘What can we do?’ We’re all a little lost right now,” said Baker. Physical problems? “No, I don’t think so. I hope not. When he gets the ball up and makes a mistake, they’re not missing.”
Said Arroyo, “I can’t figure it out. I feel good physically, great physically. The velocity isn’t there. It’s hard to get the zip on the ball. I’ve watched video and there is nothing to see. I’m just getting beat, man, that’s all there is to it. That’s about all I have to say.”
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TweetStarting over…again
The first thing that came to mind when Bob Castellini spoke was former Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on a podium at the United Nations and saying, “We will bury you.”
Castellini, his face a solid concrete etched in solemn passion, looked down when asked, “Why now? Why fire general manager Wayne Krivsky now?”
Then his head shot up and he said, “We’ve come to the point where we just aren’t going to lose anymore.”
You could almost see Krivsky’s successor, Walt Jocketty, cringe at those words, although he later said, “I’m not worried about it, I do it because I want to do it, not that I need to do it.”
Castellini said the reason for Krivsky’s dismissal can mostly be found in the won-lost column. Is that fair? 9-12? Twenty-one games. Even Tony Perez lasted longer than that into a season, 44 games as manager before Jim Bowden fired him.
“Nobody in the organization is happy with our 9-12 won-loss record,” Castellini said. “We’ve had two losing seasons under our new ownership and we’ve started out this season poorly, on a won-loss basis, and that’s the primary reason we made the change.”
Castellini was testy when asked about continuity - five managers and six general managers (two were co-GMs on an interim basis in the last six seasons.
“We haven’t had six, we’ve had two,” he said, using semantics. The organization has had six GMs since 2002 - Jim Bowden, co-interims Brad Kullman and Leland Maddox, Dan O’Brien, Krivsky and Jocketty. “The franchise has…yes.”
So is he concerned about continuity? “Absolutely I am. Absolutely. I respect the question, but this has been a very tough decision. Krivsky did a whale of a job in some areas.”
Jocketty jumped to Castellini’s rescue.
“I believe in continuity,” he said. “Very much so. But sometime it takes a little time to get thins the way you want. There are a lot of quality people and quite a few quality players here and now we have to find a way to make it work.”
Jocketty says he is impressed with the staff, on the field and in the front office, and doesn’t anticipate any changes.
Manager Dusty Baker, the fifth manager in six years (Bob Boone, Dave Miley, Jerry Narron, interim Pete Mackanin, Baker) addressed the continuity issue, too. Asked about the importance of continuity, he said, “I think it is very important. Wayne did some great things here. He built our farm system. It is very important to keep some consistency, which is one reason I kept the coaching staff.
“I mean, you listen to quarterbacks complain about four offensive co-ordinators in four years. Doesn’t work. Good organizations keep a lot of the same people for a long period of time,” Baker added.
Krivsky appeared in the back of the press box after the Jocketty press conference and said his removal was a shot out of the dark. He said Castellini asked him Tuesday night to meet with him Wednesday morning at 8:30 and Krivsky didn’t see the axe above the door.
“It came out of the blue, it really did,” said Krivsky. “Completely shocked. I didn’t see this coming at all. What hurts so much is not to be able to see the job through. I had visions of being in the clubhouse with people pouring champagne over everybody. I’m hugely disappointed I’m not able to finish the job.
“I fought for an hour to keep my job,” he said. “I fought hard for my job. I love it here. I loved my job. And I had laughs. You have to have laughs in this job and I did in two years. I only wish it was 22. It wasn’t my call. But I disagree strongly with the decision. I still think I’m the right guy for this job. But Bob will admit he is an impatient man. I’ll sleep good tonight…well, maybe not tonight.
“Look at an unbiased source like Baseball America, who had the Reds farm system rated 27th to 30th when I got here, now they rank us in the top three or four,” said Krivsky. “In two years? Dam right I’m proud of that. I’m damned proud of that. We’re one of the most respected organizations in baseball and I’m damn proud of that.”
Jocketty is confident he can do in Cincinnati what he did in St. Louis, turning a similar market from moribund into a winner, seven playoffs in 13 years.
“This franchise is very similar to what we had in St. Louis, a winning tradition, great fans, great community, but they hadn’t won in a long time in St. Louis, either,” said Jocketty. “There are a lot of similarities between St. Louis and Cincinnati. This is a storied franchise with tradition. Dusty Baker and I are very motivated, guys with a vendetta and a little chip on our shoulder.”
That’s because Jocketty was fired in St. Louis after last season and Baker was fired in Chicago after 2006.
Asked about his basic philosophy, Jocketty said, “Win.”
That’s what they all say.
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TweetKrivsky his own enemy
Bob Castellini is a businessman, the nation’s leading fruit and vegetable magnate, and if the price of lettuce and tomatoes has soared the last couple of years, it might be traced back to Wayne Krivsky.
Castellini, CEO of the Cincinnati Reds, fired general manager Krivsky today, replacing him with Walt Jocketty.
During Krivsky’s regime, the team has had to eat more dollar bills than the number of heads of lettuce Castellini sells.
Some questionable contracts that forced the team to pay money to players no longer playing for the Reds didn’t help Krivsky’s cause.
It started with when he signed pitcher Rheal Cormier to a two-year contract. When the team released him it had to pay him something like $3 million NOT to pitch.
When the Reds released pitcher Mike Stanton this spring, it forced them to pay him $3.5 million this year NOT to pitch.
And there is that curious contract he gave outfielder Corey Patterson, who was sitting at home doing nothing during spring training, pursued by no other teams. Krivsky signed him for $3 million when Patterson probably would have taken $500,000 and paid his own way to camp.
He gave utility player Ryan Freel a deal that pays him $3 million this year and $4 million next year and couldn’t trade him unless the team absorbed some of that money.
He gave pitcher Josh Fogg a $1.5 million deal mid-spring training when no other teams were pursuing him, a panic move when Krivsky wasn’t certain how good Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez would be.
The $46 million, three-deal for closer Francisco Cordero looked good at the time, but so far, after 21 games, he has had only two save opportunities. That contract may pan out, but right now one wonders.
All this could be overlooked by Castellini if the team showed a propensity for winning, which it hasn’t during Krivsky’s tenure. After all, Castellini signed off on all those deals, taking Krivsky’s advice. Castellini wants to win and he wants to win now.
He and Jocketty worked together in St. Louis when Jocketty helped piece together a team that was not contending to one that contended for more than a decade.
Krivsky and I were friends long before he was named Reds GM. When he worked for the Minnesota Twins, he traveled the country scouting other teams and I encountered him often. We had many lunches together and talked often.
His ambition, of course, was to be a GM and he would say, “If I’d get the Reds job, there are a lot of things I would do and we’d have a lot of fun.”
It wasn’t fun. Krivsky remained my friend, but he changed. He was not forthcoming with information to the media, not even on the most menial things. He was guarded, overly guarded.
Two years ago during the winter meetings in Orlando, I took him aside in his suite after another unproductive media meeting in which he divulged nothing about what the team was doing or trying to do.
I said, “Wayne, remember when we had lunches and chatted about your future and how much fun we’d have together with the Reds?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, I’m not having fun,” I said. “Remember when I told you how difficult it was sometimes getting information from your predecessor, Dan O’Brien? Well, you’re worse.”
Krivsky seemed to think about it, but nothing changed. And nothing changed with the Reds.
Nobody likes to see anybody lose his job, especially a friend. But Krivsky cut his own throat.
Jocketty is a good man, too, and a solid baseball man. Things should change, and much for the better.
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TweetJocketty replaces Krivsky
The Wayne Krivsky Era as general manager of the Cincinnati Reds is over and the Walt Jocketty era has begun.
The Reds confirmed this morning that Krivsky has been relieved of his duties and has been replaced by Jocketty. A media conference is scheduled this afternoon at 4 o’clock in Great American Ball Park before thee game with the Houston Astros.
Although Krivsky’s contract doesn’t run out until the end of the season, CEO Bob Castellini is unhappy with the team’s sluggish start.
It was almost a foregone conclusion that Jocketty would succeed Krivsky, but most thought it wouldn’t happen until after the season, if the Reds didn’t shed their seven years of losing.
Jocketty and Castellini worked together in St. Louis when Jocketty was GM of the Cardinals and Castellini was a minority owner.
When Jocketty left the Cardinals after last season, Castellini hired him as a special advisor in January and the handwriting was splattered all over the clubhouse walls.
There was a hint of something to come on the team’s last trip to Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Chicago when Jocketty was on the trip and Krivsky wasn’t.
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TweetHairston fills the bill
The Jerry Hairston Jr. experiment as the team’s leadoff hitter and center fielder seemed to be a Double Disaster before the game was three innings old Tuesday.
After perpetrating a couple of boneheads, Hairston recovered to be in the middle of things the rest of the night during an 8-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, contributing four hits and driving in three runs.
Hairston led the bottom of the first with a single. Good start. But when Jeff Keppinger lined one directly at center fielder Matt Kemp, Hairston was at second base when Kemp caught the ball.
Kemp’s throw to first doubled off Hairston. Bad form.
Now it is the top of the third and opposing pitcher Hong Chih-Kuo ripped a double. Rafael Furcal lined one toward center field and Hairston came charging in - about five steps. Alas, the ball was out, not in. It roared over his head for a run-scoring double.
The opposition has scored first in seven straight games and in 13 of Cincinnati’s last 15.
Before the game, manager Dusty Baker said about the early scoring: “The other team scoring first all the time can wear on you. Getting down by a lot early really wears you down. The only people than can do anything about it is us.”
They did something about it. Something big and beautiful.
Hairston made up for his two faux pas in the third with a two-out double that sent Joey Votto to third and Votto scored when Jeff Keppinger lined one off the pitcher for a run-scoring single.
Then came the fouorth inning and Adam Dunn’s OPPOSITE FIELD home run into the left field seats. The Reds went on to score four runs in the inning, the last two scoring on Hairston’s line single to center, his third hit in three at-bats
And it turned into a rare Reds slugfest. Joey Votto had three hits. Dunn had two hits. Brandon Phillips homered, his first since the second game of the season.
It should be evident by now that the Reds will score a plethora of runs when Edinson Volquez pitches. In his four starts (he is 3-0) they have scored 24 runs. Meanwhile, he held the Dodgers to three hits for his seven innings and his first pitch of the game grabbed quick attention of the Dodgers - a 94 miles an hour fastball for strike one.
Uh, his 100th pitch was 94 miles an hour, too.
So, hey, on this night Baker knew exactly what he was doing by putting Hairston where he put him.
Heard & Overheard:
A scout told me today that the Reds were thisclose to trading Joey Votto and another minor-league players to the Philadelphia Phillies two years ago for pitcher Jon Lieber. Scouts talked the front office out of it at the last moment. If they had called me, which they never would, I would have screamed, “DON’T DO IT!!!”
Juan Castro, the infielder the Reds designated for assignment Monday, most likely will end up with the Dodgers. That’s great for him. It’s a good team, a good fit and it is close to his Phoenix home.
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TweetLooking for No. 1
Anybody seen Norris Hopper?
I saw him early Tuesday, honest I did. He was taking early batting practice with Corey Patterson, Javier Valentin and Scott Hatteberg.
Patterson wasn’t batting leadoff Tuesday and playing center field. Ryan Freel, Monday’s starter, wasn’t starting, either. Does that mean it was Hopper against LA lefthander Hon-Chih Kuo? Wrong, hit-and-run fans.
It was Jerry Hairston Jr.
“Well, you know, Corey is struggling some,” said manager Dusty Baker. Some? How about 0 for 21 and 1 for 29? “We’re giving him some extra, extra, extra batting practice to get him back on track,” Baker added.
“And Ryan Freel, looking him up, historically has been better against righthanders than lefthanders,” said Baker.
“And Hairston has had the hot bat where he came from (.421 at Class AAA Louisville) and hopefully he can give us some of that heat while he is still fresh in here,” said Baker.
There was no mention of Hopper, a guy Baker talked about often during spring training. Hopper has started five times in the first 20 games - three in center one in left, one in right. He is hitting only .240, but he has not struck out in his 29 plate appearances and has hit safely in five of his last seven games (5-17, .294).
“We have to get something going at the top of the order,” said Baker, looking for a productive leadoff hitter. And his current No. 2 hitter, Brandon Phillips, went into Tuesday’s game on a 3 for 26 slide that dropped his batting average from .323 to .250 and he hasn’t homered since the second game of the season.
“We have Jeff Keppinger, Joey Votto, and Edwin Encarnacion swinging it good and Ken Griffey Jr. has been consistent,” said Baker. “We’re coming to life - one at a time they are getting well. I’d like to get stuff going early in the game because teams are jumping us and we’re playing catch-up.
“That can wear on you when it happens day after day after day,” said Baker. And it certainly helps erode your won-loss record.
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TweetWelcome to the bigs, Matt
Matt Belisle, facing a major-league team (and at this point, with the Los Angeles Dodgers, that’s debatable) was not very good. In fact, awful is an insult to the word.
Final: Los Angeles Dodgers 9, Cincinnati Reds 3, and it wasn’t that close.
But let’s defer that for a moment.
What frosted my Spaldings during the game, before I checked with manager Dusty Baker, was what happened in the third inning when Ryan Freel led the inning with a single. Keep in mind, the Reds are down five runs, losing 5-0, way behind and struggling against Brad Penny.
And then I wrote, before checking with Baker:
So what did Freel do? He tried to steal second and was out from the distance between the Ohio River and downtown Columbus. If Freel has a license to steal, it should be immediately revoked. There is no way he gets the steal sign there. He ran on his own.
Instead of a green light, Freel needs ankle shackles. You have to applaud Freel’s hustle and will to win, but intelligent baseball plays into the equation somewhere along the line.
Now here is what Baker said. He sent Freel and his reasoning passed muster with me. So I’m wrong for the millionth time in my career.
“That was me — I sent him,” said Baker. “Even though we’re down 5-0, you still have to try to get something going early in the game. We were trying to get on the board. We were getting it taken to us and we wanted to try to reverse it and take it to them.
“You have two choices,” Baker added. “You can wait back and get beat up or you can fight back and try to do something,” Baker added.
Now Belisle, who constructed a 3-0 record and a 1.17 ERA while pitching three games on rehab against the Class A Tampa Yankees, the Class AA Birmingham Barons and the Class AAA Pawtucket Pawsox.
While that isn’t something to frighten a legitimate major-league pitcher, neither are the present-day Los Angeles Dodgers. They came to Cincinnati having lost nine of 12 and they were swept in Atlanta, scoring one run in each loss (4-1, 4-1, 6-1).
They had one run on Belisle’s second pitch, a 379-foot home run by Rafael Furcal, who is 4-for-4 with two homers for his first four at-bats against Belisle.
Then the Dodgers scored two in the second and two in the third and owned nine hits off Belisle after four innings. Belisle gave up three hits to start the fifth and was gone, sent to warm up the shower heads for his teammates.
His line: four innings, seven runs (five earned), one walk, three strikeouts and a real downer to everybody who thought maybe he had it together.
The Reds had two hits off Penny at the time, one by Freel, then they got two harmless but long-distance solo home runs from Edwin Encarnacion and Joey Votto.
And I’m still wondering — a little bit — about stealing when you are down 5-0 with no outs early in the game. But Dusty knows best.
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TweetPatterson: a temporary seat
Corey Patterson’s name was not on the Cincinnati Reds lineup sheet tonight - as many have begged for, pleaded for and prayed for.
Ryan Freel was in center field and batting leadoff, Patterson’s normal spots. But his 0 for 20 and 1 for 28 slide-for-life had nothing to do with his one-night stand in the dugout.
Baker was not aware of Patterson’s slump until a writer informed him Sunday.
“Really?” said Baker. “I did not know that. He hasn’t been striking out a lot so a long stretch of no hits is not as noticeable as when a guy piles up the strikeouts.”
Unless Freel hits for the cycle, drives in four, scores five and makes three stupendous catches, Patterson will soon return. Not Tuesday, though. The Reds face lefthanded Hong-Chih Kuo, so Freel or Norris Hopper will be in center. Or maybe Jerry Hairston, Jr.
But it looks as if Patterson will be back Wednesday and Thursday when the Reds face the Atlanta Braves and two righthanded pitchers.
So why did the righthanded Freel start against righthanded Penny Monday?
Baker goes to the stats for match-ups. The almighty matchups, no matter how small the sampling. But at least it’s something more than a stray shot into the air. For example, Freel is 6 for 14 against Penny and Patterson is 1 for 6.
That’s not all, though. Baker has stats that show that Penny is tougher on lefthanded hitters (.229) than he is on righthanded hitters (.286). “And Freel normally hits righthanders better than lefthanders.
Hey, he doesn’t have to convince me with numbers. I’m all for Freel or Hopper in center field. I’d prefer Hopper and his bunting bat, but it is only effective against lefthanded pitchers.
One never knows what Freel might do. All depends on what Farney tells him to do.
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TweetSpecial for Marc
Most of the folks who make comments on this blog are knowledgeable and understanding folks.
There are a few like Marc whom we have to ignore. Classless folks.
As for misspelling Hairston’s name, I got it right the first time. As soon as I heard about it, I furiously typed it to get it on the blog so the readers would know about it. I had about two minutes to get to a meeting with Dusty Baker, so I didn’t proof read it. And, Marc, I don’t have editors. My posts go directly on-line.
As for the comment on my eyesight, I find that totally classless. As for retiring, I’ll determine that - but people like you push me closer to it.
To everybody else, thanks for reading and thanks for the great responses.
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TweetSay goodbye to Castro
Infielder Juan Castro was designated for assignment Monday and infielder Jerry Hairston Jr., another of manager Dusty Baker’s compatriots in Chicago, was called up from Class AAA Louisville.
Castro, who played all four infield spot in a Gold Glove manner, was 0 for 10 so far this season. Hairstone was hitting above .400 at Louisville.
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TweetHe who laughs last
Those of us with humor aforethought - and that includes about every card-carrying baseball writer in America - knew why it was taking Edwin Encarnacion so long in the shower.
“He keeps dropping the soap,” somebody said.
OK, OK, so I said it - transferring his penchant for dropping baseballs to a same propensity with the soap in the shower. Except they don’t give errors for soap fumbled in the shower and your team doesn’t lose baseball games.
Edwin almost lost another one for the Cincinnati Reds Sunday, but survived to smile about it when he and his buddies rescued the game, 4-3, in 10 innings.
Encarnacion’s home run in the fifth was the Reds’ only run as the game rumbled into the 10th. Suddenly, with runners on first and second with one out, Milwaukee’s Jason Kendall rolled one right at Encarnacion. He scooped it up and stepped toward third, hoping to step on the bag and throw to first for the double play that would end the inning at 1-1.
Instead the ball trickled from his glove and rolled into foul territory - an error, bases loaded, one out. Of course, Milwaukee scored twice to take a 3-1 lead. Another ball bounced off Encarnacion’s body in that inning, but a compassionated official scorer ruled that one a hit - and it probably was.
Fans assaulted Encarnacion’s ears when he was first up in the bottom of the inning and he quickly turned it to cheers by drilling his second homer of the game. Oh, yeah, he also has a 10-game streak - that’s a hitting streak, not an error streak.
Paul Bako followed with a home run to tie it. Scott Hatteberg walked. Brandon Phillips, 2 for 21 at the time. rolled one in the grass toward short for an infield hit. Ken Griffey Jr. hit one over the right fielder’s head.
Game over, Encarnacion exonerated.
I’m sitting in the press box, it is raining and chilly, my nose is running and I’m finding it difficult to breathe up here high above the field as this came ambles onward.
Why am I torturing myself - other than I love baseball, I love paychecks and my boss says, “Go.”
Maybe sinus drippage, depressing weather and chilly fingers makes me cranky. Or maybe it is watching the dreadful Reds come up with different ways every day to draw boos from their dwindling fans.
At least on this day they gave the fans courageous enough to stay something to take home other than gloom and doom.
Aaron Harang gave up a home run in the fourth to J.J. Hardy and the Reds were facing a guy making his first start, Yovani Gallardo. And of course they couldn’t hit him. They didn’t have a hit until two outs in the fourth inning.
That’s when Jeff Keppinger put together an 11-pitch at-bat - the guys uses a baseball bat like a surgical instrument - then lined a double left center. Adam Dunn was on first and tried to score.
The ball beat him and catcher Jason Kendall waited patiently. Did the 6-7, 275-pound Dunn tried to bowl him over? No. Did he try to slide? No. What was he was trying to be was the world’s biggest ballet dancer, Barishnikoff maybe? He tried to tippy-toe around Kendall as if sneaking up on a dog dish.
He was out and an American League scout, seated in the press box asked, “Don’t they slide any more in the National League?”
Encarnacion continued his Recovery Act at the plate (if he could only do it afield), banging a home run in the fifth to tie it, 1-1, extending his batting streak to 10, tying his career best.
Keppinger, moved to fifth in the order to give Dunn some protection, apparently cares not where he hits, as long as he is in there somewhere. With two outs in the sixth he doubled up the left-center gap but was left afloat when Joey Votto flied to the warning track in left.
OK, so they won. Something continues to trouble me. Why is Corey Patterson sitll batting leadoff. Why is Corey Patterson still playing.
He is 0 for 20 and 1 for 28, dropping his batting average from .323 to .186. He came up to bat in the 10th inning with no outs, the game tied, and a runner on first. His mission: bunt.
He fouled two off, then struck out. All through spring training manager Dusty Baker talked about how Patterson never knew how to bunt until he got to the majors. He still pretty flimsy at it. Why wasn’t Norris Hopper, the team’s best bunter, up at the plate at that juncture.
Oh, well. Thanks to an infield single by Phillips (2 for 21 at the time) and Griffey’s single, the Reds still won it.
But now, a game’s end, I have a full-fledged cold, the sneezes and the runny nose. But at least I got to witness and write about a win.
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TweetWeathers placed on DL
Although the MRI was negative Saturday, relief pitcher David Weathers was placed on the 15-day disabled list Sunday by the Cincincinnati Reds with ulnar nerve inflammation.
It is only the second time in his 15-year career that Weathers has been on the DL.
No other move was made and the Reds played Sunday’s game against Milwaukee one player short, although GM Wayne Krivsky said, “We’re covered. Everybody is available and Josh Fogg could pitch.”
And that’s the main reason no other move was made. Matt Belisle will be activated Monday to start against the Dodgers and Fogg goes to the bullpen. Krivsky said, “That’s all we’re doing, for now.”
Manager Dusty Baker said, “Very good news on him that the MRI was negative. Nothing serious. But I’m voting to DL him. We have five months to go and we can’t let the way we’re playing affect what we do.
“What Weathers felt in his arm might be a red flag to his body that he has been used a lot,” said Baker. “Whether you like him or not, he is durable and he wants the ball. He has been used a lot here the last three years (70, 67, 73 appearances).”
The 20 days allotted for rehab expire Tuesday on catcher David Ross, who caught Saturday night at Class AAA Louisville, so a decision must be made there, too.
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TweetSome early happenings
On Sunday morning, as the grounds crew pushes the batting cage into place in Great American Ball Park, something to go with the morning Grape Nuts Flakes and the grapefruit:
Manager Dusty Baker is using the same players for Sunday’s game with the Brewers, but he shuffled the deck.
Brandon Phillips was moved from fourth to second, Adam Dunn was moved from fifth to fourth. Jeff Keppinger was dropped from second to fifth. Joey Votto was moved ahead of Edwin Encarnacion.
The order: Cory Patterson, Brandon Phillips, Ken Griffey Jr., Adam Dunn, Jeff Keppinger, Joey Votto, Edwin Encarnacion, Paul Bako, Aaron Harang.
Ted Williamjs and Joe DiMaggio are still missing.
Also, the MRI on David Weathers was negative and he is day-to-day after he left Saturday’s game in the 10th inning with tingling and a burning sensation in his arm.
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TweetA busy day off
What does a baseball writer do on his day off when the team he covers plays a game, other than watch it on TV in the sun room while the team loses another game.
Why do the Red ever pitch to Bill Hall? Ever? Ever ever, ever? The guy beats them with the regularity of a One-a-Day multiple vitamin. His two-run double off David Weathers in the 10th inning beat them…again.
And how bad is it when the Reds get two hits through six innings off the very hittable Jeff Suppan?
Anyway, the off day.
First it was up at 8 to be the Grand Marshall of the very wet Englewood Little League Opening Day parade in a spiffy 1984 Corvette.
And I threw out the first pitch, a strike, thank you very much. I still have it at 46 feet, even though any 10-year-old who watched could have yanked it out of the park.
Then it was off to see my favorite jewelers at James Free - Scott, Neil and Cathy. I returned a bracelet in December to be fixed and there it was, on April 19, ready to go.
But those folks are great, especially Scott, who has to be the world’s No. 1 Reds fan. You know that because his favorite all-time Reds player is Hal King.
Hal King? Yes, Hal King, even though he once gave Scott an autograph and spelled his name Stocc. He is still known as Stocc to close friends and uses that as his eBay moniker.
Stocc, or Scott, said before the season began he thought the Reds would win 96 games this year. I told him if they did, I’d buy the biggest diamond they had for my wife, Nadine. He told me that would be a 5-carat number worth $100,00. I’m not budging, nor worried.
As for the Reds, they made it official Saturday that Matt Belisle would come off the DL Monday and pitch against the Dodgers in place of Josh Fogg - the worst kept secret since the Japanese code in World War II. It was a no-thinker.
The roster move? David Weathers left Saturday’s game in the 10th with what looked to be elbow problems and he could land on the DL. If not, they might ship Todd Coffey to Louisville.
Something about Friday’s game that was neglected and shows the unselfishness of one Ken Griffey Jr. He is sitting on 596 home runs, pursuing 600. To him, though, it is one big nothing. No bid deal. Just a number.
And he proved it Friday in the ninth inning when the Reds trailed Milwaukee 5-0 with one out. When he could have swung from his ankles for home run No. 597, Griffey knew one run meant nothing. They needed baserunners.
So with the infield overshifted to the right side, leaving the third-base line vacant, Griffey dropped a bunt down the line for a hit. That’s baseball. That’s unselfishness. And it led to two runs and the Reds had the tying run at the plate twice against Eric Gagne, who struck out Javier Valentin and Paul Bako to end it, 5-2.
But for all you Griffey detractors, that one was for you. This one, too. Some research revealed that if Griffey had been able to average 150 games while in Cincinnati, instead of spending about 2 1/2 seasons worth of time on the DL, if you figure in the home runs per at bat for the games he missed, he would be at 715 right now, even with Hank Aaron, and bearing down on Barry Bonds.
That, of course, is a big ‘if,’ and injuries are injuries are injuries - something that can’t be avoided. But certainly not his fault.
And I’m also weary of hearing two things about Adam Dunn - that his home runs never mean anything and that he tries to pull everything.
Some research has revealed that 79 percent of Dunn’s home runs have come when either the Reds led by three or less runs or trailed by three runs or less - save situations.
Dunn also is going more to left field, trying to beat the overshift. He has been doing it regularly,
That’s what I did on my day off.
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TweetReds make no moves
The first question manager Dusty Baker was asked Friday at his pre-game press briefing: “Any roster moves?”
Nope. None.
“We discussed some moves, but there is nothing happening right now,” said Bakeer. “We’re in the same position. We won’t do anything today.”
Baker mentioned that catcher David Ross is eligible to come off the DL, “But he has had a cojuple of setbacks with illness and some personal things. I’d say he’d be back sometime next week.”
The Reds, of course, have until Monday to decide whether Josh Fogg starts against the Los Angeles Dodgers, or Matt Belisle is activated and makes the start.
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TweetBack home again
Time it took for a cab ride from Wrigley Field to O’Hare airport: 41 minutes.
Time it took for a flight from Chicago to Dayton: 43 minutes.
Time it took for United Airlines to bring my luggage from the airplane to the carousel: 47 minutes.
My buddy, John Robison, smoked an entire Montecristo No. 2 while sitting in the parking lot at the Dayton airport waiting for me from touch down by the plane until my suitcase appeared.
United said they didn’t expect two flights to arrive at the same time (I guess they don’t have schedules handy) and that one worker didn’t show up due to a family crisis. That means they must have had one person unloading two planes.
My seatmate waited 47 minutes, too, only to be told, “Sorry, m’am, your luggage didn’t make it.” Must have been the same guy loading the plane in Chicago as unloaded it in Dayton.
And by the way, I had to furnish my birth certificate recently for a passport and they caught me. I’m actually 10 years younger than people think. I added 10 years when I got this job so the paper wouldn’t think I was too young.
And if you believe that one, you’ll believe that I also once hit a home run off Nolan Ryan. Well, I did. In my dreams.
I was sitting in the Kroger Marketplace sipping my Starbuck’s vente nonfat latte this morning when one of the employees stopped and asked, “It is it true that earthquake that hit this morning was because the Reds won a ballgame?”
Ouch.
Well, the Reds did win a ballgame in Chicago Thursday to break a five-game losing streak and open a seven-game homestand tonight against Milwaukee, a three-game series followed by two with Los Angeles and two with Houston.
It is about four hours until game time and I’m sitting in the pressbox waiting to see if any roster moves are forthcoming. Nothing yet. I’m sure we’ll get them quicker than I got my luggage last night.
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Tweet‘V’ is for Votto, Volquez
It was a ‘V’ as in victory day for the Cincinnati Reds, the expunging of a five-game losing streak, thanks to first baseman Joey Votto and pitcher Edinson Volquez.
Votto, playing more and more each day, drove in the first five runs with a three-run double and a two-run homer as the Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-2.
Volquez, despite expending too many pitches over five innings (112), recorded his second victory (2-0, 1.17). He did the dastardly by giving the Cubs a 1-0 lead when he walked opposing pitcher Ted Lilly with the bases loaded.
But Votto erased the 1-0 deficit with a three-run double in the fourth and added a two-run homer in the sixth to make it 5-1.
Ken Griffey Jr.’s 596th career homer, a two-run shot, gave the bullpen plenty of working room and enabled the Reds to come home with a road victory after losing five straight.
Their trip to Milwaukee (2-1), Pittsburgh (0-3) and Chicago (1-2) netted them a 3-6 record as they come home to play Milwaukee Friday night.
On the morning of a five-game losing streak in Wrigley Field, before the losing streak ended, the clubhouse sounded like a Rush Street bistro at 2 a.m.
Music, loud music. Music, bad music - at first.
The novelty song, Chacarron Macarron by El Mudo was playing at fever pitch and inside manager Dusty Baker’s office somebody said, “I hate that song.”
Said Baker, “Better than the morgue it has been out there.”
Turns out the music is courtesy of pitcher/musician Bronson Arroyo.
Baker said Arroyo came into his office a few days ago and asked, “May be play music in the clubhouse?” Said Baker, “Of course. I always have music in my office and up until now it has been the only music in the clubhouse.”
But Chacarron Macarron? Stupid song.
“Sometimes stupid is good,” Baker said with a laugh. “I don’t care if they play Sesame Street music. All I told Bronson - and he showed some leadership right there - is to have Equal Opportunity Music - novelty, Latin, country, rap.
As he talked, El Mudo filled the clubhouse and Baker laughed and said, “What happens if we go on a winning streak? Does that become the team song?”
Fortunately, other music soon filled the room - country, rap, rock.
Back in 1990, when the Reds had the Nasty Boys in the bullpen - Randy Myers, Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton - every time the Reds won, the song U Can ‘t Touch This by MC Hammer assaulted the clubhouse.
For the Reds, though, the sweetest music of all right now would be a few wins…at least one.
But, hey, even Chacarron Macarron beat what I endured Wednesday night on the cab ride from Wrigley to the hotel.
The cabbie said, “You like country music? I love country music. Even though I’m from India, I just love country music.”
He then proved it by turning the radio speakers full blast when a song by Lone Star came on. I like country music and Lone Star, too, but full volume in the back of a cab? I should be able to hear the person talking next to me pretty soon now.l
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TweetBring up somebody…anybody
General Manager Wayne Krivsky doesn’t have to scan his Louisville roster sheet, doesn’t have to make a call on his cellphone to Louisville Bats manager Rick Sweet to ask any questions, doesn’t have to see anything in person.
Matt Belisle or Homer Bailey? Homer Bailey or Matt Belisle. Or maybe even Justin Lehr. Or how about Daryl Thompson?
Anybody but Josh Fogg. Puh-leeze?
What the Cincinnati Reds didn’t need Wednesday night was Fogg trying to stop a four-game losing streak. Anybody but Fogg.
And it was awful. In just three innings, the Reds looked as if they had been run over by the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line, down 10-1 and definitely out. Fogg was a mere wisp of a glimpse to the Wrigley Field fans, only two-plus innings. But the Cubs saw him as clearly as crystal chandeliers.
Ahem, clear your breath, and inhale this - two-plus innings, nine runs, seven hits, two walks, a hit batsman, a home run, four doubles and several maids a-milkin.’
They can’t possibly think about sending Fogg to the fore again, can they? Stick him in the bullpen and send Todd Coffey to Louisville for some polish and varnish.
And bring somebody up.
Bailey is 2-1 in three Louisville starts with a 1.42 ERA, losing a 1-0 game on a home run that bounced on top of the fence and over.
Belisle, pitching on rehab in three games at Class A Sarasota, Class AA Chattanooga and Class AAA Louisville is 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA. On Tuesday he pitched Louisville to a 4-1 win over Pawtucket, giving up one run and eight hits over seven innings with one walk and six strikeouts.
Heck, even Lehr. What’dya mean, EVEN Lehr? He was 2-0 last week at Louisville with a 0.60 ERA and was International League Pitcher of the Week.
Thomspon? Yeah, he’s only at Chattanooga, but he is burning down the bridges - 2-0 with a 0.51 ERA and Southern League Pitcher of the Week award in his portfolio.
And if that doesn’t happen, bring back Tom Browning.
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TweetNo batting order changes - yet
Dusty Baker is a note taker, even if it is 4 a.m. and his wife is beside him sleeping the night away.
If Baker has an idea, on comes the light. Lest he forget it, Baker picks up a pen and jogs his idea onto a legal pad.
“My wife got mad at me for waking her up,” said Baker. “So now I’ve gone to a flashlight.”
Baker said several idea have popped into his head about the four-game losing streak his Cincinnati Reds dragged into Wrigley Field Wednesday night.
One of them, though, wasn’t splitting up Adam Dunn (.162) and Edwin Encarnacion (.186) in the batting order.
Not yet. Close? Maybe. But not yet.
Here’s the thing. With Dunn batting fifth and Encarnacion sixth, teams have figured out, “Why give Dunn a pitch to hit when Encarnacion is coming up behind him and Encarnacion is batting as if a base hit is a foreign language.”
For example, Dunn walked the first three times he batted Tuesday and it only cost the Cubs one. It was the second inning and after Dunn walked on a full count Encarnacion singled for a run.
The next two times Encarnacion grounded out.
Dunn has walked 16 times and Encarnacion has walked 10 times. Folks cry about Dunn’s strikeouts, but he has 11 to Encarnacion’s nine. Dunn’s on-base average is .407, Encarnacion’s is .340.
“A lot of walks that Dunn gets, he is getting one pitch to hit on that at-bat,” said Baker. “He either takes it or fouls it back. When he fouls it back, he is right on the pitch, but fouling it off. When you foul a pitch straight back, it means you are on it but swinging beneath it.
“Pitchers aren’t going to come at him, come at him and come at him,” Baker added. “With our situation here, it is not easy to flip-flop our lineup without having too many lefties batting in a row or splitting up our speed.”
Baker knows the problem.
“A lot of it falls on Eddie,” he said. “Where he goes is where we’re going to go. He is getting a lot of chances. We’ll stick with this lineup for a while and hopefully some of the guys come out of it. You can move guys around, but they still have to swing good.
“As far as protection for Dunn, I remember Hank Aaron telling me, ‘You’re my protection,’” said Baker. “I thought, ‘That’s not much protection.’ But he told me just to hit some singles and doubles and that’ll stop them from walking me. That’s what Eddie needs to do.
“It’s also why I had Jeff Keppinger hitting behind Dunn a couple of times (against lefthanders) to get some RBIs and he is our hottest hitter, but he is a prototypical No. 2 hitter and it messes up our batting order to drop him down.”
So Wednesday’s lineup was the same as Tuesday’s 9-5 loser.
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TweetMore of the same in Wrigley
So the Reds put their first three runners on base in the second inning Tuesday in Wrigley Field and, wow, they scored a run. A run. One run.
The Pittsburgh fungus must have followed them to Chicago.
It the end, it was more of the same. Those runs they could have scored were needed at the end when the Reds lost for the fourth stragiht time, this time by 9-5 to the Cubbie Bears.
Aaron Harang gave up a two-run home run to Mark DeRosa, who hits the Reds as if they are a tee-ball team. A home run? Shocking. The Reds now have given up 21 home runs, four more than any other team in the majors.
Ken Griffey Jr., wearing No. 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, turned it back around in the third. After Jeff Keppinger singled, Griffey plowed his second home run of the season into the left-center bleachers - a special Cracker Jack prize for all those dissenters who plead for Griffey to hit the ball to the left side. That’s no. 595, for those keeping track.
So there.
Then a big o’ whoops. With the Reds down 5-4 and runners on first and third in the seventh, Griffey hit into an inning-ending double play. After the game, with a media horde surrounding his locker, Griffey quickly slipped into a black knee-length jacket and fled into the chill night.
The last thing Griffey wanted to do was talk about home run No. 595 when he and the Reds are swirling the drain of a four-game losing streak.
The atmosphere before the game was strictly Ringling Brothers minus the elephants. It was manager Dusty Baker’s first trip to Wrigley since the Chicago Cubs fired him after the 2006 seasons.
The man who fired him, GM Jim Hendry, walked up to Baker and they chatted amiably. “I like Dusty. I love Dusty. I just did what I had to do.”
They held a press conference in a dungeon-like room behind the Cubs dugout before the game and the media who vilified and crucified Dusty as the reason the Cubs lost the 2004 National League Playoffs (Was Steve Bartman Baker’s plant in left field?) and the reason the team was last-place terrible in 2006, well, those same media were meek and mild.
Somebody asked Baker what he learned in Chicago and he said, “You better not lose.”
Baker and his replacement, Lou Piniella (formerly of the Reds), met cordially behind the batter’s cage. Baker told the media, “When Lou was with the Reds in the early 90’s and I was a batting coach, he asked me, ‘Why aren’t you managing? You should be managing. Don’t give up hopes. It’ll happen.’”
Baker was booed mildly when the game began, but as much as Reds leadoff hitter Corery Patterson, another ex-Cub.
Baker’s detractors accuse him of mishandling pitchers, of running them into the ground with overuse and permitting them to throw too many pitchers. It has been said he ruined started Kerry Wood, who is now Chicago’s closer.
Wood differs - vehemently.
“Nothing that happened to me was because of that man,” Wood told the Arlington Herald. “Injuries, you have guys who go through their whole career and don’t get injured. You have guys who go through two years and get injured six times. I don’t think that has anything to do with a manager or a coach or anything like that. It’s going to happen, or it’s not. No, I don’t think he had anything to do with it.”
Wood is a Baker Booster.
“People forget that he was the first manager in a long time to have back-to-back winning seasons in Chicago,” said Wood. “Eight years ago, if you would have talked about a guy coming in and turning an organization around and with back-to-back winning seasons, I would have said, ‘We’ll take it. It’s great.’ Obviously, it didn’t end the way we wanted,” Wood added.
“Dusty puts his heart and soul into every team he manages,” Wood continued. “The players realize that. The people around him on a daily basis understand what he puts into the game. The results are everything in this game.”
Baker didn’t know what Wood had said, but before the game at his media meeting he said, “The Reds haven’t had a winning season in seven years and that’s what I’m here to accomplish. As for Chicago, If anything, I’m a better manager. Wins and losses isn’t how you should judge yourself. Sometimes the best you can give is not good enough.”
It certainly wasn’t Tuesday night, nor has it been in the previous four.
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TweetBad news for Gonzalez
It looks as if Jeff Keppinger will be manning the shortstop position for the Cincinnati Reds for at least another month, maybe more.
Injured shortstop Alex Gonzalez had an MRI today and it showed evidence that the compression fracture in his left knee is still there.
While he will be able to take batting practice and ground balls, he has been told he won’t be able to run for at least two to four weeks.
That means Keppinger stays at shortstop and if the Reds want to do something about Edwin Encarnacion, they’ll have to play Ryan Freel or Juan Castro at third base. Or they could call up somebody from Louisville - Jolbert Cabrera or Andy Green, both of whom had outstanding springs.
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TweetEE: errors and exasperation
It isn’t true that Edwin Encarnacion spent his off day in Chicago burying his Cincinnati Reds jersey under the Harry Caray statue outside Wrigley Field (a beer can would be more apropos).
Some fans say EE should bury his glove in a toxic waste dump and throw his bat in there, too. But that’s harsh. Maybe true, but harsh.
Yeah, it’s early. Only 13 games into the season. But perhaps it is time the Reds do what they did last year, give EE the shock treatment and let him work it out in Louisville. It isn’t working out in Cincinnati.
Amazingly, the guy had a .500 career batting average with the bases loaded when the team muddled through Pittsburgh this weekend. Then he came to bat four times in three games against the Pirates with the bases loaded.
He made four outs. All four outs were the last out of the inning. And the fact he made two more throwing errors in one game says something. The errors didn’t lead to any runs, but what it says is that EE is distracted and frustrated.
Ryan Freel had two hits Sunday in the 9-1 embarrassment. Is it time to put him at third base? Can they Reds wait until Alex Gonzalez comes back from the compression fracture in his knee to put him at shortstop and move Jeff Keppinger to third base?
Probably it isn’t too early. He needs to get his mental game straightened out.
And then there’s Adam Dunn, he of the .167 batting average, one home run and five RBIs. Manager Dusty Baker gave him Sunday off, a good move.
He’ll be back in the lineup Tuesday in Wrigley Field against the Cubs, another good move. Dunn loves Wrigley Field and hits there as if he built the place. If the Reds don’t sign him to a multi-year contract (and I think they should) and he becomes a free agent, don’t be surprised to see him wearing a Cubs uniform in 2009. That would be bad for the Reds.
If Dunn doesn’t hit in the next three games, it could be a long year for him, too.
As we all keep saying, it’s only 13 games. But soon it is 26 games, then 52 games, then, “What happened?”
The painful thing is that the Reds are wasting good pitching. Everybody has said for years, “If the Reds only had pitching they’d be contenders.” They seem to have the pitching this year, if early returns mean anything, but the offense isn’t taking advantage of it.
And we all know what happens when the offense comes around. The pitching will go south. Count on it. That’s baseball. It’s why nobody can figure it out.
Now excuse me while I go to my favorite steakhouse in the country, The Saloon. The first time I walked in, actor George Clooney was sitting at the bar with Joe Nuxhall. Three different fans approached the bar at separate times and asked for an autograph - from Nuxy, not Clooney.
Smart folks.
The french onion soup is the best this side of Paris and the kobe steaks are better than Kobe Bryant.
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TweetPittsburgh is the pits
The headline speaks for the Cincinnati Reds, not for me.
Pittsburgh is the pits for the Reds after they lost three straight games in PNC Park over the weekend and isn’t that just what burns your socks.
Just when it seems the Reds have something going, a 6-4 start against three top-level teams - Arizona, Philadelphia, Milwaukee - they come to Pittsburgh and break your heart like your first high school flame who married the football captain and left you holding a dead corsage.
The Reds left wringing their hands. How could this happen? How could a team that every respectable baseball publication in America picked to finish last deliever a 1-2-3 to the Reds?
Baseball, what a game.
OK, so what do I like about Pittsburgh? Taking a cab to the airport mostly. And there is the nice clerk at the hotel who gave me two free cartons of chocolate milk late Saturday night when I was sitting in the lounge pecking away at my laptop.
I love Pittsburgh when I can see the sun, which I haven’t seen in three days. I love Pittsburgh when I walk over the Roberto Clemente Bridge and see the sludge in the Allegheny River flow under it.
I love the way Pittsburgh’s streets go off the main streets at angles. There are no blocks in Pittsburgh, just triangles. I’d leave bread crumbs when I walk the streets but the pigeons would eat them.
OK, OK, so Dayton isn’t Paris, but the only similarities between Pittsburgh and Paris is that both began with ‘P’ - and I could say something here, but I won’t.
The sorry Reds left town late Sunday afternoon, bound for Chicago. For some reason, I chose to stay in Pittsburgh overnight and now I have to try to find a restaurant that is open after 6 p.m. that doesn’t have arches or a drive-thru.
Don’t take it seriously, Pittsburghers. Maybe I’m just down on life at the moment because if the Reds win more people read my stories. Who wants to read about a 6-7 team that has fallen into fifth place behind the, uh, fourth-place Pirates.
Hey, the pierogies taste good.
As for the Reds, I hate to seem like I’m picking on the kid, because Edwin Encarnacion is a nice kid. But, geesh. Mix in a hit. Mix in a good throw.
Encarnacion was the poster boy for the Reds this weekend, the coverboy for the Magazine, “Leave ‘em on, Gang.” Four times during the three losses Encarnacion came to bat with the bases loaded. Four times he made outs - a grounder to third for the third out, a pop out to short for the third out, a fly to left for the third out, a fly to left with two outs.
Amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable. Almost impossible to do. He came up FOUR TIMES with two outs and the bases loaded and made outs ALL FOUR TIMES.
He also made two throwing errors in game two that didn’t cost the Reds. Thank the baseball gods for that or somebody might have had to escort the poor kid across the Clemente Bridge and encourage him, “Don’t look down and don’t jump.”
Does he need another shock treatment to Class AAA Louisville this early, or do they want until Alex Gonzalez comes off the DL to play shortstop (whenever that is) and move Jeff Keppinger to third? Or do they play Ryan Freel at third right now?
Meanwhile, why do I have to stay in Pittsburgh an extra day and the Reds get to go to Chicago. I didn’t strand any of those 32 guys they left on base in the three games and I wasn’t part of crew that went 6 for 35 with runners in scoring position.
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TweetFather knows best
From early returns, it doesn’t appear Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker is the screaming and hollering type, not a guy who is going to throw post-game pasta against the wall or stick his face into a filled whirlpool tub.
The last two nights he has had every right to peel the walls with expletives and shatter some ear drums with epithets.
But his cool demeanor is steadily in place.
They have lost twice by one run to the Pittsburgh Pirates, picked by the entire baseball world to finish last in the NL Central. The Reds have accomplished this by stranding 23 runners over the two games and going 5 for 27 with runners in scoring position.
My teenage neighbor, Chris Hooker, could drive in some of those runs.
Baker doesn’t like it, of course, but so far he takes it philosophically, which is the way you might expect a manager who uses words like photosynthesis.
Baker said it is in the genes. Comes from his father.
Baker doesn’t often get asked by the umpires to take leave, doesn’t get told to take his act to the clubhouse, mostly because he fears his father.
His father, John, is 83 and he will be in San Francisco on the next trip when Baker takes his Cincinnati Reds there.
John Baker may be 83, but he gets Dusty’s attention - and wasn’t/isn’t that the way it is for all of us with our fathers, until the day he dies? The Fear Factor.
Baker says it is why he seldom argues loud enough with an umpire to get ejected.
“Temper control,” said Baker. “Hey, man, that’s what people don’t understand about me. I don’t get ejected much and the times I have I heard from my dad. He has been on me since high school.
“I was kicked out of games for fighting,” Baker added. “He told me, ‘One more time, boy, and I’m through with you.’ The next game, the other team sent this kid out to pick a fight with me off the bench. I put my fists up, but I dropped ‘em quickly, didn’t fight, but we both got kicked out.”
And what happened?
“Suddenly I looked in the stands and I saw one face, my dad’s, and he just shook his head,” Baker said. “I said, ‘Oh, man, I don’t want to get kicked out ever again. It’s like Death Row at my house.”
And it hasn’t stopped. Baker said the few games he has been kicked out when the games were on TV, his dad could read his lips Dusty heard from him.
“He’s all over me and I can hear him now, ‘You’re just making a fool out of yourself, son,’” said Baker. “That’s his favorite saying, ‘You’re makin’ a fool of yourself, son.’ And he says, ‘You shouldn’t be cursing on TV. People and kids read your lips.’”
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TweetAn unusual lineup
Fans ask all the time, “What do you guys do in the press box during a rain delay? Do you talk baseball? Do you drink coffee? Do you blog?”
Answer: All of the above and much more. Do cat naps count? Does reading the Playboy swim suit issue count?
On Friday night during an hour’s rain delay in Pittsburgh, this came up.
Check out this Cincinnati Reds lineup and figure out what is probably unique about it. They don’t keep records on these things, but it has nothing to do with baseball. Hint. It has to do with the last names.
Corey Patterson, CF. Jeff Keppinger, SS. Ken Griffey Jr., RF. Brandon Phillips, 2B. Adam Dunn, LF. Ryan Freel, 3B. Joey Votto, 1B (or Scott Hatteberg). David Ross, C. Bronson Arroyo, SP. Jeremy Affeldt, RP.
Marty Brennaman, radio broadcaster. Hal McCoy, baseball writer.
So now the Reds have wasted outstanding pitching performances from their young Dominican Dandies, first Johnny Cueto in Milwaukee and Friday Edinson Volquez in Pittsburgh.
Cueto pitched 6 1/3 innings on Tuesday in Milwaukee, giving up two runs and five hits, walking none and striking out eight, but the Reds lost in 10 innings, 3-2.
Volquez pitched five innings Friday and gave up no runs and three hits, walking three and striking out one, but a one-hour rain delay prevented him from coming back for the sixth and the Reds lost, 1-0.
It didn’t seem to break the spirits of either pitcher, but being young and impressionable, a few more like those might get into their heads. It would behoove their teammates to unsheathe their bats and do some damage - make it easy on them and easy on themselves.
There are a lot of Dusty Baker Bashers out there, but if you are around this guy much, you have to love him.
He said when he got this job that he hated losing - can’t stand it, that it tears him up.
The Reds have lost five times this season so far and it eats at him after every game. He wears it on his sleeve, as noticeable as if he wore a big ‘L’ on it. After Friday’s 1-0 loss to the Pirates it was if somebody stole his dog, Bailey.
“I hate that. 1-0 losses are the worst,” he said. That’s because the Reds stranded 12 runners, went 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position and had runners in scoring position in each of the first seven innings and didn’t score.
Bronson Arroyo goes tonight, weather permitting, against the team that originally drafted and signed him, the Pirates. Then he went to the Boston Red Sox and says often how much he misses Boston and would some day like to go back. He never says that about Pittsburgh. If you’ve been here, you know why.
Example: The game went late Friday, due to two rain delays. A fellow gets hungry after a long day’s night. Try to find a restaurant open in downtown Pittsburgh after 9 p.m. It’s easier to find a doctor who makes house calls.
Oh, and Deaner wanted a pierogies race report. Hannah won Friday, Deaner. Unfortunately, the pierogies race in Pittsburgh pales in comparison to the hot dog race in Milwaukee.
And that’s something else that gets talked about during rain delays. Somebody wondered how long it would be before Cincinnati starts running a Skyline coney race.
“As soon as they find a sponsor, but it won’t be Gold Star,” somebody said.
Now, about that Reds lineup. It could appear on the field sometime this season and it may be the first time it happens. Check the last names. At some point, every player’s name has the same letter back-to-back. Patterson (tt), Keppinger (pp), Griffey (ff) - right down the line to Brennaman (nn) and McCoy (cC). Scott Hatterberg gets double credit for tt and tt.
Now you know what goes on during down time in the press box - everything but work.
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TweetWhere does Belisle fit?
Norris Hopper’s telephone rang in his Pittsburgh hotel room Thursday night. Fortunately, he was in.
“Norris? Dusty here. You’re playing tomorrow against the Pirates.”
Baker likes to let his extra players know the night before that they are in the lineup, “Because it is tough for extra guys who don’t play for 10 days in a row or so. They might think they aren’t going to play the next day, either, and they go out at night longer than they should.”
Baker smiled and said, “I like telling players they are going to play more than telling them they aren’t.”
Why Hopper Friday? Baker did his homework. Hopper’s career average against Pittsburgh starter Paul Maholm is .455.
Baker and pitching coach Dick Pole solidified the pitching rotation for the three-game series in Chicago, but the weather may lay waste to it. If there are no postponements, and the forecast for this week in Pittsburgh is for ark construction, it could change.
Right now: Aaron Harang Tuesday on his regular fifth day, Josh Fogg (“We’re not going to skip him.” — Baker) Wednesday on his seventh day, Edinson Volquez Thursday on his sixth day.
More on that from The Weather Channel.
To say the least, Baker was ecstatic over Aaron Harang’s eight innings in Milwaukee Thursday, calling him the bullpen savior.
“What he did is what the No. 1 guy does,” said Baker. “Go eight innings, save my bullpen big-time for the next three games. Not only does your No. 1 win and stop losing streaks and extend winning streaks, he saves your bullpen.”
Harang hadn’t heard what Baker said, but his take on what he does was along those lines.
“I was OK with coming out after eight innings in a 4-1 game (Thursday in Milwaukee), but later in the year I might fight him on that. What I want to do every time I pitch is give the bullpen a night off.”
As this is written, an hour before game time, the tarp is on the field, it is raining and the Monongahela River behind the right field bleachers is creeping up the banks.
An assignment for you. Baker spoke of having Belisle pitch another strong game to strengthen his arm and gain endurance and then he could be back.
What do you do with him? Does he go into the rotation? Who goes? Josh Fogg? Bronson Arroyo? Or does he go into the bullpen. If so, who goes?
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TweetStuck in an elevator at Miller Park
If I looked like Aaron Harang, I’d understand the Milwaukee Brewers trying to kidnap me. But he’s 6-6 and I’m 6-2. He doesn’t wear glasses and I do. He has a nasty slider and I don’t.
Nevertheless, they tried to keep me in Miller Park after Thursday afternoon’s game. As I left the stadium (or tried to leave it) I used the elevator behind the press box. I stepped in and the door closed. I pushed the buttons.
Nothing. I pushed. Nothing. I pushed and pushed and pushed. Nothing, nothing and nothing. The elevator wouldn’t budge and the doors wouldn’t open.
After five minutes, I called my wife, Nadine, in Dayton and was told, “I’m in Dayton and you’re in Milwaukee. What do you want me to do?” Good point. Then I heard MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon outside the door, talking on his cellphone. “Mark!” I screamed. “Mark, Mark, Mark!” Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I found a button on the control panel and pushed and a voice said, “May I help you?” I was tempted to say, “No, I just like a little voice accompaniment when I travel alone on an elevator.” But I didn’t. I screamed, “Help.”
Twenty minutes later and three minutes from Cocosville, the elevator suddenly descended and the door opened. I saw Mark Sheldon walking down the concourse. “Did you hear me yelling from behind the elevator door?” Said Sheldon, “I wondered. I kept hearing my name but I didn’t know where it was coming from.”
Now it was on to the loading dock to await personal cab driver Joe (that’s his real name, honest), whom I had called when I escaped the elevator without a governor’s pardon. I waited 20 minutes and a cab from the same company as Joe’s pulled up. It was raining dogs and dogs (the drops were too heavy for it to be raining cats and dogs).
I jumped in, but it wasn’t Joe. “Where’s Joe?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he said. I figured Joe was busy and sent somebody else or this guy hijacked Joe’s fare. When my cellphone rang en route to the airport and it was Joe cheerfully telling me, “I’m here at the stadium,” I knew I’d been hijacked.
Now I’m at the airport, the Midwest counter. A cheerful young woman directed me to a kiosk and when I told her I was legally blind and those things confounded me she offered to help. When it didn’t work, Miss Congeniality fled and said, “Wait here, an agent will help you.”
Twenty minutes later (20 minutes was the magic time on this day) an agent who had been pecking the Magna Charta on her computer looked up and said, “May I help you with something?” I was tempted to say, “No, I just like standing here with this big black suitcase staring at the Departures/Arrivals on the wall.” But I didn’t. It took 20 seconds for her to “help me.”
After a nice flight to Pittsburgh, although it was longer than 20 minutes, I had a cab ride from the airport to the city. That also lasted longer than 20 minutes and cost nearly the amount of the flight from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh.
Usually when a cab driver asks me why I am in town, I say, “a plumber’s convention.” End of conversation. This time I told the guy I was a baseball writer and for the next 45 minutes I was recited the History of the Pittsburgh franchise from Honus Wagner to John Candelaria to Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
But it made the time fly, although it was now close to midnight and I expected the hotel to say, “No room at the inn.” Instead, I was between the sheets in 20 minutes.
The Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers never could have played Thursday without the roof. Some three inches of rain fell during the game and it was 37 degrees.
They’re expecting rain in Pittsburgh and lots of it this weekend. Although PNC Park is one of my two favorite parks (San Francisco’s is my favorite, although I’m not certain what its corporate name is this year), PNC does not have a roof. We might play, we might have a lot of 20-minute delays, we might have some postponements.
Said manager Dusty Baker, “I don’t think I’ve ever come to Pittsburgh when it hasn’t rained. And they have it timed. It always comes when it is our turn for batting practice.”
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TweetGet me to Pittsburgh
I thought I was being suave and debonair about my travel arrangements from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh.
While the other beat writers fled to Chicago to catch an early-morning flight from O’Hare to Pittsburgh, I smugly made arrangements to leave Milwaukee on Thursday night via Midwest Airlines (they actually bake chocolate chip cookies on board) for a nonstop flight to Pittsburgh.
On Thursday morning, Midwest grounded some of its MD80s for safety checks. So my fingers are crossed for after the game that my plane is a CRJ (Canadian Regional Jet).
See, it’s the little things on the travel front that reach up and bite you right through the suit cushions.
In 36 years, only once did I nearly miss a game due to the airlines. I had a flight from St. Louis to San Diego canceled. I switched to a flight to Los Angeles, rented a car at LAX and roared south on I-5, making the game about 10 minutes before the first pitch.
After the game, on the way to the hotel, my rental car had a flat. Had that happened on I-5, I would have missed the first pitch and maybe I wouldn’t be here to watch Aaron Harang throw pitches at the Milwaukee Brewers.
After letting slump-bitten Edwin Encarnacion watch Wednesday’s game, a 12-4 Cincinnati victory, manager Dusty Baker put Encarnacion back in the lineup. Baker said he thought about giving him two days off, but said it is too early in the year to give him back-to-back days.
So Encarnacion swung at the first pitch he saw Thursday, trying to pull an outside pitch, and grounded meekly to third base.
Speaking of Pittsburgh, after a three-game series in PNC Park, the Reds have an off-day Monday before beginning a three-game series in Chicago.
That off-day Monday is Josh Fogg’s turn, but Baker doesn’t intend to skip him. More likely he will push everybody back a day — except Harang, who will pitch on his normal fifth day Tuesday. That would have Fogg pitching on his seventh day and Edinson Volquez on his sixth, “But Edinson did well with an extra day his last start and when he did it in spring training,” said Baker.
Now I know I’ll get to the airport on time — my special cab driver in Milwaukee will be waiting — but who knows when I’ll get to Pittsburgh, although I can think of hundreds of places I’d rather be.
Encarnacion walked his second time up in the fifth and came around to score. But with Scott Hatteberg on third and a 0-1 count on Harang, Baker flashed the suicide squeeze sign.
Hatteberg dashing toward home with the pitch — OK, so Hatteberg can’t dash — Harang missed the low and outside bunt attempt and Hatteberg was hung out between third and home like Monday’s laundry (is laundry still done mostly on Mondays and why?).
Bunting practice in the Pittsburgh Omni Penn hotel at midnight tonight, clear the lobby.
Time out for the wiener race: Bratwurst wins in 20.9 seconds, probably distracting the other wieners with his bright green bowler hat.
Harang gave up a run in the second and nothing else, but the Reds had only two hits after six.
Then it happened in the seventh. Adam Dunn tried to check his swing and blooped a hit to left. Encarnacion, now in a relaxed mental state (I guess), reversed the first pitch thrown by Carlos Villanueva and lobbed it over the left-field fence, a two-run home run for a 3-1 Reds lead.
It was EE’s second home run and he was 0-for-18 in between.
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TweetTurning it around
Funny how a negative incident sometimes turns positive.
Once again, the bats of the Cincinnati Reds were quieter than Trappist Monks early in Wednesday’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers.
And things were compounded when usually sure-handed and sure-footed second baseman Brandon Phillips made like a croquet wicket and let a groiund ball slither through his legs for a two-run error that gave the Brewers a 3-2 lead.
The croquet wicket line, by the way, is an old one dating back to the late 1970s when Johnny Bench tried to play third and made a gaggle of errors during spring training and I wrote, “Johnny Bench is doing an admirable imitation of a croquet wicket while trying to play third base.
He didn’t much care for my sense of humor that day.
And it was Phillips last year in San Diego who didn’t like it when he was thrown out at second base and I wrote, “Phillips was out by the distance between Mission Bay and Tijuana. He challenged me by saying, “What do you mean I was out by the distance between Michigan Bay and Tee-Ja-wanna?”
And it looks as if Adam Dunn’s misfortunes are doing a 180.
Before the game, he told me of his .138 batting average, “I’m swinging at strikes, I’m looking at balls. I’m not swinging at bad pitches. And I feel good. It’ll turn around. If it doesn’t it is going to be a very long season.”
Then Wednesday night, after a walk, a run scored and a sacrifice fly, Dunn drove one to the deepest part of center field and the ball ricocheted off center fielder Gabe Gross’s glove and over the wall for a two-run home run and a 7-3 Reds lead.
Anyway, after Phillips’ error, the runs came like the rains are expected for this afternoon’s game, in a flood. The roof in this place leaks, so raincoats are required in some seating areas.
The Reds scored three in the sixth, two in the seventh, three in the eighth and two in the ninth for a 12-4 victory.
Phillips said the ball took a squirrely bounce on him, “But I learned from last year. Just forget it and make the next play. Don’t mope and hold your head down. Next thing I know I get a hit and start a rally and my teammates picked me up. That’s what a team is all about.”
Manager Dusty Baker called it an uncharacteristic error, which is was from the guy who should have won the Gold Glove last year.
“Brandon Phillips is the best second baseman in the world,” said Baker. “I’ve never seen anybody work as hard as he does.”
Aaron Harang, 0-1 with a 2.77 ERA over his first two starts, makes his third start in a game that starts Thursday at noon - with Paul Bako as his batterymate.
It is 11:30 p.m. as I finish the night’s work and await a ride back to the Residence Inn. I thought about stretching out on the desk in front of me in the press box because the media meets Baker at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
But then I’d miss the free breakfast at the Residence.
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TweetMilwaukee: round two
Some observations before the Reds play Game 2 in Milwaukee:
-Downtown Milwaukee drivers believe people in cross walks are targets and take deadly aim. My jeans have grease (and other) stains.
-On the other hand, the employees at Miller Park are the nicest in baseball. They all say, “Hi” and “Hello” and “How are you.”
-The cab driver who brought me to the ballpark Monday drove sanely and was a nice guy. He gave me his card, asked me to call whenever I needed a ride. I did. He actually showed up within 30 seconds of my call for my second ride to the park.
OK, baseball.
Fearing that Edwin (0 for 17) Encarnacion might be found perchede atop the roof of Miller Park, manager Dusty Baker gave him Wednesday off, a much-needed day off. Since hitting a three-run home run to win a game, EE is 0 for 17, hasn’t driven in a run (the three are all he has this year) and hasn’t sniffed a hit.
Ryan Freel was at third base Wednesday and if EE’s deadly dive continues it seems inevitable that when (and who knows when that will be) Alex Gonzalez returns to shortstop, Jeff Keppinger should move to third.
This could be a big start for Josh Fogg, a bust in his debut. Matt Belisle is dazzling Class A hitters (as he should be) but don’t make too much fun of that because Johnny Cueto’s worst stop last year was at Class A Sarasota, where Belisle is now, and Cueto was 4-5 with a 3.33 ERA in 14 starts. It was his highest ERA anywhere last year - 3.10 at Class AA Chattanooga and 2.05 at Class AAA Louisville.
And then there is Homer Bailey and his constant companion, a knife on his hip, just in case he encounters a bear on the way to work. Bailey has been outstanding in his last two starts and one gets the impression that manager Dusty Baker is anxious to have him back in the rotation.
The Reds traded lefthanded relief pitcher Jon Coutlangus just before this trip began and a lot of you are asking, “Why?” You say he was good last year.
He was third on the staff in appearances last year with 64 and was 4-2 with a 4.39 ERA, not a solid ERA for a relief pitcher. He was involved in many of the eighth-inning meltdowns last year.
Nevertheless, Baker mentioned his name several times in the off-season, but once he watched him throw this spring, his name was not mentioned. He lost his command somewhere and kept walking people.
I do wonder, though, why they would trade a possibly good lefthanded relief pitcher for, ta-dum, another outfielder? The Reds have outfielders in the system to populate a small Vietnam village (one of the quotes I loved from former manager Bob Boone, known in media circles as Abner Boonieday).
After the Reds stranded a lot of baserunners, Boone would say, “We left enough runners to populate a small Vietnamese village.”
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TweetCueto - live and in color
Milwaukee manager Ned Yost had two words to describe Johnny Cueto after Tuesday night’s Thriller in Miller: “As advertised.”
Yost watched the 22-year-old Reds rookie put on a pitching clinic, Dominican style - 6 1/3 innings, two runs, five hits, no walksk and eight strikeouts.
Over two major-league starts, Cueto has 13 1/3 innings with 18 strikeouts and zero walks.
His record is only 1-0, though, because his teammates forgot to take their bats out of cold storage.
Cueto gave up a run in the third and a solo home run to noted Reds homicide artist Bill Hall and that home run in the seventh nearly plastered a defeat on Cueto’s nose.
The Reds trailed, 2-1, with two outs and nobody on in the ninth. And Eric Gagne had two strikes on Corey Patterson. The loss was Cueto’s.
But Patterson lobbed one into the right field corner where the Brewers shortened the fence last year to install a picnic area. Patterson’s home run probably landed in somebody’s cantaloupe but it tied the game and prevented Cueto from a highly undeserved defeat.
And isn’t it time we critics (me included) get off Corey Patterson’s back a bit. Yes, most of us want to see Jay Bruce (who is hitting .211 at Class AAA Louisville, by the way). But Patterson’s home run was his third and he also drove in the first run of Tuesday’s game with a single.
He is hitting .269 with two doubles, three homers and six RBIs. I’m willing to back off a little - but, but, but…he STILL isn’t a leadoff hitter.
He has scored six runs, three on his own homers, and his on-base average is .286 and he has one walk. My dog, Barkley, gets two walks a day.
So the Reds are 4-4, mostly because the offense is far from offensive. When Adam Dunn (batting fifth) is hitting .130 and Edwin Encarnacion (batting sixth) is hitting .083 and is 0 for 17, that’s a very Black Hole in the heart of your order.
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TweetMilwaukee: a starting point
So we’re in Milwaukee and it is 41 degrees, 30 degrees colder than Dayton/Cincinnati. I’m told Milwaukee does have a summer - between August 12 and August 14 - and the sun DOES shine on one of those days.
Fortunately, Miller Park has a roof. It also has brats, metts and polish sausages. If I worked for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel I would break Babe Ruth’s hot dog record and eclipse the circumference of his waist-line.
I’ve always wanted to participate in the Hot Dog race. The Philadelphia Phillies writers did it one year - all five wieners were writers (the players says the writers always are wieners). Reds Media Relations Director Rob Butcher ran in the race three years ago and WON. I sense the race was fixed, but commissioner Bud Selig wasn’t there that day to ban the other four wieners for life.
Butcher also slid down the huge sliding board used by Bernie the Brewer, Milwaukee’s mascot who slides down the slide after every Milwaukee home run. The Reds hope the slide rusts the next three days.
This is the start of a 10-day, nine-game, three-city trip to Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. That means some extra packing for writers, although I have known a couple of writers in the past who took two week trips carrying a duffel bag - and half the space was occupied by a laptop.
The rest of the duffel: One pair of jeans with regulation holes in the knees, one extra shirt (in case he got spaghetti sauce on the other one), one extra pair of socks and one extra pair of underwear (seriously). No extra shoes, though, because his dirty sneakers with holes in the toes were just fine, thank you.
The guy sat by himself a lot.
Johnny Cueto is once again the focal point when the Cincinnati Reds open the trip tonight in Miller-Under-Roof. That just means the catcher’s mitt will pop real loud with those 96-mph fastballs.
This is a good test for Cueto’s second major-league start. The Brewers are a bunch of hitters, a bunch of free-swingers. They are either going to strike out a lot or hit a lot of home runs … or maybe both.
The Brewers are off to an excellent start and if the Reds are sincere in their due diligence to win the NL Central, Milwaukee is one of the teams they have to run through.
Now, does anybody have any ideas how to jump-start the bats of Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Dunn? For sure those bats won’t heat up if they were left outside last night.
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TweetFive things I want to see
Five things I’d like to see and hear as I begin a 10-day, nine-game trip with the Reds to Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Chicago:
-Dave Concepcion making an acceptance speech at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
-Roger Clemens telling the truth - to anybody.
-Edwin Encarnacion batting above .100.
-Barry Larkin working for the Reds instead of for Jim Bowden and the Washington/Cincinnati Reds-East.
-Somebody come up with a clear, concise and scientific reason why even my Aunt Opal, sitting in her wheelchair, could hit a baseball out of Great American Ball Park.
Now that the Reds have finished their opening salvo, a 4-3 homestand against two division champions, Arizona and Philadelphia, manager Dusty Baker is going to see what it’s like to take a Cincinnati team on the road.
It has been pretty ugly since 1999 when they were 26-10 on the road on July 4 and I dubbed them The Big Road Machine, a nickname that stuck and everybody used the rest of the year.
Since then, many a season has been destroyed fast by ugly trips, especially to the West Coast. This one, though, only takes them through a portion of the cold, cold National League Central - Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Chicago.
The big thing here is that they are 10 intra-division games and Baker realizes the importance of that.
“It’s a huge road trip for us,” he said. “They are all games in our own division and you can either gain ground fast or lose it fast. I’m not into making statements, so we’re not out to prove anything yet. I just like to win as many games as we can. We certainly aren’t going to sneak up on anybody. You can’t do that in baseball these days - not with scouting reports, radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and the internet.”
Isn’t it strange that after seven games, the only starting pitchers with wins are first-year starters Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez? And both were dazzling.
Cueto makes his second major-league start Tuesday in Milwaukee, a good test against a team that swings heavy lumber. Volquez goes Friday in Pittsburgh in front of Pirates starter Paul Maholm’s closest friends and relatives.
Assignment: Yes, it’s early. But like the Boy Scouts, let’s be prepared. Come up with nicknames for Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez.
I like Johnny K-ueto and High Voltage Volquez.
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TweetFinally, real baseball
For the first four games I covered in Great American Ball Park this season, the press box windows were kept closed due to rain and finger-frosting cold, making it seem as if I was watching the game on a giant TV screen with no sound.
I hate that. For 30 years it was that way in old Riverfront Stadium (I refuse to call it Cinergy Field). They put in permanent windows that didn’t open and we were hermetically sealed like mayonnaise as we watched The Big Red Machine behind glass.
In the spring, when it was cold outside, the thermostat in the Riverfront press box was about 80. In the summer, when it was 80 outside, the air conditioning kept it at 40 in the press box.
We scribes deserved hazardous duty pay, except we had the pleasure of covering the all-time best baseball team - my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
Anyway, the windows came out on a glorious Sunday afternoon for the Cincinnati debut of Edinson Volquez against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Manager Dusty Baker was asked if he talked to Volquez before the game and he said, “No, I mean, he has been in the big leagues before (last year with the Texas Rangers), so it is a different situation than it was with Johnny Cueto (making his major-league debut last week). I just passed him on the way to the field for batting practice and he was sitting in the clubhouse enjoying breakfast. He’ll be fine. I ain’t worried about Volquez. He’s a looser guy than Cueto.”
When the game began, Volquez was as cool as if he were sitting in a La-Z-Boy, pumping two called strikes past NL MVP Jimmy Rollins before Rollins looped a single to right on the third pitch.
No big deal. Volquez retired Shane Victorino and Chas Utley on lazy fly balls, walked (maybe wisely) Ryan Howard, watched the runners advance to third and second on Paul Bako’s passed ball, then stabbed Pat Burrell’s shot back to the box and threw him out to end his first inning in a Reds uniform.
Pause here for a minor announcement: Matt Belisle, pitching on injury rehab for the Class A Sarasota Reds, pitched 8 2/3 shutout innings against the Tampa Bay Yankees in a 1-0 win. He pitched six perfect innings and coaxed 19 ground ball outs, jallowing two hits while walking none and striking out three.
What happens when Belisle is ready? That’s an easy one. Josh Fogg better be better, much better, in his second start than his first or Belisle should be taking the next turn.
Well, we know he is ready for the Florida State League All-Star game.
OK, back to Great American. Ken Griffey Jr. gave Volquez some comfort level in the bottom of the first with a two-run home run, career No. 594, the 100th in a Cincinnati uniform - 38 at Riverfront where we couldn’t hear the crack of the bat and 62 in Great American, where the sweet sound of wood colliding with cowhide (didn’t it used to be horsehide?) resonated in the press box.
Brett Myers, Philadelphia’s ace, was Griffey’s victim, the 378th different pitcher to feel the bite of Griffey’s home run bat.
Buoyed by Griffey’s homer, Volquez went quickly through the Phillies in the second - 1-2-3 with two strikeouts. And he didn’t stop there. He went 1-2-3 in the third, too, striking out two more.
Volquez was lifted with one out in the sixth and the Reds leading, 4-1. He had two men on and his pitch count was at 95. The crowd gave him an appreciative standing ovation after he gave kup one run, five hits and struck out eight - not Johnny Cueto, but darn close.
Here is another one for you. Stand-in shortstop Jeff Keppinger singled ahead of Griffey’s home run in the first. Then Keppinger hit his second home run to lead off the third. He is hitting about two ga-zillion.
What happens when injured shortstop Alex Gonzalez returns? Does Baker keep Keppinger at shortstop until he cools off, if ever does? Or does he put Gonzalez at shortstop? Then what? Does he move Keppinger to third base, where Edwin Encarnacion is hitting .154?
Another one. Marty Brennaman and I talked about this on the air during the secondi nning Sunday. Paul Bako is hitting and handling pitchers with the veteran savvy of a 38-year-old catcher. David Ross is nearly ready to come off the DL. What then?
I say: Belisle in the rotation if Fogg falters again, Keppinger to third in place of Encarnacion and Bako stays behind the plate.
All this is subject to circumstance: That Keppinger continues to hit, the Fogg falters, that Encarnacion continues to struggle, that Bako continues to hit.
What’s your take?
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TweetThe pressure is on
Edinson Volquez smiled broadly when somebody told him the only way he can beat what teammate Johnny Cueto did was to throw a no-hitter.
“I’m going to try,” he said.
Volquez makes his debut for the Cincinnati Reds Sunday against the Philadelphia Phillies, but it isn’t his major-league debut. He started six games last year for the Texas Rangers and was 2-1 with a 4.50 earned run average, striking out 29 but walking 15 in 34 innings.
Cueto’s one-hitter (no walks, 10 strikeouts) was his major-league debut Thursday and impressed Volquez the same way it impressed everybody - but it wasn’t surprising to Volquez.
Although both are Dominicans, Volquez didn’t know Cueto until this spring when the two young players were part of the Latin Quarter table in the middle of the clubhouse usually occupied by Francisco Cordero, Juan Castro and Javier Valentin.
“I don’t know if I can do what Johnny did, but hell yeah, I’m going to try,” said Volquez, who speaks solid English, including swear words, while Cueto does not.
“It was amazing to see a guy making his major-league debut get 10 strikeouts,” said Volquez. “No walks. One run. One hit. Unbelievable. I’d like to do the same thing, that’s for sure.”
Judging by spring training, Volquez is perfectly capable..
“If Johnny and me can do good the whole season, it is going to be very good for this team, with Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo,” said Volquez. “We put everything together and it is going to be a great season.
“I started saying good things about Johnny in spring training,” said Volquez. “I didn’t know him in the Dominican, but I saw him pitch a couple of times and I said, ‘Man, this guy can pitch.’ Then I saw him in spring training, didn’t know he was on our team, and said, ‘He has good stuff. He is still young, but this kid pitches like he has been in the majors for 10 years.’
“That’s different from me,” Volquez added. “My first year in the big leagues I was wild and pitched like a rookie, but Johnny is like he has been in the big leagues 10 years. When he gave up the home run to lose his no-hitter and shutout, he just acted like, ‘Give me a new ball and I’ll get the rest of these guys out.’ And he did.”
Wisely, manager Dusty Baker split up Cueto and Volquez in the rotation so they wouldn’t pitch back-to-back.
“They throw very similar, so you want somebody who throws a little softer (Josh Fogg) in between,” said Baker. “It makes it tougher on the hitters to adjust to the second guy. I remember when the Houston Astros separated J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan (both threw 100 miles an hour) with Joe Niekro (knuckleballer) in the middle.”
Somebody said, “That’s not fair,” and Baker said, “Yeah, you tell ‘em that. You’d rather face J.R. and Nolan back-to-back because your bat the second night is already tuned up to the high velocity.
“Also, I didn’t want them back-to-back because one tends to try to outthrow the other,” Baker added. “That’s one reason I separated them, plus when they’re young you don’t want to take a chance of them having back-to-back bad outings and have to use up my bullpen. Then that puts pressure on Aaron Harang to go deeper into the game to give the bullpen a rest.”
One could almost smell the brain cells burning on this issue and Baker smiled and said, “Oh, yeah, there was some thought processing going into this.”
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TweetNow it’s E.V.’s turn
As Johnny K-ueto (with credit to Ohdave) used a 96 miles an hour scythe on the Arizona Diamondbacks en route to 10 strikeouts, the Arizona scribes sat in their second row seats of the Great American Ball Park press box completely mesmerized.
“Who is this guy?”
“Where have they been hiding this kid?”
Eventually, I turned to veteran writer Jack Magruder of the East Valley Tribune and said, “Wait until you see Edinson Volquez?”
He said he had heard good things about Volquez, more than about Cueto.
That’s because if you look at spring training statistics you will see that Cueto’s ERA was 5.09 and that he walked 12 in 16 innings. Volquez had a 2.70 ERA, walking four in 20 inniungs while striking out 26. Cueto struck out 19.
The different was subpar Cueto starts in his last two spring training exhibitions, including one game in which he walked five in the first inning.
Manager Dusty Baker said he believes it was because Cueto thought he was still trying to make the team and was anxious and overthrowing.
“Once he knew he was on the team, he relaxed and was himself,” said Baker. There certainly weren’t enough fans on the gloomy, drizzly day to make him nervous. There weren’t enough in the stands to start a good bar brawl.
But if Cueto continues to pitch the way he did Thursday, eventually 134,000 people will say they were in the seats to witness. That’s what Tom Browning always says about his perfect game: “If everybody who told me they were at that game were actually there, they would have had a half-million fans stuffed into Riverfront,” he said.
Volquez gets his start Sunday against the Phillies, with one advantage eradicated. The D-Backs, who train in Arizona, had never seen Cueto, except those who played in the Class A Midwest League for the South Bend Silverhawks when they played the Dayton Dragons.
The Phillies faced Volquez in spring exhibitions.
A word of caution here - and not to be one to toss ice water on the cat. Don’t dive head first overboard on Cueto’s one start.
He is 22. He has very little experience. He will hit bumps and pot holes along the way. Too often all of us have gone cuckoo and ga-ga much too quickly with Reds pitchers.
Can you say Jack Armstrong or Scott Scudder or Ty Howington or Brett Tomko or Ryan Wagner or Chris Gruler or C.J. Nitkowski - or, yes, Homer Bailey?
It was a wow-em debut, extremely enjoyable to witness. He has the stuff to continue doing it, but human foibles sometimes work in strange ways.
But for me, give me a towel and dry off that cat, then I’ll dive overboard. The kid is something and let’s see what Volques does.
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TweetCueto era begins
The Johnny Cueto Era began with a bang Thursday - 10 bangs, actually.
The 22-year-old rookie retired the first 15 Arizona Diamondbacks before giving up a leadoff home run to Justin Upton in the sixth. And that’s all he gave up.
He pitched seven innings, giving up the one run and one hit, no walks and he struck out 10, the most for a pitcher making his major-league debut since Milwaukee’s Steve Woodard struck out 12 in 1997.
Boston’s Dice-K struck out 10 in his debut last season. That, too, was in seven innings. To demonstrate how pitch-poor the Reds have been forever and ever, amen, Cueto’s is the first (and maybe only) Reds rookie to strike out 10 in his debut. Major League records only go back to 1900 and there are no recorded incidents of a Reds rookie striking out as many as 10 in his debut.
Cuteo was spinning the radar numbers at 96 miles an hour with his fastball and freezing hitters with 84 to 86 miles an hour changeups. And he was happy to utilize a generous strike zone by umpire James Hoye.
When he had thrown 92 pitches (68 for strikes) after seven innings, manager Dusty Baker called it a day - an extremely successful day - and brought in David Weathers to protect Cueto’s 3-1 lead.
Weathers walked three and vacated for RHP Mike Lincoln, who gave up a sacrifice fly and ended the inning with a strikeout. Then closer Francisco Cordero worked his magic for a 1-2-3 ninth, his first save for the Reds, a 3-2 victory.
Cueto, 22, flashed his boyish smile and was a calm as a placid sea as he talked through his mentor and interpreter, Mario Soto.
Did he have the rookie pre-game jitters? “No.”
Was he confident? “Very.”
What was he thinking before the game? “That I’d throw seven shutout innings.”
What did he think after he gave up the home run? “Go back to throwing the way I was throwing before. No more runs, work harder.”
Manager Dusty Baker said he heard players in the dugout say, “We haven’t seen this in a long time.” Said Baker, “They’ve never seen a lot of things they are going to see from this young man.”
The one-hitter and the 10 strikeouts were impressive, but what turned on Baker was zero walks, “Because when a team hasn’t seen a pitcher that contributes to a lot of strikeouts. But no walks is impressive because he wasn’t too sharp in his last two spring starts.
“And I was very impressed by what he did after losing the no-hitter on a home run,” said Baker. “It didn’t bother or upset him. I’ve seen a lot of guys give up a no-hitter and lose it because that’s what they wanted.”
Hey, fans, wait until you see Edinson Volquez.
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TweetYes, Dunn meant it
Batting practice was conducted in the indoor batting cages Thursday and Adam Dunn was in the cage when Scott Hatteberg walked in.
“Did you go the other way on purpose,” asked Hatteberg, referring to the ninth-inning opposite field single that Dunn punched off the end of his bat against Arizona’s overshifted infield to keep alive a game-winning rally.
“Yes,” said Dunn.
“Keep it up and you’ll soon be making $1.5 million,” Hatteberg said with a laugh.
Manager Dusty Baker doesn’t see it that way and wants more of it. He makes out a to-do list before he comes to the park every day and on the list Thursday was a memo to compliment Dunn on his crafty hitting.
“I’m going to tell him that was great and it was something I talked to him about during spring training,” said Baker. “That really made the inning.”
The Reds trailed, 5-3, when Brandon Phillips singled hard to right. Dunn went to 3-and-1 and poked the ball to left field for a single. Edwin Encarnacion homered. Game over. Reds win, Reds win, the Reds win.
Asked when he decided to take the ball to left field, Dunn said, “When the count went to 3-and-0 and I knew they weren’t going to give me anything to hit out of the park to tie the game. Yes, I hit it off the end of the bat and it probably was a ball, but I’ll take it.”
Baker realizes Dunn was a .300 hitter in the minors, in addition to ripping home runs and driving in runs.
“I’m going to tell him what former Dodgers pitcher Joe Black once told me, ‘You’re a hitter, not a slugger,’” said Baker. “He hit .300 in the minors and he can do it again, with the same power.”
Baker was in better spirits Thursday, feeling better from his bout with allergies and after his first win as Reds manager.
“I was looking for some matzo ball soup,” he said. “I went to one restaurant and they told me they only had it on Friday. But (bullpen coach) Juan Lopez brought me some Puerto Rican soup and Juan Castro brought me some Mexican soup and that pretty well fixed me up.”
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TweetSit him down…oops
This is why anybody who knows baseball (and I should know better after 36 years) shouldn’t make rash judgments and harsh criticisms on the short term. And it is also why baseball is such a great game.
In the ninth inning of Wednesday’s game, BEFORE Edwin Encarnacion missed two sacrifice bunt attempts with the Reds down by two runs with no outs and two on, I wrote what you can read just below.
Fortunately, I didn’t post it until I watched Encarnacion bat. After failing on his bunt attempts, he crashed a three-run game-winning walk-off home run.
Here is what I wrote up until then:
It’s only two games into the 2008 season, but isn’t it time for a benching?
For the second straight game - and they’ve only played two games - third baseman Edwin Encarnacion made a costly throwing error, something that is seemingly inbreded into his psyche. Catch the ball, throw it away. Catch the ball, throw it away.
The Cincinnati Reds finish the three-game series against Arizona Thursday afternoon and if Ryan Freel isn’t at third base, then Jeff Keppinger better be there with Juan Castro at shortstop.
Encarnacion needs to sit and watch and pontificate. He needs to take extra ground balls and make extra throws before batting practice - the way former manager Jerry Narron did with him before every home game.
Offensively, he walked his first two times up on Opening Day, but has gone 0 for 5 since then, striking out his last two times.
(Insert here a rather large, important home run) My bad.
His throwing error on Opening Day led to an unearned run in the first inning of a 4-2 defeat. His throwing error in the fifth Wednesday led to two unearned runs.
So, you play manager. Does Encarnacion start today? Does Ryan Freel start at third? Does Jeff Keppinger start at third and Juan Castro at short? Or do they bring back Jolbert Cabrera to play third?
Guess what? Encarnacion will be at third base this afternoon.
But he still needs to work on his throwing - at least I can salvage that out of this night.
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TweetOn to Day Two
Dusty Baker, welcome to Sinus Valley.
Baker was stopped up when he arrived at the ballpark Wednesday and said, “They tell me this area is bad for allergies. I’ve had ‘em all my life. I was OK all through spring training.”
Baker tweaked his lineup with two changes for Wednesday’s game against Arizona.
First base was manned by Joey Votto, who batted seventh in place of Scott Hatteberg, and catcher was manned by Paul Bako, batting eighth instead of Javier Valentin.
Several Reds took extra early batting practice and one was disabled shortstop Alex Gonzalez, a large brace still surrounding his injured left knee. It was the first time Gonzalez took batting practice on the field, although he said he has taken it in the indoor cages for about a week.
About Votto, Baker said, “I don’t want him on the bench too long. It would have been like three days off.”
Baker said Scott Hatteberg returns Thursday against Doug Davis, “Because Hattie is usually better against lefties than Joey has been. Joey will be, eventually. We have to play him sometime and I’d like to play him a lot more if he starts swinging better. That makes it easier.”
With David Ross on the disabled list (he is catching and DH-ing this week for the Class A Sarasota Reds), Baker said he is doing matchups, “Sort of,” with catchers Javier Valentin and Paul Bako.
“It isn’t an exact matchup,” he said. “A lot depends on what the opposing team’s speed is like. I knew Opening Day that Arizona wouldn’t run in the rain because the turf is bad. Ordinarily, that team has a lot of speed and they’d run more on Javier than Ross or Bako.”
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TweetBreaking it down
Tim is a frequent e-mailer, first from Singapore and now from Hong Kong, which impresses the heck out of me, for some reason. It’s the same with an e-mailer from Stuttgart, Germany and another from Norway and one from Alaska.
When I get one from the North Pole, I’ll be stunned.
Isn’t the internet just grand?
Anyway, Tim is concerned that I am being too harsh, too critical, too negative with his beloved Reds and notes that a lot of the national media are predicting awesome things from this year’s team.
He said he sensed I was not pleased with some of the roster moves to get down to the final 25 and wondered why I picked apart the Opening Day game with my blog entitled Bad Beginning.
I’m not picking on Tim. He’s a great guy who e-mails me often and is always sane about it.
First of all, I’m on record as saying this team could finish above .500 for the first time in seven years and that it should battle Milwaukee for second place. I picked the Cubs to win, but we all know what the Cubs are all about, so first place is there for the grabbing.
As for the makeup of the roster, the only disagreement I had was shipping out Jay Bruce and bringing in Corey Patterson. I stand by that. Everything else suited my fancy - dumping Mike Stanton, sending out Homer Bailey, putting youngsters Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez into the rotation.
I do have concerns about the catching. If The Real David Ross was the 2006 version, it would be OK. If The Real David Ross was the 2007 version, that’s trouble. Even a David Ross who is somewhere between 2006 and 2007 would be OK.
As for the Bad Beginning blog, well, it was a dissection of Opening Day, one game. Yes, it was only one game, but games played like Opening Day turn into games played in July and August the same way.
If this team is going to win, it has to do everything right. No mistakes. There is no margin for error. Everybody must run out every ball (right, Javier Valentin?). The pitchers must get down bunts (right, Aaron Harang?) Routine throws must be made accurately (right, Edwin Encarnacion?). The leadoff hitter must get on base once in a while (right, Corery 0 for 4 Patterson?).
Those were the glaring mistakes, mistakes that must be eradicated on a daily basis.
We could add the absence of hits, only three. But with Brandon Webb on the mound and Arizona’s strong bullpen, we’ll give the offense a pass on this day.
So, Tim, don’t read too much into what you perceived from my Opening Day blog. As they say, facts are facts are facts.
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