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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2009 > April > 12
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Second Coming: Aaron Harang version
Please don’t consider me irreverent or blasphemous or a heathen. I just can’t resist this one:
On Easter Sunday, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Aaron Harang had his Second Coming. He is risen.
I just dodged a lightning bolt. Sorry, sir.
But after going 6-17 last year and losing on Opening Day this year, Harang was the Harang of a couple of years ago.
Even on days when Harang is unhittable, untouchable and unbelievable, his Cincinnati Reds teammates treat him as a third cousin from the bad side of the family.
On Easter Sunday, Harang threw a bunch of uncolored eggs at the Pittsburgh Pirates, a three-hitter in which he had batters nibbling at jelly beans all afternoon during a 2-0 victory, the first complete game in the majors this season.
Brandon Phillips gave him a 2-0 lead in the first with a home run, then the Reds twice left runners on second and third with one out and even hit into a triple play, forcing Harang to be at his dominant best.
He was overly dominant. He threw 108 pitches, 80 for strikes. He went to three balls on only one batter and two balls on only seven.
“That’s the Aaron Harang I remember from 2006 and 2007,” said Phillips, who homered with two outs in the first on a 2-2 pitch after Willy Taveras led the inning with a double.
Harang gave up a single to Nyjer Morgan opening the game. He hit Morgan with two outs in the third, Brandon Moss singled with two outs in the fifth and Morgan singled with one out in the ninth.
Not one Pirate put a foot on second base.
Closer Francisco Cordero was warming up in the ninth when Morgan singled with one out, causing manager Dusty Baker to think about replacing Harang.
“He would have had to drag me off the mound,” said Harang, who needed 114 pitches to get to five innings on Opening Day.
“That’s a tough position for a manager — what if you take him out and something happens and what if you leave him in and something happens? He had good tempo and good rhythm, so you look at his pitch count and see how his throwing,” said Baker.
Decision? Easy. Leave him in.
“You try to handle a decision like that, but you don’t handle it very well,” said Baker. “But he was dealing and you could tell he really wanted that one.”
And since it was Harang, Baker worried about his team cluttering the bases with stranded runners and said, “I was hoping the whole game that those baserunners we left with less than two outs wouldn’t haunt us. But Aaron was masterful.”
And, as usual, not that impressed with himself.
“I threw some good games a couple of years ago, including a complete game at Pittsburgh to end the season,” he said. “It was nice to get a complete game early in the season because they don’t happen very often any more. I wanted to give the bullpen a day off and give us good energy heading for the road.”
That’s Harang, thinking of the other guys, who give it their best but seldom give him much help.
“They knew I was throwing strikes and had to swing,” he said.
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One of the best moves the Cincinnati Reds did for this season had nothing to do with acquiring a big righthanded bat or finding a fifth starter or even the new mammoth HD scoreboard (so far there have been a lot of zeros in HD on that board).
The best move? No cheerleaders. And I’ll bet nobody has noticed because nobody has missed them. I haven’t received a single e-mail that said, “Hey, what the heck. No cheerleaders? I’m not coming to any more games. No cheerleaders? That’s un-American.”
Nothing against the hard-working young ladies and gentlemen who performed that duty last year, but cheerleaders at a baseball game doesn’t fit, doesn’t work. They don’t belong. They were like hood ornaments on cars. Why?
THE BEST thing for the Reds Sunday (maybe) had nothing to do with Easter baskets. It was the fact Pittsburgh started righthander Ian Snell. So far this year, it is just like last year. If the Easter Bunny is lefthanded you could stick him on the mound and he’ll beat the Reds.
That’s why acquiring a big righthanded bat in the offseason was so important but we’re still waiting to see his magical appearance. Maybe HE is the Eastern Bunny.
NICE ANECDOTE: Manager Dusty Baker was really angry after Saturday’s game, the one that ended with Jay Bruce getting doubled off first base because he ran hellbent for third base on a one-out fly ball.
Baker was definitely angry at Bruce. Then before Baker could summon Bruce into his office for a little verbal undressing, Bruce walked into his office.
“Jay came into my office before I could go to him,” said Baker. “I was going to wait until before today’s game. But he felt so bad he came in himself. He knew the situation and he even told Edwin Eincarnacion before the play, ‘One out.’
“He felt terrible,” said Baker. “I was so mad afterward, but after I saw how he felt it was hard to stay p.o.’d. It’s like your kid coming to you and saying, ‘Dad, I messed up.’ You are about to spank him, but you say, ‘OK, son, don’t do it again.’ “
Bruce is a lot like Homer Bailey. People forget their ages. Both are 22. “And Jay just turned 22 like last week,” said Baker. “I didn’t know that he was only 22.”
Yeah, Dusty, very young for a ball play but too old to spank, even for running bases that way.
It was the way Chris Sabo used to run the bases. It was like tee-ball. Run until you’re out. Run until you either score or somebody tags you out. We called it the Chris Sabo School of Baserunning. You had to wear goggles to graduate.
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