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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 > 20
Monday, April 20, 2009
A gamble that paid off for Baker
Sometimes in baseball things work out when they shouldn’t work out. In the case of the Cincinnati Reds, things are going their way so much these days that even when manager Dusty Baker thumbs his nose at fate it smiles and shakes his hand.
That was the case Monday night against the Houston Astros when the Reds held a 4-3 lead in the eighth inning. A string of righthanded batters awaited, the usual spot for righthander David Weathers.
But wait. What’s this? That’s lefthander Arthur Rhodes walking in from the bullpen. Where’s Weathers? Where’s Mike Lincoln? Where’s Jared Burton?
Baker explained that he wanted to stay away from Weathers because he threw 28 pitches in one inning Sunday. And Burton has been bad his last two attempts, so this wasn’t the spot to let him work out his troubles. Lincoln? Who knows.
It wasn’t pretty — it was damn ugly. But Rhodes wriggled free in the eighth. He gave up a leadoff double, the would-be tying run, to righthanded pinch-hitter Jason Michaels. Kazuo Matsui bunted Michaels to third. One out, tying run on third.
Rhodes then walked righthander Miguel Tejada, bringing up switch-hitter Lance Berkman, who is much better lefthanded than righthanded. Berkman homered early in the game against starter Bronson Arroyo (3-0).
Berkman hit a weak, shallow fly ball to right, too short to score Michaels after the catch. Two outs, two on.
That brought up Carlos Lee, who homered against Arroyo immediately after Berkman homered. Rhodes fell behind 3-and-0, caught up at 3-and-2, but still walked Lee to fill the bases.
That brought up Hunter Pence, 0 for 3 this year with the bases loaded. Now he’s 0 for 4. Rhodes got him looking at strike three on a 3-and-2 pitch.
Baker: “We wanted to stay away from Weathers if we could. We knew Berkman was better lefthanded than righthanded, so Rhodes would turn him around. He didn’t have much of a record against Lee (1 for 3, home run) and Pence hits righthanders much better than lefthanders.”
Then Baker smiled and said, “But I was saying in the dugout, ‘C’mon, Arthur. C’mon, dude, you can do it.’”
He did.
WHAT’S WRONG with Brandon Phillips? He is 0 for 17 on the current road trip and didn’t get the ball out of the infield Monday - 0 for 4 with a strikeout. His average: .158.
PAUL JANISH played shortstop Monday and was on base three times with two hits and a hit by pitch. His single to open the seventh started the Reds’ two-run winning rally. Janish is hitting .400.
RYAN HANIGAN started at catcher, as he has all three games started by Bronson Arroyo (3-and-0). Hanigan had a hit and threw out a base-stealer. He is 3-for-3 at throwing out base thieves and he is hitting .273.
ARROYO is the first Reds pitcher to win his first three decisions since LHP Pete Schourek in 1996. He, too, started 3-0. RHP Jack Armstrong, a rookie, started 5-0 in his first five starts in 1990.
Schourek’s nickname was The Riverboat Captain, so dubbed by manager Davey Johnson because Schourek liked to spend his off-hours on casino boats playing blackjack.
Armstrong’s nickname was The Tuna Boat Captain, so dubbed by yours truly the year after his rookie season. He was not happy with what the Reds offered him monetarily and refused to report to camp. When I visited him at his condo he said, “I could make more money working on a tuna boat than what the Reds offered me.”
I dubbed him The Tuna Boat Captain and wrote it. When he finally agreed to terms and reported to camp, his teammates were ready. His locker was filled with a yellow rain slicker, a large pair of yellow rain boots, a very large compass, a fishing net, a fishing pole and many other nautical items.
He laughed, held up his arm as if it were a whistle and said, “Toot, toot.”
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TweetHubcaps: Eat ‘em or wear ‘em
What you see on the streets of a big city is amazing.
On Monday afternoon in Houston, while sitting in McCoy’s Fine Cigars enjoying an Ashton VSG, a guy walked by the shop wearing a Buick hubcap around his neck, dangling from a large chain. That’s strange enough, but nobody gave him a second glance. And why Buick? Why not Mercedes?
And no it wasn’t a member of the Reds batting order trying something different to shake the doldrums.
SPEAKING OF HUBCAPS, I discovered a burger joint in downtown Houston called Hubcaps. It’s a dive of a place down a side street and the building is covered with old hubcaps and maybe that’s where the guy got his hubcap.
Anyway, the burgers are some of the best I’ve ever eaten and the french fries are scrumptious, too. I had a cheeseburger with jalapeno peppers (fresh ones). OK, so today everybody knows I’m coming from 20 feet away and my cholesterol is off the charts.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER switched up the lineup a bit, finally benching Alex (.069) Gonzalez and inserting Paul Janish at shortstop. Ryan Hanigan also was in the lineup at catcher in place of Ramon Hernandez, but Hanigan is the catcher of choice for Bronson Arroyo. Hanigan started the previous two games Arroyo started.
And Darnell McDonald was in right field instead of Laynce Nix, who started the last two games in place of injured Jay Bruce.
Bruce hopes to play Tuesday in Chicago, where it is supposed to be 30 degrees with snow/rain/sleet — all that stuff postmen hate and all that stuff Wrigley Field’s Bleacher Bums ignore by going without shirts.
“At least they got the swelling out of Bruce’s (right) hand,” said Baker. “They’ve got some kind of miracle patch they put on and it works fast. They did it with Jerry Hairston Jr. and Willy Taveras. Amazing stuff.”
As for Gonzalez, the day off is part of a plan and has nothing to do with his close to zero batting average. As for Hanigan, “Bronson is 2-0 with him, so it’s a perfect time. And Gonzo? What’s he played, three games in a row? I’ll try to push him to four (three in Chicago and Friday night at home). We’ll give him Saturday off, a day game, and then we’ll push him to five or six games in a row.”
In other words, Baker has a plan to rest Gonzalez at periodically to rebuild the stamina he lost from not playing at all last season and not playing much in spring training.
“And tonight gives Janish a chance to play, and a chance to play in front of his home, in front of family and friends,” said Baker. “It means a lot for guys to play in front of the home folks.
“I just knew (Texan) Laynce Nix would play good Sunday (a double and a single in two at-bats) after having a bad game Saturday (0-for-3 with three strikeouts),” said Baker.
BAKER INSISTS he isn’t big on a pitcher selecting a personal catcher, but he heard Arroyo express concerns during spring training when catcher Ramon Hernandez was away playing in the WBC and they didn’t work much together.
“Hanigan and Arroyo work well together, plus Arroyo has a different set of signs,” said Baker. “I don’t like that designated catcher sort of thing, but the way things have worked out is good. Hanigan has caught everybody, but Ramon probably caught Arroyo the least amount of time from the time he got back to spring training.”
Of Arroyo’s spring training concern, Baker said, “I heard him. He didn’t say anything to me, but I heard him. It’s important. Very important that guys work together.”
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