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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 > May > 29
Friday, May 29, 2009
Of Votto and to bunt or not to bunt
The intrigue was so thick in the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse after the game I felt as if I should put on a belted trench coach with the collar turned up and wear a message pouch over my shoulder.
Once again, for the third time this season, Joey Votto left a game early with dizziness and wooziness from his inner ear infection.
After the Reds completed their 3-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers Friday night, manager Dusty Baker’s office door was shut for 45 minutes. Inside were Baker, Votto, GM Walt Jocketty and trainer Mark Mann.
After 45 minutes, the door opened.
And? And? And?
Nothing. Nothing was done. Votto was not put on the disabled list and nobody was called up. However, the sneaking suspicion here is that they don’t know who to call up, but something has to happen. They have to get Votto right. They can’t keep putting him on an airplane, then lose him the next day when he gets dizzy.
A guess. They’ll put Votto on the DL and call up Wilkin Castillo, who is an infielder-outfielder who can catch. That way Ramon Herandez can play first base - where he does well - Ryan Hanigan can catch - where he does well - and Castillo can be the back-up catcher.
There is no viable first baseman in the system to replace Votto. No, no, no, no. It won’t be Yonder Alonso.
MEANWHILE, it appears Brandon Phillips and his fractured right thumb might be in Saturday’s lineup. Baker liked what he saw of Phillips in batting practice Friday, liked it so much that he sent him up to pinch-hit in the ninth inning against closer Trevor Hoffman. And what did Phillips do? He bunted. He bunted hard right back to Hoffman and was thrown out.
AND I STILL get chills when those damn bells begin bonging to announce the arrival of Hoffman, the introduction to the song, Hell’s Bells. Hoffman has 12 saves in 12 opportunities. Despite throwing 85 miles an hour fastballs and 70 miles an hour change-ups, he has given up no runs and six hits over 14 innings.
Amazing, Incredible. How DOES he do it. He jokingly said this spring that he would like the radar gun operator on the scoreboard to pump a few extra miles an hour onto his fastball.
ANYBODY remember when Hoffman was an infielder in the Reds’ minor-league system and was picked up by the Florida Marlins in the expansion draft? He was a shortstop.
ONE MAJOR question about Friday’s game. The Reds were down, 3-2, when former Cincinnati bullpenner Todd Coffey gave up back-to-back singles in the eighth to Alex Gonzalez and Adam Rosales.
Chris Dickerson was sent up to pinch-hit for starting pitcher Johnny Cueto. A bunt? Put runners on second and third with one out? Nope. No bunt. Dickerson swung away and hit into a double play.
Before he could even be asked, Baker brought it up himself and said, “I suppose you want to know what we didn’t bunt right there?” Yeah, we do. And here is his explanation.
Baker said he never thought about having Dickerson bunt the runners to second and third, “Willy Taveras (the hitter after Dickerson) hasn’t beed hitting too good and Dickerson has. Willy is hitting only .220 over the past few games and Dickerson hadn’t hit into a double play all year.”
Now he has.
Brewers second baseman Craig Counsell made a fantastic play on Dickerson’s chopper. If he threw to second, he wouldn’t have time to throw to second to start a double play. But Rosales was right in front of him and he tagged him, then threw to first.
“I told Rosales that in that situation he can’t get tagged out,” said Baker. “He has to stop or run him over, then we still have first and third with one out. It’s part of the learning process, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept this loss when you have action going.”
I agree. Rosales gave himself up. He could have prevented the DP. But I believe Dickerson should have been bunting. If Taveras hasn’t been hitting - and he hasn’t - after Dickerson bunted the runners to second and third, send up a pinch-hitter for Taveras. Jonny Gomes wasn’t doing anything.
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TweetVotto leaves another game
It looks as if the Cincinnati Reds are going to have to ship Joey Votto by UPS truck (ground delivery only) or send him on a bus or put him on a horse or hire a limousine to get him from one city to the next.
Obviouisly, right now, Votto can’t fly.
Every time he flies, his inner ear infection acts up and he has to leave a game. It happened again Friday night in Milwaukee. Votto started at first base in poppe3d to short in the first inning, but when the Reds went to the field for the bottom of the second Votto was not with him. Ramon Hernandez took over at first base.
Votto and the Reds rode a charter flight Thursday night from Cincinnati to ilwaukee. On their previous trip, the Reds were on charters from Cincinnati to Phoenix and then from Phoenix to San Diego. Votto left a game in Phoenix and tried to play in San Diego but left the first game there, too.
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TweetDusty Baker: Take a bow, dude
Midwest Express jumped to the top of my list, for this week anyway, and not just because the flight attendants serve two chocolate chip cookies hot out of the oven on every flight.
My flight from Dayton to Milwaukee left 13 minutes early and arrived 20 minutes early - all 10 of us, including two guys whose names I didn’t catch who stopped me to tell me they were from Troy and Dayton and were flying to Milwaukee just to see the Cincinnati Reds and Brewers.
WATCHING the Brewers take early batting practice and Corey Hart finished a session and flung his bat farther than most balls he had just hit. I’m no hitting coach, but I don’t think that’s good. Former Brewers beat writer Drew Olsen saw it and said he once saw Scott Posednik come into the clubhouse in Pittsburgh’s PNC Park and take his bat to his dressing stall after a soft-toss session in whic a coach stands five feet away and lobs pitches to you and you hit it into a net.
“It was on a Sunday and Podsednik lost it at 10:30 in the morning,” said Olsen.
THERE WERE several Brewers taking extra hitting at 3 o’clock Friday. The Brew Crew has scored 24 runs in their last nine and 12 runs in the last six.
Is that Johnny Cueto, Aaron Harang and Micah Owings licking their chops and rubbing their hands together. Well, if they’re rubbing their hands together it might be because, yes, it is colllllllld again in Milwaukee. One time I asked Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel beat writer Tom Haudricourt if the sun ever shines in Milwaukee and he said, “Oh, yeah. Every year on August 10.”
LOOKS AS if The Brandon Phillips Plan didn’t work. Even though he has a hairline fracture on the tip of his right thumb, he hoped to play tonight against the Brewers in this mammoth series. No go. He isn’t in the lineup.
The lineup: Willy Taveras, CF; Jerry Hairston Jr., 2B; Joey Votto, 1B; Ramon Hernandez, C; Jay Bruce, RF; Laynce Nix, LF; Alex Gonzalez, SS; Adam Rosales, 3B; Johnny Cueto, P.
And here is a dilemma for manager Dusty Baker to figure out. He is platooning Laynce Nix and Jonny Gomes in left field — Nix against righthanded pitchers and Gomes against lefthanded pitchers. And both are hot.
The problem? Milwaukee is throwing three righthanders at the Reds and the Cardinals are throwing two righthanders in the first two games and haven’t announced their pitchers for the third and fourth games.
Other than pinch-hit, how does Gomes get any playing time?
Now isn’t that a nice problem to have, for once? Instead of running players out there who are more likely to strikeout than put the ball in play, Baker has options. And the options are good options.
And I don’t know about many of you, but I’m a bit weary of the whiners who want Baker fired. Gimme a break, guys. If you are going to strut and brag about the Reds being 26-20 right now, you have to aim plenty of the credit to Baker. The players are responding to him. They are hustling, they are having fun, they are confident. We all put a lot of the blame on past managers for the team having no fire and no desire, so now that it has it - take a bow, Dusty Baker.
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