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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 > June > 18
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Votto 0 for 2 in Sarasota rehab debut
An on-the-spot report from my good friend Boomer Denis of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Joey Votto’s rehab debut Thursday for the Sarasota Reds:
As planned, Votto played six innings in a game the Reds lost to Clearwater, 2-0.
Batting third and playing first base, Votto walked on five pitches in the first inning. He was called out on strikes on four pitches in the fourth and popped out to left in foul territory in the sixth.
Defensively, he had 10 putouts and caught a hard line drive. He also made a nice stretch toward the mound to complete a double play.
Sarasota is off this weekend due to the Florida State League All-Star game, but Votto might play some Gulf Coast Rookie League intrasquad games over the weekend.
Votto did not talk with the media either before or after the game.
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TweetTaveras: Be kind to Willy Weekend?
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER was asking for a lot before Thursday’s game, asking for lenience, patience and compassion for Willy Taveras.
Despite going 8 for 80 (.090) over his previous 22 games, dropping his average from .322 to .224, Taveras remains in the lineup and Baker said that booing him and vilifying him does no good and, in fact, “makes it worse.”
Taveras was booed mightily in the second inning when he struck out on a bad pitch with two outs and the bases loaded. And it was even louder in the fifth when he popped out with two on and one out.
What do you think? Should a hometown player be supported during the hard times or should he be booed and hooted at?
YES, IT’S FRUSTRATING if you are a Reds fans After Baker said that, Taveras went 0 for 5 and stranded five runners. He struck out to end the game. Glaring, just glaring.
And it stands out even when the team loses, 7-0, as the Reds did to the Braves Thursday. And it stands out when the team averages 1.9 runs and 4.9 hits over a seven-game period (subtracting a seven-run, 10-hit explosions= Tuesday in a 7-2 win over the Braves).
The Reds did win two of three from the Braves and they still are one game over .500 and they still are in the NL Central hunt - along with everybody else.
MAYBE TAVERAS should do something drastic, like Dave Concepcion. When Concepcion was in a slump, he once took a shower completely dressed in his uniform, “To wash away the slump.”
When that didn’t work, the next day Concepcion had the team bus driver stop at a small park near Wrigley field where there was a statue of a general on a rearing horse. Concepcion raced to the pedestal and planted a kiss on, well, on the place where only a male horse could be kissed if he isn’t a gelding.
Davey went 5 for 5 that day.
Don’t know if I believe this one, but Ken Griffey Jr. told me once that when he buys a new car (which is often), if he goes hitless for three days, he sells the car. That’s when you know you have way too much money.
IT ALWAYS AMAZES me that when a guy is in free-fall like Taveras, inevitably the guy in the slump comes up time after time in important games situations, with men on base. It reminds me once of what former Montreal manager Gene Mauch said about playing a guy who was bad on defense: “No matter where you try to hide him, the baseball always finds him.”
STARTLING REVELATION: The start of today’s game was delayed 36 minutes. This season, in the first 65 games, there have been 12 rains delays totaling 674 minutes. That’s more than 11 hours. What could I do with those 11 hours? More sleep. Some Yuengling or LaBatt Blue? Some cigars?
As I stand around the clubhouse day after day after day waiting to interview a player, I often wonder, “How many hours of my life have passed standing in a clubhouse doing nothing?”
Hey, maybe this might work. Let’s officially make this weekend Be Kind to Willy Taveras Weekend. Shower him with cheers and kindness. Didn’t your mother always tell you kindness works better than hatred?
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TweetSinging and playing in the rain
They’re playing CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and just prior to that they played somebody’s version of “Singin’ in the Rain.” They even dragged out Prince’s “Purple Rain.”
So, you know what’s happening here in Great American Ball Park.
Yep. It’s raining. The tarp is on the field. The 12:30 game is on delay - the 12th rain delay this year for the Reds in 64 games. So, yeah, CCR, I have seen the rain, over and over and over and, frankly, I’m sick of it.
I’ve spent more time watching it rain than Noah.
JOEY VOTTO is in Sarasota and he is expected to play six innings at first base tonight for the SaraReds and let’s hope he makes it six without walking off the field.
GOOD RETORT from catcher/first baseman (or is it first baseman/catcher) Ramon Hernandez after manager Dusty Baker said he wanted Hernandez to catch a couple of games this weekend against the White Sox. Hernandez caught for the Orioles last year and Baker said that means he knows the Orioles hitter.
Said Hernandez, “I don’t know how well I know the hitters and it won’t make any difference if the pitchers don’t throw where they’re supposed to throw.” During Votto’s absence, Hernandez has played 15 of the last 17 games at first base. He was off Thursday.
“I started catching ground balls at first base and stopped hitting singles,” he said. He is 3 for 41 in his last 12 games, dropping his average from .281 to .240. “It has been a while since I caught and it feels weird when I get back there. I ask myself, ‘Am I seeing everything all right?’ “
Hernandez has been nothing short of fabulous at first base, where he had made one career start before Votto went on the DL in late May.
Reminds me of the time Johnny Bench’s knees would no longer permit him to squat behind home plate and he decided to try third base. It didn’t work. During spring training, on a lumpy infield in Tampa, ball after ball went through Bench’s legs. At one point, I wrote, “Johnny Bench at third base is doing a passable imitation of a croquet wicket.” He didn’t really appreciate that analogy, but we’re still friends.
A COUPLE OF years ago, it rained and rained and rained in Philadelphia. The game eventually was called, but I stayed at the park a couple of extra hours because it was still raining. I had on a new pair of shoes I didn’t want to get wet. Well, it finally stopped raining and I went out to the curb and hailed a cab. One stopped and when I stepped off the curb I immersed my feet in about 18 inches of water, up to my calf, inundating my new Johnston & Murphy shoes.
THEY JUST announced the game would start at 1:10 and it is 12:40 as they peel the tarp off the field. More rain is predicted and I wonder how umpire crew chief Joe West will handle his one. On Tuesday he had the teams playing in rains so heavy early in the game I expected to see Jay Bruce fleeing from a Great White in right field, also known at the time as a tributary of the Ohio River.
WITH HERNANDEZ out of the lineup, catcher Ryan Hanigan batted fifth instead of his usual seventh or eighth.
“Nothing permanent,” said manager Dusty Baker. “With Hernandez resting and with Joey Votto and Edwin Encarnacion out of the lineup, right now this is the best lineup I can come up with. Hanigan is swinging good and can do some things with the bat. But I told him to pretend he was batting where he always bats, do the same thing, don’t try to do anything different.”
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