'Makeover' viewing party
Bedrooms in 'Makeover' house
Exterior of 'Makeover' house
Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy is in his 37th year of covering the Cincinnati Reds, the longest tenure for any active writer covering one team. Counting spring training and postseason games, McCoy has covered more than 7,000 major-league baseball games, written close to 18,000 baseball stories and eaten enough hot dogs to give Babe Ruth indigestion.Home > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2009 > June
June 2009
A bad night all around in Cincinnati
WASN’T CINCINNATI once a baseball town? I remember it clearly. Back in the 70s.
What happened? On Tuesday night Joey Votto returned to Cincinnati in the lineup for the first time since his stress-related stint on the DL. I expected a deafening standing ovation when he came to bat the first time.
Instead, there was a smattering of applause. I’ve heard louder applause for a dog standing on its hind legs begging for a bone in front of an ice cream story.
Shameful and embarrassing.
And speaking of shameful and embarrassing, how about those Reds Tuesday night? They didn’t have a hit until Jay Bruce’s two-out single in the fifth and Bronson Arroyo took over the league lead in home runs allowed (20) by giving up back-to-backers during a three-run sixth inning.
The first was hit by No. 8 hitter Miguel Montero and the next was hit by pitcher Dan Haren, who also held the Reds to one run and four hits over seven innings in a 6-2 win. It snapped Arizona’s five-game losing streak and was their second win in the last 10 games.
BRONSON ARROYO, the man who never met a first inning he liked, went 1-2-3 in the first Tuesday. Then he retired the first two in the second before walking the next two. No problem, thanks to Jay Bruce.
Monero singled to right and Chris Young was waved homeward from second. Apparently third base coach Chip Hale forgot to read the scouting report, the one that said, “Run on Jay Bruce at your own risk.” He ran. He risked. Bruce’s throw was so swift and true that Young gave up 15 feet from home plate - just trotted into the tag.
Bruce now has nine assists, tied for the league lead with Washington’s Elijah Dukes.
BEST ARM I ever saw: A one-armed slot machine bandit at the MGM Grand in Vegas that paid me $750 once. Second best arm I ever saw dangles from the shoulder of Josh Hamilton. In spring training two years ago I saw him throw a ball from the right field corner to the third base bag on the fly, the ball starting out about five feet above the ground and reached third five feet above the ground. If there had been a horse standing between the mound and second base, Hamilton would have dropped it dead.
WITH TWO outs and a runner on first in the third, Justin Upton hit a ball between second and first. Second baseman Brandon Phillips made a sliding stop and ended up on the seat of his britches. Instead of holding the ball, he threw it while sitting in the grass and it skipped past first baseman Joey Votto.
Two hits later, the Diamondbacks led, 3-0.
SCOUT’S ASSESSMENT of Phillips: “Too much ESPN-itis. He’ll make the spectacular play and he’ll try to turn the routine play into a spectacular one, too, and mess it up.”
MEANWHILE, the Reds were helpless babes against Danny Haren. They didn’t have a runner on base until there were two outs in the fourth. Haren was perfect until then, 11 up, 11 down. He walked Joey Votto with two outs in the fourth, but that’s it. Nothing else. A no-hitter after four.
Bruce broke up the no-hitter in the fifth with a two-out single.
NO-HITTERS I have covered:
Rick Wise of the Cardinals threw a no-hitter against the Reds in Riverfront Stadium. And he hit two home runs that day.
Tom Seaver, known more as a New York Met than a Cincinnati Red, threw his only no-hitter while wearing a Reds uniform. Oddly, Seaver’s best friend was catcher Johnny Bench (and they remain tight to this day). But Bench didn’t catch that day. A kid named Donnie Werner caught the no-hitter.
Tom Browning’s perfect game against the Dodgers in a rain-delayed game that didn’t start until after 10 p.m. and ended just before midnight. Few fans were left, but Browning says he has had about 400,000 people tell him they were there that night.
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Encarnacion’s mysterious day off
Edwin Encarnacion was scheduled to play today for the Louisville Bats, but he was not in the lineup and didn’t play at all. Adam Rosales played third base.
A setback? Something wrong?
Nobody really knows. The Reds made some quick calls and were told that nothing is wrong with Encarnacion, “Just a manager’s decision.”
A long-time employee of the Reds said he had never heard of such a thing - that when the team sent a player down on rehab he always plays, unless there is a problem.
And the strange thing is that the Bats are off tomorrow, so Encarnacion would get a day off then. Now he gets two in a row.
As was pointed out by a Reds official, Encarnacion played only six innings his first game on rehab, seven innings the next game, he DHed for two games, “So he can’t be tired and can’t be in need of a rest.”
EVEN IF ENCARNACION is OK and on track, manager Dusty Baker said there is no plan to activate him on this six-game homestand against Arizona and St. Louis.
“I’m not counting on him for the homestand,” he said. “Optimistically, maybe the next road trip.”
CATCHER RYAN HANIGAN (.321), outfielder Jonny Gomes (.343) and outfielder Chris Dickerson (.279 - .467 over his last 11 games) were all to be in the dugout when tonight’s game begins against the Diamondbacks.
Willy Taveras was in center and leading off, Ramon Hernandez was catching and Laynce Nix was in left field.
Manager Dusty Baker says he has a plan.
“I’m going to get them in there like I’ve been doing,” he said. “I’d rather have that than a bunch of guys who aren’t hitting. Taveras had success against this team (Arizona) at their place. And the games against the American League helped them all get some at-bats with the DH.
“You can’t play everybody but I have a plan to keep ‘em sharp and productive and a plan to help us at the same time,” Baker added. “We knew this could potentially happen when we started. You don’t have a good team unless you have too many good bodies.
“Gomes is my left fielder against lefthanded pitchers because he has been deadly against lefthanders,” Baker added. “Dickerson is making big progress against lefthanders and that’s why I’m not afraid to throw him in there.”
Even though he continues to struggle, Jay Bruce plays every day and Baker said, “Jay needs the at-bats and experience to be what he is going to be. If not, you’ll be thwarting his progress. And he is starting to swing better - more selective, hitting the ball harder.”
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Brandon Phillips at his best (worst?)
May I borrow a phrase?
We have, “That’s Rickey being Rickey (Rickey Henderson).” And we have, “That’s Manny being Manny (Manny Ramirez).” And on Sunday in Cleveland we had, “That’s Brandon being Brandon.”
Brandon, a cooperative and delightful interview for most of the season, has his athletic supporter in a knot these days because all three Cincinnati Reds beat writers wrote about all the ramifications after he ignored a take sign in Kansas City.
With the bases loaded and two outs, Phillips had a 3-and-0 count. Third base coach Mark Berry flashed the take sign. Not only did Phillips not see it, he didn’t look for it, saying later that since the team was struggling at the time he was up there to make things happen.
What he made happen was a pop-up to end the inning and one angry manager.
FAST FORWARD to now. Phillips isn’t saying hello and cracking one-liners at the media as he was earlier this season. He is back to being sullen and answering questions like a wise guy.
Brandon being Brandon. Before Sunday’s game, Phillips was 1 for 16 and 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position. In the second inning, he banged a two-run single and in the fifth he ripped a run-scoring single - three hits, three RBIs, three runs scored.
It helped the Reds beat the Indians, 8-1, on a day the Reds had 15 hits after they had 13 on Saturday in a 7-3 win.
Now here is a transcript of Brandon’s post-game set-to with the media:
CLEVELAND WRITER: Nice day for your birthday.
BRANDON PHILLIPS: “Is it my birthday? Just another day. Another blessed day.”
REDS WRITER: “You didn’t know it was your birthday?”
BP: “Today is just another blessed day.”
CW: “Have you been feeling better the last couple of days? Any difference?
BP: “Why, do I look different or something?”
CW: “No, just … have you, uh, did you feel better than the last few days?”
BP: “When did it start? When are we talking about?”
CW: “You’ve been struggling a little bit lately …”
BP: “I’ve been struggling? Really?”
CW: “Well … I don’t know.”
BP: “Any positive questions? Anybody got a positive question?
RW: “Was it nice to do this against a former team?”
BP: “Yes, it is. That’s a positive question. It’s good to do something positive, a game like I had today, especially on my birthday, you know what I’m saying? Especially with a win for the team. I’m glad we won the game. We should have swept ‘em, but we’ll take two out of three.”
RW: “Nice to see the team get 28 hits in two games after …”
BP: “That’s another positive question. Yes, it is. We were hitting the ball where they weren’t, where they can’t catch it. Everybody came through. I got a key hit today. And Micah Owings, he did his thing today. It was all about M.O. He did his thing today. Probably was the best game he ever pitched.”
From there, Phillips loosened a bit, but it was both a humorous and uncomfortable exchange on a day Phillips should have been one happy guy, especially on his 28th birthday. Do I think he really didn’t know it was his birthday? Not a chance. It was part of his schtick right now - Brandon being Brandon.
OTHER THAN PHILLIPS, Ramon Hernandez had a triple, double and a single, a home run shy of the cycle. And he tried for it, swinging from his heels in the ninth and nearly fell down. He laughed and said, “I tried, man. I really tried.” He later filed deep to right.
During the six games of the Ohio Cup, Hernandez was 9 for 19 (.474) and won the Most Outstanding Player trophy. In case you care, the Reds won the Ohio Cup, four games to two. “I knew these two teams had something going on between them, but I didn’t know what it was,” said Hernandez. “But winning the award is cool. Really neat.”
Michal Owings won for only the second time in nine starts, but struggled - one run, five hits, four walks, one hit batter, 106 pitches in six innings.
WILLY TAVERAS had three hits, including a bunt single during a four-run second inning. Jay Bruce had two hits. Jonny Gomes hit a home run and did something no other player ever did on the Reds.
The Reds played nine interleague games on the road and Gomes was the DH in all nine games. No other players in Reds’ franchise history was ever the DH for every interleague road game.
“And I got at least one hit in all nine games,” said Gomes.
“Why did you tell him?” Bruce asked me. “Now he is going to have to find a bigger hat.”
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Pulling for Homer Bailey’s succes
Former Chicago baseball writer Jerome Holtzman wrote a book, “No Cheering in the Pressbox” and, for the most part, that credo is followed. No cheering.
The only time in my 37-year career when I saw everybody in a pressbox cheer was when Pete Rose slapped his 4,192nd career hit off San Diego’s Eric Show to pass Ty Cobb. Everybody in the pressbox stood and cheered and applauded.
To me, that was acceptable. I was one of those who stood and cheered. We’ll never see that happen again.
I SAY THIS because I didn’t stand and cheer for Homer Bailey Saturday night. It’s hard to stand and applaud when a guy staggers through five innings and walks seven guys.
But, to be truthful, I’m pulling for him.
Here is a guy who signed out of high school, an 18-year-old drafted No. 1. Talk about pressure. So he has struggled with his tastes of major-league baseball, bouncing back and forth between the minors and the majors like a Standard Duncan yo-yo.
Think about it this way - and manager Dusty Baker says it all the time. If Bailey hadn’t signed and gone to college, he would have been drafted last year and probably been in Class A ball. Instead, he has pitched some in the majors for three years.
“He is an underclassman pitching against upperclassmen,” said Baker. “The guys who didn’t sign out of high school the year Bailey did and went on to college, well, they’re just starting their pro careers and Homer is three or four years ahead of them.”
It wasn’t pretty or fun Saturday night watching Homer stagger and struggle with his command. Despite the seven walks in five innings, he gave up only three hits and the best party? He won. The Reds won, 7-3, beating the Cleveland Indians.
It was Bailey’s first win in the majors since September 30, 2007 against the Cubs and after the victory he said, “Truthfully, all I thought about today was getting a win. And thanks to great help from my teammates, I got that win and the team got that win. I was terrible, but we won, so who cares?”
What I like most about Bailey is how much he has changed as a person. His first four years he was short and snotty and condescending to the media. But either somebody got to him or he has matured. This year he is a delight - cooperative, smiling, throwing out good quotes, self-deprecating.
So I pull for him. I don’t cheer. That’s not allowed. But inside my gut, I’d like to see him succeed. He has had it rough, battling high expectations at a young age. A lot of kids would have folded, but Bailey hasn’t.
And here’s a tip. If you meet him, put your hands in your pockets. DO NOT shake hands with him. I shook hands with him today and my knuckles still ache. His grip would squeeze the head off a rattlesnake.
I’d like to say, “Homer, this Blue’s for you.” But after shaking hands with him, I can’t hold a beer.
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A night of Red-faced embarrassments
You can sugar coat it, say it was just one of those games, throw a blanket over it to make it go away.
But it’s there and it stunk to high heaven. A genuine embarrassment.
Cleveland Indians 9, Cincinnati Reds 2. It was 9-0 while fans were still finding their seats.
They had one hit over seven innings against lefthander Jeremy Sowers, who was 1-5 with a 5.95 ERA.
Embarrassing.
The Indians had lost eight of nine and in the last 11 days had blown two five-run leads and a seven-run lead. Not even close on this night.
Embarrassing.
Aaron Harang, the so-called team ace, is 0-4 over his last six starts with a 5.03 ERA. And he gave up seven runs (five earned) in 4 2/3 innings to the last place Indians. And 10 screeching and howling hits.
Brandon Phillips made a la-de-dah throw from second base, a lob that bounced in front of first baseman Joey Votto and skipped past for a throwing error that led to two unearned run. Then Phillips hit one that he thought was a home run and went into his strut, but the ball hit the top of the wall and bounced back in.
Phillips is being short and snippy with the media since we all reported that he refused to look for a sign from the third base coach in Kansas City and swung at a 3-and-0 pitch when he had the take sign.
Embarrassing. Embarrassing. Embarrassing. Phillips has too much talent to piddle it away.
There were fireworks after the game and fireworks during the game by the Indians, not the Reds, who are back to two games under .500.
There was a rumor that Shaquille O’Neal would throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game. He was acquired this week by the Cleveland Cavaliers from the Phoenix Suns. Had he done it, he would have been the biggest pitcher in the history of major-league baseball.
The rumor was false, but during the game it looked as if some of the Reds pitchers were throwing basketballs toward home plate.
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O Canada, almost my native land
I almost became a Canadian citizen today - but that’s getting ahead of the story.
I went to bed after the game in Toronto at 1 a.m. and got up groggily at 4 a.m. for my 6:45 a.m. flight to Cleveland. After standing in line 30 minutes, when I got to the agent she told me, “Your flight has been canceled. The first flight we can get you on is Sunday.”
Sunday? I would miss all three games with the Indians. I asked her to check connections to get me to Cleveland before the afternoon and she said, “All our flights are overbooked. Everywhere. No seats. We can’t even get you out of here on Saturday because that flight is overbooked. We only have one flight a day to Cleveland.”
It was cold in that terminal, but I was hot. I stayed in front of her for 30 minutes as the line behind me lengthened. I wasn’t leaving. Finally, out of desperation to get rid of me, she said, “Air Canada has a direct flight later this morning, but we’ve sent other people over there for flights to different cities and they send them back. Won’t honor our tickets.”
What to do, what to do? I took the big gamble.
“Where’s Air Canada?” I asked. “Go outside and get on the red bus and go to Terminal 1,” she said. I waited outside for 20 minutes. No red bus. I figured it out. It was a blue bus. She was either getting even or she is color blind.
I walked up to the Air Canada agent (there wasn’t even a line) and plopped down my Continental ticket to Cleveland and the agent said, “That’s Continental and it’s two terminals down.”
“I know,” I said. “My flight to Cleveland was cancelled and I was hoping to get on your flight.”
She took my ticket and said, “No problem. We have seats.” And in 10 minutes, I was on Air Canada/Jazz Airlines (I didn’t see or hear Louie Armstrong). And the sad thing? There were about 10 empty seats that those folks who couldn’t get out of Toronto to Cleveland until Sunday could have used.
AFTER GETTING to Cleveland, I sat down in a park across the street from the hotel to let my blood pressure settle. A street person dressed in what once was a white T-shirt but was more black than white, a pair of baggy, threadbare jeans and scraggly sneakers, sat on the next bench.
“That a Cuban?” he asked about my cigar. People always think my cigars are Cuban. This was an Ashton Cabinet No. 8. Then the guy amazed me. He began talking about solar power, Will Rogers, global warming, Paul Brown and Watergate. The guy was intelligent and said, “I read the Encyclopedia Britannica when I was a kid.”
I finished my cigar and tossed away a small butt. He jumped from his seat and grabbed it, sticking it in his mouth. “When you don’t have what the monkey has, take what the monkey leaves,” he said.
I think I was insulted.
WALT JOCKETTY made a trade with the Chicago White Sox today, but it wasn’t for Jermaine Dye. It was for catcher Corky Miller, his second go-round with the Reds. Miller was never more than a back-up catcher with the Reds from 2001-04 and his career batting average is .179 over nine major-league seasons.
He was acquired because the system is short of catchers, especially at Class AAA Louisville, with Wilkin Castillo gone for the season. And catcher Devin Mesoraco, the Reds’ No. 1 draft pick in 2007 is progressing slowly.
Miller’s cost was outfielder Norris Hopper. Not surprising. First Ryan Freel, now Hopper. Last year when Freel and Hopper were on the DL most of the season, they didn’t endear themselves by spending most of their time at home instead of around the ballpark with their teammates.
Now they’re both gone.
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Votto’s little twin brothers mean a lot
THERE WERE TWO little kids with dark hair, wearing miniature Reds uniforms, running around the Reds clubhouse Thursday. They were twin 9-year-olds, Ryan and Paul.
Their last name is Votto. They are Joey’s youngest brothers and it snaps you to reality, makes you realize what Joey felt when his 52-year-old father, Joe, died last August.
Not only was Joey without a father, but there were two 9-year-old boys who didn’t understand. And it was Joey wondering how his young brothers would survive without a father and with big brother running around the country with a baseball team.
Joey Votto knew what was more important. Baseball was his life. But real life was the health and well-being of a couple of cute little guys with broad smiles and no knowledge of the real world.
So I doubly salute Votto now for realizing what is really important and for his deep feelings that eventually led to depression and anxiety. It is a tough burden to bear.
WITH HIS LITTLE brothers in the clubhouse before the game, Votto took charge of the game Thursday night with four hits, three RBIs and a game-winning home run.
Votto’s double in the first drove in a run that helped the Reds construct a 4-0 lead. But just as he did in his last start, when he couldn’t protect a 5-0 lead against the Chicago White Sox in the Reds’ 10-8 loss, Cueto couldn’t protect a 4-0 lead in the first and a 5-1 lead in the second Thursday against the Blue Jays.
Votto gave him the fifth run in the second inning with a two-out single. Then when Cueto permitted the Toronto Blue Jays to tie it, 5-5, Votto blasted a first-pitch leadoff home run in the seventh for the lead.
Willy Taveras had three hits, two of them bunts. One was a suicide squeeze bunt in the eighth that he turned into a run-scoring hit for a 7-5 lead and the final score.
But the night belonged to Pal Joey.
“It was really nice to have my brothers in the clubhouse,” he said.
Some thought it too much pressure for Votto to come off rehab and return to play in his hometown of Toronto. But he thrives on it.
“I always want to play well and definitely in front of family and friends I want to play well,” he said. “If we had lost with the kind of night I had it would have been very disappointing to have left here swept. Playing well and winning was very big.
“The beautiful thing about baseball is that there is always a new game, another day,” said Votto. “It kind of parallels life sometimes in that every single day, you always get a new one. It was nice feeling good and not having to think about the problems I was having.”
Said Baker, “He said he wanted to come here and play and we were surprised he was ready to play so soon after playing only three games on rehab (four, actually). It means a lot to him, his family and his countrymen. And it certainly means a lot to us.
“Joey is an honest guy, as honest as you’ll find,” said Baker. “And he said he was ready. When he says he is ready we welcome him back with open arms.”
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It’s official: Bailey pitches Saturday
As if everybody didn’t already know, including Homer Bailey, the Cincinnati Reds made it official today: Bailey pitches Saturday in Cleveland.
The wait to make it official is because general manager Walt Jocketty prefers to inform the player first, and they don’t inform the player until it’s time to pack and go.
That is in case something happens between the time the player is informed and it is time for him to pitch, such as an injury.
Bailey, 8-5 with a 2.71 ERA at Class AAA Louisville, gets his second start of the year for the Reds and the first-round draft pick in 2004 gets his second chance this year against the Indians.
He made a one-start cameo appearance on May 23 and it did not go well. Bailey gave up six runs on three hits and six walks in 4 2/3 innings in Great American Ball Park. He hasn’t won a big-league game since 2007 when he was 4-2 with a 5.76 ERA in nine starts.
Last year he was 0-6 with a 7.93 ERA in eight starts.
At Louisville this year, he has won five of his last six starts with three games in which he gave up no runs and one in which he gave up only one.
Has he improved?
Bailey faced the Columbus Clippers on June 12. Using his newly acquired split-finger fastball he pitched 8 2/3 innings, giving up six hits and one run while walking two and striking out nine.
Clippers pitching coach Scott Radinsky told Columbus Dispatch writer Jim Massie that the split-finger “was dropping like a Kamikaze on a battle ship” and he had never seen him better.
Reports said Homer was throwing 94 in the first inning, 95 to 96 in the middle innings and 97 in the ninth. And the baseball doesn’t move any quicker in Columbus than it should in Cleveland.
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Taveras back at leadoff, Votto bats fourth
MOST OF YOU aren’t going to like this: Willy Taveras is back in the lineup Thursday, back in center field, back in the leadoff spot.
Leadoff? Why? Chris Dickerson is in the lineup, too, but he is in left field and batting ninth. If it’s me - and I’m not a manager, just an observer - I bat Dickerson leadoff and Taveras ninth. But then Dickerson isn’t setting any offensive noteworthies, either.
Manager Dusty Baker made one slight tweak. He flip-flopped Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips, putting Phillips third and Votto fourth (his first role as clean-up this season).
THE LINEUP: Willy Taveras CF, Jerry Hairston Jr., Brandon Phillips 2B, Joey Votto 1B, Jonny Gomes DH, Ramon Hernandez C, Jay Bruce RF, Paul Janish SS, Chris Dickerson LF, Johnny Cueto P.
WAYNE GRETZKY is in trouble - and I wanted to help him Thursday. But a gigantic thunderstorm with a lightning bolt that seemed to hit about 100 feet away stopped me.
Gretzky is making $8 million a year as coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. The Coyotes are in trouble and there is talk of moving them to Hamilton - Ontario, not Ohio.
Even though he is Canadian, Gretzky wants to stay in Phoenix. A story in the Toronto Globe & Mail the other day asked Gretzky if he would take a pay cut from the $8 million a year to $1.5 million. He said yes. Poor guy. Just $1.5 million.
So I was going to have lunch at his restaurant in Toronto, just two blocks from my hotel. Help him out, y’know. Just a three-minute walk, a bellman said. Just as I was about to leave, the thunderstorm intervened.
Sorry, Wayne.
THEN I decided maybe I’d take a trip to the top of the CN Tower, a cement pillar with a restaurant on top. Until 2005, it was the tallest free-standing building in the world at 1,815 feet. Then I found out it cost $32 to go to the top. Are they donating to Gretzky’s salary?
I’ll pass and see Toronto from up above when my flight leaves at 6:45 a.m. tomorrow.
THERE WAS QUITE a bit of noise and loud music from the room next to me last night. When I left my room this morning there was a large pile of red athletic jerseys outside the door. I could have picked one up for free, but they were dirty and sweaty.
Later I saw a gentleman folding the jerseys and asked, “What team?” Said he, “The New York Red Bulls.” For the uninitiated about the world of soccer, the Red Bulls play in the Major League Soccer - same league as the Columbus Crew.
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Arroyo smoked, Volquez on delay
WHAT IS it with Bronson Arroyo and Toronto? What is with with Bronson Arroyo with the first inning? What is it with Bronson Arroyo and June 24?
On June 24, 2008, Arroyo gave up 10 runs and 11 hits in one-plus inning against the Toronto Blue Jays in Rogers Centre.
On June 24, 2009. Arroyo gave up five runs and three homers in the firsti nnings to the Toronto Blue Jays in Rogers Centre.
He has given up runs to everybody in the first inning in six of his last seven starts.
He is tied with Milwaukee’s David Bush for most home runs given up in the National Leaugue - 18.
These are not the Best of Times for Arroyo - or the Reds. After losing to the Blue Jays Wednesday, 8-2, the Reds are on a four-game losing streak and have lost nine of 12 and are sinking inexorably below .500 - two under and sinking fast.
It wouldn’t have mattered much if Arroyo hadn’t given up five in the first. Right now the Reds couldn’t hit their own fannies with their left hand. This time they had only four hits, two by DH Jonny Gomes that included a home run.
SOME BAD NEWS on the Edinson Volquez front - some news that makes it almost certain he won’t be back pitching until after the All-Star break.
A second MRI this week revealed that inflammation remains in his arm and his throwing program has been put on hold until he can be examined again next week. Volquez was supposed to start throwing off the mound this week, but that’s a no-go.
“The picture was clear on the first MRI because of swelling and the second MRI showed still a significant amount of swelling,” said trainer Mark Mann. “They did the second MRI to make certain before they let him advance to the mound.”
It is where his forearm muscle attaches to the bone. Dr. Tim Kremchek wants to make certain the inflammation is gone before Volquez steps on the mound. He’ll be evaluated on Tuesday and decisions will be made.
“When you are talking about a starting pitcher and the time he has missed off the mound, then you add bullpen sessions and a rehab assignment just to build his pitch count, I’d say, yes, you are looking past the All-Star break,” said Mann.
PAUL JANISH gets his chance Thursday. Manager Dust Baker said before Wednesday’s game that had Danny Richar at third and Jerry Hairston Jr. at short and that Thursday it will be Janish at shortstop and Hairston at third.
WHAT A STRANGE coincidence Baker encountered at lunch Wednesday. A friend took him to a restaurant owned by former NHL player Shayne Corson.
Turns out Corson suffered stress after his father died at age 45 and Corson left the team and missed the playoffs. He played for Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, St. Louis and Dallas.
“That’s way coincidental, just happened,” said Baker. “I guess he went through it for a while. He told me his dad passed away at 42 or 45. Very coincidental. Almost as if it were planned, not be me, but planned.”
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Taveras takes a seat, but not Hernandez or Hairston
FOR THOSE excoriating manager Dusty Baker for his use of Willy Taveras in the leadoff spot and in center field, well, stand up and cheer.
Taveras is NOT in tonight’s lineup against the Toronto Blue Jays after he was 0 for 4 Tuesday with two strikeouts and Baker pinch-hit for him in the ninth with the Reds two runs down.
Chris Dickerson, who is 8 for his last 11, is in center field and leading off. Danny Richar, the player who pinch-hit for Taveras, is in the lineup, too, playing third base in place of Adam Rosales, who is hitting .083 in his last 17 games (4 for 48).
However, Paul Janish is not the lineup. Jerry Hairston Jr., is at shortstop and batting second. There were a couple of plays Tuesday night that Hairston didn’t make that Janish probably would have made and, for sure, disabled shortstop Alex Gonzalez would have made.
Ryan Hanigan is on the bench for the second straight night and Ramon Hernandez, hitting .179 for his last 29 games (19-106) is behind the plate.
Anyhoo … the lineup: Chris Dickerson CF, Jerry Hairston Jr. SS, Joey Votto 1B, Brandon Phillips 2B, Laynce Nix LF, Jonny Gomes DH, Ramon Hernandez C, Danny Richar 3B, Bronson Arroyo P.
CINCINNATI REDS media relations director Rob Butcher is a running fanatic — ran in the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati.
On the road, he runs every day and he loved what he found in Toronto — a running path along Lake Ontario that followed the water for about four miles. And park benches all along the way.
What he didn’t find, though, were drinking fountains. Not one. Ready to collapse from thirst, he went into a building. Found a fountain. Didn’t work. “I ended up drinking brown water from a spigot in the men’s room,” he said.
So when he got to the ballpark Wednesday, he fired off an e-mail to Toronto’s mayor. He started it off: “Dear Mayor: You have a beautiful city …” (very true). Then he asked where all the water was, other than in Lake Ontario.
WHAT DID I do last night? Well, after the game I pulled out one of my Ashton Cabinet cigars, took my latest Vince Flynn novel, and went outside the hotel to read and smoke. Running under the hotel are five sets of railroad tracks (I’m near Union Station, a huge, gorgeous station) and train travel is big in Canada. It seemed as if every 10 to 15 minutes a passenger train rumbled past.
I didn’t do much reading. Just watched the trains. Yes, I love trains and can’t wait for the trip from Philadelphia to New York. I’ll be on Amtrak. And when the hour ride is over, I’ll be saying, “Is that it? C’mon. Let’s go some more.” On a plane, I’m ready to get off 10 minutes into the flight.
Yeah, I know. Get a life, Hal.
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Votto’s return no help to punchless Reds
OLD NEWS: Reds lost, 7-5. Micah Owings can’t make it into the seventh again - hasn’t done it since May 12. The Reds lose for the third straight time and the eighth time in 10 games.
NEW NEWS: Joey Votto return, sporting some rust. But he had one of only three hits off Toronto starter Brian Tallet, who was pitching on only three days of rest and had a 4.86 ERA. Of course he held the Reds to no runs and three hits over six innings with one walk and seven strikeouts.
And Votto’s debut?
Votto admitted he was shaky early in the game, then settled in.
“The first few innings were a little tough, but from the fourth or fifth innings on I could be myself,” he said. “I could concentrate on what I could do to help the team. I hope today was one of the last days getting over the mental block. We’ll see.
“My swing felt good, but I missed some pitches,” he said. “I won’t say I’m rusty, but it’s a little different in front of a big-league pitcher instead of batting practice and A-ballers.”
Manager Dusty Baker was impressed.
“Joey swung the bat pretty good considering he hadn’t played in a while,” said Baker. “He is going to get better every day.”
When asked about the rust on Votto, Baker said, “Yeah, but he’s still better than most. And that rust won’t be there too long. He gives us more power, he is a run producer, an outstanding first baseman and he hits righthanders and left handers. And he is going to hit. He is going to hit a ton.”
The rest of the Reds hit about a pound-a-half.
BEFORE JOEY VOTTO started his tell-all chat with the media Tuesday, he looked squarely into the eyes of several Toronto writers and broadcasters and said, “Before we get started, I just want to let you guys know that I don’t want anybody talking to my family or friends or have anybody bothering them. I’d really, really appreciate it if you didn’t bother them. And if you do, then you’ll have to deal with me.”
WOW! MILD-MANNERED Joey laying the wood to the scribes and the mike guys. Then he began his long monologue on how his father’s death last August led to depression.
It was a heartfelt outpouring, Votto baring his scarred psyche to the prying media, who really had no business knowing his personal thoughts. But he gave them and he gave them well.
Now perhaps he can plays baseball and all the stupid, unfounded and made-up rumors can cease.
SOME MORE comments from Votto:
“The important people in my life, the close people in my life, have been taking care of me,” he said. “I hate to sound like a dramatic person, but these were serious things I was dealing with. To have somebody to talk to is really important.”
Votto came to Toronto from spring training this year to play for Canada in the World Baseball Classic and said, “It was such a breath of fresh air to be with my brothers and my family. I’m so by myself so much, I’m such a private person, I don’t have them with me much. I didn’t have a difficult time in Toronto at all. It was a great time.”
VOTTO IS READY to play full-time and as he said, “As long as I’m playing nine innings and contributing, I’ll be fine. There is nothing like health and I look forward to being healthy on a consistent basis.
“I played four games in the minors, two six-inning games and two nine-inning games,” he said. “I played two nine-inning games in Dayton. I know it’s low-A ball, but I was there in 2003-04 and it’s a pretty high-pressure thing - close to Cincinnati, lots of fans every game and high expectations. Getting through both those games and having a great time were good signs.”
Of his fight to get back, Votto added, “I was having such a difficult time getting through nights, as strange as it sounds. Once I felt like I could get through two or three nights of sleep without having the phone beside me to call the hospital, I felt I could play ball again.”
In early June, Votto called 911 at 3 or 4 a.m. for a trip to the hospital, “Because I really though I might die,” he said.
“It is difficult to talk to your family sometimes when they can remind you of what you’re feeling (his father’s death).”
SOME WONDERED if he was so stressed and so out of it, how could he hit .357 with eight homers and 33 RBIs when he did play.
“I think I’m a pretty good player, first of all,” he said. “I think baseball was my refuge. When I came on the field, I focused on that, did the best I could, then when I went home and was miserable. That was my routine every night.”
In summing it all up, Votto said with chin held high, “I’ve had a real struggle with my father’s passing. My biggest hesitation was coming out and letting people know. Especially my teammates. We’re supposed to be mentally tough and built to withstand all adversity. But this is real-life crap and I just couldn’t take it.”
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Votto: It all relates to his father’s death
It was all about his father — nothing more, nothing less.
During an amazing 15 minutes of candid monologue, Joey Votto told the media today how he bottled up his feelings about his dad’s death last August: “Put it on the back burner and played baseball” is how he put it.
But it all come bursting out this season, to the point where Votto said he thought he might die on the field in Milwaukee and to the point where he couldn’t make it through the night by himself and dialed 911 to take him to the hospital.
Votto took a bereavement leave of absence after his father, Joseph, died at age 52 — “The guy who listened to every Reds game, the guy who taught me the game, the guy who played catch with me every day.”
After the bereavement, Votto came back to the Reds and he said today, “The first day back I put it all on the back burner and just played baseball from August all the way to the end of September. I don’t want to use the word suppress, because he was in my thoughts and I was dealing with it daily, but as powerful a moment as it was to lose your father when he was so young, nevertheless, I did suppress it.
“From the end of the season until the beginning of spring training, I was severely depressed, dealing with the anxieties of sadness and fear and every emotion anybody goes through. I had a really difficult time with it. I was by myself in Florida and when baseball started back up in February I did the same thing I did last August — threw all my emotions aside and just played baseball again.”
Then came the inner ear infection. No baseball. More time to think.
“Taking the time away from baseball and recovering from being sick was the first time all my emotions that I had been pushing to the side, that I had been struggling with in the winter, nailed me and hit me, a hundred times more than I had been dealing with in the off-season,” he said.
“I came out of three separate games,” he said. “The first one (in Arizona) was a combination of me being ill, but I could tell something was going on because I couldn’t recover. I had this feeling of anxiety in my chest.
“Then the second time I came out (in San Diego) and it was similar, but the third time was in Milwaukee and I was just totally overwhelmed. Doctors told me I was dealing with being depressed with anxiety and panic attacks.
“It was overwhelming me where I had to go to the hosiptial on two occasions, once in San Diego,” he said. “Nobody was told about it, but I went to the hospital when the team was on the road (Milwaukee-St. Louis) but it was a very, very scary and crazy night. I had to call 911 at 3 or 4 in the morning — probably the scariest moment I’ve ever dealt with in my life.
“The days I was taken off the field were miniature versions of what I was dealing with by myself. Ever since late May I have been struggling with this in my private life. I’d go on the field and try to play well, but I couldn’t do it any more because I was overwhelmed physically with the stuff I was dealing with off the field finally seeped its way onto the field and I finally just had to put an end to it. I really couldn’t go out there. I physically couldn’t do my job.”
Vott has seen some doctors and is confident he is ready to return to the field and be productive. Speaking to people and letting them know what I’ve been dealing with, how difficult this grieving process has been, has helped.
Votto talked the his Reds teammates last week and talked a couple of times with manager Dusty Baker in the last week.
“I’m the oldest of four brothers and I feel I’m the head of the family,” he said. “Maybe I have a proclivity for anxiety and depression, whatever it is, but I was dealt with some unusual circumstances — the combination of being a major-league ballplayer, a young ball player, and also dealing with my father and my family.”
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Votto at first base, batting third
SO JOEY VOTTO is back. Not only is he back, he IS in tonight’s lineup, playing his normal first base and batting in his normal third spot in the order.
He is holding a press conference at 4 o’clock in the Reds dugout and because he is a Toronto native and resident it is expected to be a crowded dugout with local TV. It is doubtful he’ll talk about his stress-related issues.
We’ll see.
AIR CANADA HAS three non-stop flights a day from Dayton to Toronto and the aircraft looks two steps above the Wright Flyer — two prop-driven engines and seats for 18.
There were six on my flight Tuesday morning, plenty of room to spread out if there was room to spread out.
The flight was great, until we landed at Pearson International Airport and our crop-duster taxied for half a day before stopping behind some gasoline storage tanks at the far side of the airport. I kid you not — Gate 238. We boarded a bus for the ride to the main terminal and customs. Fortunately, nobody was in customs and I whisked through it.
Not a bad day’s travel — and zero surcharges for luggage from Air Canada. And my luggage made it.
You laugh about that, since there were only six passengers?
ONCE UPON a time I flew a commuter airline called Air South from Atlanta to Bowling Green, Ky. I knew I was in trouble — twice. First I saw the pilot kicking the tires. Then he walked up to me and asked, “Are you my passenger?”
I was. The ONLY passenger. And they lost my golf clubs. I wrote a story about it for the paper, citing the loss of my golf clubs despite being the only passenger. My clubs caught up with me a week later and shortly after that I received an irate letter from the airline’s president, offering to play a round of golf with me, winner gets to keep the other’s golf clubs.
I declined by saying, “You’ve already had my golf clubs long enough.”
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Votto probably will play in Toronto
THE CAVALRY is arriving, if you can call one man a cavalry. In the case of Joey Votto, is just might be.
It looks as if Votto is going to try for his triumphant return with the Cincinnati Reds in front of his hometown friends and relatives tonight in Rogers Centre against the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Reds confirmed that Votto was on the team charter flight to Toronto Monday. Although they wouldn’t confirm that he is coming off the disabled list to play, why would he accompany the team instead of continuing a rehab assignment if he wasn’t going to play?
So look for Votto and his .357 average, eight home runs and 33 RBIs to be playing first base and batting third tonight.
Votto has been on the disabled list since May 30 with stress-related issues. He began a rehab assignment with Class A Sarasota last week and played six innings of one game, then played a full intrasquad game the next day with the Gulf Coast Rookie League Reds.
On Saturday and Sunday he played two games, nine innings both times, for the Class A Dayton Dragons and talked his way with general manager Walt Jocketty and manager Dusty Baker into making the trip.
The Reds hope Votto can inject some punch into a lifeless offense.
If it’s symmetry you seek, check out the Reds as they begin a three-game series against the Blue Jays. The Reds are 34-34. They are 17-17 at home and 17-17 on the road.
Symmetry in baseball, though, doesn’t win World Series rings, or even wild card spots. It gets you anonymity in the middle of the pack, not real good, not real bad. It makes you mediocre, as the Reds have been the past eight losing seasons.
And while the Reds are poised on the precipice of once again falling below .500, they received even more bad news and as manager Dusty Baker said the other day, “I’d rather not get any news about us because all the news I get is bad.”
Shortstop Alex Gonzalez underwent surgery Monday to remove bone chips from his elbow and won’t return for four to six weeks.
That means for the immediate future the Reds will have Jerry Hairston Jr. (10 for his last 60, .167) at shortstop and Adam Rosales (4 for his last 46, .xxx) at third base. Edwin Encarnacion is on rehab at Class AAA Louisville, but hasn’t played since late April and most likely needs a lot of at bats. And when he left he was hitting .127.
The battle to not only score runs, but to string together back-to-back hits, continues to plague the Reds. Over their last 17 games they are hitting .199 with runners in scoring position and are 7-10 in those games. In eight of those 17 games they’ve scored three or fewer runs.
Micah Owings makes his first appearance against Toronto night and Wednesday should be, uh, interesting.
Bronson Arroyo starts Wednesday in Rogers Centre, scene of one of life’s embarrassing moments for Arroyo — and it barely lasted more than a moment. And amazingly it will be exactly a year prior to the day — June 24, 2008.
Arroyo gave up 10 runs and 11 hits in one-plus innings and became only the sixth pitcher in major-league history to allow at least 10 earned run in game in which he retired three batters or less.
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Hernandez to third? Baker says no
I can’t even manage my own money, let alone manage a baseball team, but I have an idea and I’m going to present it to Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker.
Let me know what you think.
Right now the best hitter on the team (average-wise) is catcher Ryan Hanigan, who has the best average and on-base average of any rookie in the National League. But his job description is “Back-up catcher.”
The only reason he has been given this opportunity is because Joey Votto is on the DL and No. 1 catcher Ramon Hernandez is playing first base.
It is obvious that Votto will be back within the week, if not sooner. Hernandez will move back to catcher and Hanigan will move to the bench.
Why?
Let’s try this. Move Hernandez to third base and keep Hanigan in the lineup Herandez had started one game at first base during his major-league career before taking over for Votto and he is playing it like Mandrake the Magician.
Could he play third, too? Why not. Even Baker said on the day he started playing Hernandez at first, “I’ve always thought any good catcher could play both third base and first base without any problems.”
So there you have it. Let’s see if Baker does it. Jerry Hairston Jr. is the shortstop for the immediate future while Alex Gonzalez (bone chips in his elbow) is out again. Adam Rosales is playing third base but as of Sunday he was 4 for 43 (.093) over his last 15 games. That ain’t gonna cut it, fans.
Of course, Hernandez is only 6 for 48 in his last 14 games (.125), but I’m more confident that he’ll come out of it quicker than Rosales.
ANOTHER ONE for Baker. Micah Owings starts Tuesday in Tornoto. Instead of using the DH, might Baker be tempted to not use a DH and permit Owings to bat? He is hitting .270 with two homers and seven RBIs — the same amount of homers and Chris Dickerson and only two RBIs less and one home run more than Willy Taveras and only two RBIs less and the same number of home runs as Adam Rosales and only five RBIs less.
I posed these questions to a much-dejected Baker after Sunday’s 4-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox and he quickly shot them both down like the G-men took down Bonnie & Clyde.
“I have to get Hernandez back behind the plate,” said Baker. While he recognizes what Hanigan is doing with the bat, Baker also knows most of his hits are not producing runs. Although he isn’t the Lone Ranger is not driving in runs, Hanigan is hitting .174 with runners in scoring position - .063 with runners in scoring position and two outs.
Hernandez is hitting .304 with runners in scoring posing, .320 with less than two outs.
And Owings? Baker sent him up to pinch-hit Sunday and he struck out. I understand, and agree, that it is better to have both Jonny Gomes and Laynce Nix in the lineup at the same time - a good 1-2 punch from the right side and the left side.
As I said, I can’t manage my checkbook.
I DO HAVE a question, though. How long is GM Walt Jocketty going to wait before he makes a significant move. After contending for 2 1/2 months, it is starting to slip away - four games out now, their biggest deficit since they were 4 1/2 behind on May 21.
With all the missing parts - Joey Votto, Edwin Encarnacion, Alex Gonzalez - Baker is being forced to fill-in with minor leaguers, guys like Wilkin Castillo and Danny Richard who weren’t doing much in Triple-A.
Do they want to win this year and do they want to keep trying to build for the future? If they want to win, and this year with a weak NL Central, now seems the time to take a grab at winning it, it is time for Jocketty to show Baker & The Boys that he is doing something to help make that happen.
Walt? Your turn.
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Votto to play in Dayton, Reds win
THE CINCINNATI REDS beat the Chicago White Sox Friday, after losing to them an incredible nine straight times (and Roy Oswalt doesn’t even pitch for them) and Joey Votto will be playing tonight just 45 miles away.
It appears that Votto is headed for Dayton to play rehab games for the Dragons on Saturday and Sunday.
“I think he is leaving today to go somewhere else — I think he is leaving today for Dayton,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said late this afternoon.
Votto played an intrasquad game this morning with the Gulf Coast Rookie League Reds and, “He hit pretty good - single, double, 2 for 4, couple of walks and three stolen bases. That makes me feel good because his legs must be feeling good.”
Baker said he doesn’t care that it was accomplished against Reds rookies: “It doesn’t matter as long as he’s playing and getting some reps. That means he is on the way.”
General Manager Walt Jocketty said it is likely Votto will end up in Dayton this weekend, “But I haven’t talked to him yet to see how he feels and what he wants. But that would be the progression, a stop in Dayton this week.”
Does this mean Votto might join the Reds Tuesday in Toronto, his birth place and home? Not necessarily. But there is a non-stop flight from Dayton to Toronto at 9 a.m. Tuesday. I’ll be on it - looking for Joey.
SHORTSTOP ALEX GONZALEZ was in the starting lineup Friday, but was removed just prior to game time with a tight right elbow. Gonzalez missed nine games not long ago with a sore left oblique. I’ve never known what an oblique is, but I’ve probably pulled or stretched mine a time or two.
FOR THOSE OF US who wanted Willy Taveras out of the lineup, we all got our wish Friday. Only temporary, though. Only one game, even though he is 1 for 45 and 8 for 94. And even though Chris Dickerson led the bottom of the first with a bunt. A BUNT FOR A BASE HIT.
Dickerson had two hits that included the bunt and a double in the seventh that led to the fourth run in a 4-3 victory. Real nicke work. But will he play tonight? No. Will he play Sunday? No.
Manager Dusty Baker said with the White Sox throwing lefthanders Saturday and Sunday that he needed Taveras back in the lineup. And Dusty was a tad testy about questions concerning his lineups.
“Can’t give him too long because we have two lefthanded pitchers the next two days,” he said. “Today was a good work day for him and we know he is better than what he has shown because his record shows that. I know he’s been struggling, but…”
Baker paused and said, “Everybody jumps from one guy to the next guy on who is playing and who isn’t. First they wanted Laynce Nix to play over Chris Dickerson and now they want Dickerson to play over Taveras. It’s a long season and you have to go on a guy’s track record as well as how he is doing right now.”
Then came the rebuff.
“Quite honestly, I’m getting a little tired of justifying who I play and why and how long and when,” he said. “We’re doing as well as we can do right now.”
JONNY GOMES listened to writers talking to Laynce Nix about playing against his brother, Jayson Nix of the White Sox.
“I had a brother in pro ball,” said Gomes. “Like me, he signed with Tampa Bay. Like me he is an outfielder. In 2002 I was leading the California League in home runs (Bakersfield) and my brother was leading the NY-Penn League in home runs. Two brothers had never led two different leagues in home runs the same year so the Hall of Fame called us and told us to start collecting memorabilia for them.
“Well my brother won the league home run title, but I lost by one after I hit 30,” said Gomes. “Then the Hall of Fame called and said, ‘Keep your crap.’”
Reports out of Louisville are that Homer Bailey has come up with a new pitch, a split-fingered fastball. And he has given up only one run in his last 31 innings.
“That’s good,” said Baker. “You can add new pitches as long as you control the ones you already have first. He has the hands and fingers for it, but to really refine his skills he has to locate his fastball. That will make the split and slider and everything else something to tease them with. My reports are that he is throwing good.”
Don’t expect to see him soon, though.
“I’m pulling for him big-time and he’ll be fine,” Baker added. “They’ve already kind of rushed him in the past. Quite frankly, it would be better if nobody knows he is throwing the splitter instead of telling the whole world.”
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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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Taveras: 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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Singing 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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Votto to start rehab assignment tomorrow
Joey Votto, noticeably lighter, walked past a small gathering of writers near the batting cage early this afternoon and I asked, “Joey, are going out on rehab?”
“Yes,” he said.
“When,” I said.
“Tonight,” he said.
“Where?” I said.
“Florida,” he said.
That was it - the longest interview I’ve had with Votto since he went on the DL May 30 with stress-related issues.
Florida, of course, is Class A Sarasota in the Florida State League and the fact he is beginning game action is outstanding news for the Cincinnati Reds.
“He said he is feeling a lot better,” said manager Dusty Baker. “His stroke is so short and compact that his timing will be easier to get than it would for most guys. We have to make sure he doesn’t pull anything, that he gets his wind back. It is sort of like going back to spring training for him, so to speak.”
But this isn’t going to take six weeks. Baker is guessing that Votto might return after the Reds come back from a six-day trip to Toronto and Cleveland that begins Tuesday and ends a week from Sunday.
For sure Votto would love to return in time to play in his hometown, Toronto, but that’s six days away and Baker said, “That’s too soon.”
Said Baker, “We want him to come back right and it sure will be a pleasure and a joy to get him back.” For sure, a joy to get Joey.
Of his thin stature, Baker said Votto looks as if he has gained some of it back, but he isi still thinner than when he went on the DL. “You can tell he is gaining it back in his neck and his face.”
Baker said Votto probably would tell him he is ready quicker than he is actually ready. But not Toronto, “Even though he’d like to play there. But Toronto is Tuesday . You always want to go home, but if he starts Thursday on rehab, that ain’t enough time. I’m thinking, realistically, after this road trip. His legs are going to be sore from running and bending up and down at first base. If everything goes right, probably when we come home. That’s 10 days for him - but it could be sooner.
“I’d rather have him super ready these next three months,” Baker added. “If he calls and says he’s ready, well, for a young man Joey knows himself pretty well. He’s honest.”
Votto and owner Bob Castellini huddled near a wall in front of the home plate screen during batting practice and chatted for several minutes. Castellini patted Votto on the shoulders and Votto returned the gesture as he walked toward the clubhouse to head for Florida.
ALSO, the Reds lost pitcher Mike Lincoln and gained pitcher Josh Roenicke. dLincoln was placed on the DL with a bulging disc in his neck, an injury he tried to hide from the team. Roenicke was recalled from Class AAA Louisville.
“He had it for a while, but he didn’t want to say anything,” said Baker. “He thought he was letting the team down already and I told him, ‘Hey, man. This is just making it worse.’ That’s nothing to play with - neck, back or spine problems. He said he was trying to fight through it, especially all the time he was on the DL before (three years with Tommy John surgery) that the last thing he wanted to do was go back on the DL.
“I understand that, but it is not quite hero time yet,” Baker said. “It’s admirable whenl your guys want to play, want to pitch and contribute, but hopefully now we can get it straight and he can come back and be the Linc that we know.”
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A rainy night turns out to be a sunny day
Let’s play Good Omen/BadOmen:
Good Omen: Aaron Harang threw 13 pitches in the first inning, all 13 for strikes.
Bad Omen: Chipper Jones singled with two outs in the first, breaking an 0 for 21. Didn’t score, though.
Good Omen: Willy Taveras led the Reds’ first with single, snapping his 0 for 32 lifeless stretch. Then he stole second base. Said Reds media relations director, “God bless America. Denis Menke is safe.” Denis Menke went 0 for 33 in 1973. And Bobby Adams, who died in 1997, is safe, too. He was 0 for 34 in 1954 for the Reds.
Bad Omen: Taveras only went from second to third on a double by Brandon Phillips because he had to wait to see if center fielder Nate McLouth made a diving catch. He almost did, but the ball skittered off his glove.
Good Omen: Taveras scored from third on Laynce Nix’s grounder to second on which his bat splintered into 4,234 pieces. It was the first time a Reds leadoff batter had scored a run in any inning in eight games.
Bad Omen: Jay Bruce ripped what looked like a three-run homer in the first, but McLouth crashed into the wall in right center to make the coach.
SPEAKING OF McLOUTH, when the Braves obtained him from the Pirates the Cubs were in Cincinnati and Cubs Manager Lou Piniella was livid. He wanted McLouth and was unhpapy he landed in Atlanta. Lou kept calling him McLooth. The second syllable rhymes with mouth (McLouth) Not to Lou.
“McLooth? I love McLooth. I kept telling our GM to get that kid McLooth,” said Piniella.
A Chicago writer said, “Lou, it’s McLouth.” Piniella heard him, looked at him, then said, “Yeah, I like McLooth.”
BAD OMEN: A heavy rain arrived in the third inning. Reds lead, 1-0. Will they continued. As the placed the tarp on the field, a female grounds crew person fell ans was trapped under the tarp. Eventually she crawled out from under and she was so wet her pony-tail looked like a fish tail.
Then two imbeciles, both shirtless, ran on the field. One was captured and the other escaped into the stands. To show how stupid he is, he ran back on the field and was eventually caught. Let’s hope they got their $1,000 worth (that’s the fine) and enjoy their night in jail (that’s the punishment.
SOMEBODY ASKED ME if the rain was going to stop and I said, with all sincerity, “It always does. The record is 40 days and 40 nights.” (And you can look it up.) The delay began at 7:55 and at about 9:30 umpire crew chief Joe West came out and ordered the tarp of the field and said play would resume by 9:50. And it was still raining hard enough to fill empty beer bottles. The delay was an hour and 54 minutes and when they resumed play it began pouring again.
THIS REMINDED me of the time the Reds played a game in similar situation (it wasn’t raining as hard at the game) and afterward somebody asked Adam Dunn how the conditions were in left field.
“Dude, I needed a rowboat,” he said. On this night left fielder Laynce Nix needed a snorkel.
THEY FINISHED THE top of the third and West came to his senses and at 9:54 the tarp came back on the field. They played for five minutes.
When play resumed, the Reds went on to win, 7-2, breaking open a 3-2 game with four in the eighth. Laynce Nix had three hits and drove in three and Brandon Phillips had three hits and scored three.
THE STORY of the night, though, was the first major-league victory of his career for lefthander Danny Ray Herrera. First, the 5-foot-5 dynamo avoiding drowning by stepping around every puddle he saw. Then he pitched three scoreless innings and was reward with the tired old gag of a teammate slapping a shaving cream pie in his face while he did a TV interview.
Herrera features a screwball and several slow-moving pitches that barely break the interstate speed limit. But he gets guys out.
“I just try to get them out ahead on their swings and hope I miss the barrels of their bats,” he said.
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Back home with an intimate gathering
Remember when I told you last week about my $69 cab ride from the Kansas City airport to the hotel? My dad told he bought a car for cheaper than that when he was a kid.
On Sunday night I approached a woman at the front desk of the hotel and said, “Is there any way I can get from this hotel to the airport without purchasing a cab?”
She looked at me as if assessing my character and the probability of me pulling a Sig Sauer on the driver. Then she reached behind the desk and pulled out a card. “Call this number and tell them Victoria told you to call and they’ll take you for $45.”
My wife, Nadine, laughed and said my ride probably would be a pick-up truck with me riding in the back with pigs. But on Monday morning at 5 a.m., a Lincoln Town Car arrived and for $45 he took me to the airport. No pigs in the back seat, either, just nice plush leather.
AS EXPECTED, after losing four straight on the road and with the threat of rain, there weren’t enough people in Great American Ball Park Tuesday night to start a good bar brawl. The place was a prairie of red (from empty seats), guaranteeing about one out of very three fans a sourvenir baseball.
SPENT A FEW minutes on the visiting clubhouse before Tuesday’s game with my favorite viisting manager who has never managed the Reds, Bobby Cox. Always deliver him a cigar or two.
Cox is always willing to sit and chat. He has no sympathy for the Reds. His Braves had lost seven of 11 and he said, “We aren’t hitting, either. Oh once in a while we hit, but not regularly. It’s kind of rampant in baseball. The Cubs aren’t hitting, either. You know, when the Cubs lose Aramis Ramirez and the Reds lose Joey Votto, well, it’s like the Cardinals losing Albert Pujols and where do you think they’d be without him?”
I READ THE vitriol some of you spit at Willy Taveras and at Dusty Baker for playing him (yes, he is in Tuesday’s lineup) and then you Taveras sitting forlornly in front of his locker. You know he cares. You know he isn’t TRYING to make 32 straight outs. It’s embarrassing, yes, and it is tough to hold your chin up, but Taveras is trying.
As Tuesday’s game with the Atlanta Braves began, Taveras was 0 for 32, but he wasn’t at the point of throwing up his hands and surrendering. His smile was in place as he sat in front of his locker trying to figure things out.
Bother him? Oh, yeah.
“I know I’m a key part to this offense,” he said. “If I get on things get going. With the pitching we’ve been getting, we’re always close, never out of many games, so me getting on and scoring runs is the difference. If I’m on, I can show my game.”
Taveras didn’t play Sunday in Kansas City. He spent time in the dugout next to Dusty Baker getting a tutorial on his approach.
“Dusty talked to me a lot and hopefully what he said is going to help me,” Taveras added. “No team in the division is playing very good and with the pitching we’re getting if we can get our hitting going to can win it.”
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Kansas City is Sweep City - against the Reds
AS BAD AS it was in Washington, as far as the Cincinnati Reds looking for hits in all the wrong places, at least they won two of three in the nation’s capital.
In Washington, they had nine runs and 19 hits in three games and actually won the first two and gave away the third one in the eighth inning.
In Kansas City they lost all three, scoring only five runs on 14 hits. When the Reds came to town, the Royals were in last place. And they hadn’t swept a series all season.
Pathetic? Gruesome? Terrible? Hopeless? Hapless? Fill in your own description.
Two errors, one in the first and one in the third, both by third baseman Jerry Hairston Jr., who hadn’t played for two games, led to five unearned runs charged to Johnny Cueto. The Reds scored an unearned run in the first on two hits and an error, then had three hits the rest of the way.
Pathetic, Gruesome - yeah all those words.
BEFORE ADDRESSING the Issues of the Day before the game - Brandon Phillips and Willy Taveras - let me say the Kansas City experience was awesome. The park is fantastic and the people who work it are wonderful folks.
Several Reds fans stayed at the same hotel as I did and they all talked about the beautiful park that is so fan-friendly and the polite and helpful people working there.
Then I had a personal example. I was at the end of a driveway entrance to the Truman Sports Complex, where Kauffman Stadium is, about a half-mile from the entrance. The previous two days I walked it. Good exercise. On Sunday, a Royals employee in a golf cart saw me and stopped.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“Gate D,” I said.
“Hop in,” he ordered me. And despite the Cincinnati Reds credentials dangling around my neck, he hauled me to the gate. His name is Ernest and when I told him my name and said, “I cover the Reds, you want to take me back to the street?” he said, “Naw, as long as your guys keep losing to us.”
Now the baseball stuff.
Manager Dusty Baker was in a discussion mood before Sunday’s game, addressing two major issues of the day:
Brandon Phillips and Willy Taveras.
Phillips ignored a take sign on a 3-and-0 pitch Saturday, then tried to defend why he did it.
Taveras, on a 0 for 32 slide to oblivion, was not in Sunday’s lineup and Baker discussed him at length.
On Phillips, who Baker fined for missing a sign, a sign he never even tried to see, although he wouldn’t reveal the amount:
“I collected a lot of money in fines last year. Most of it was collected from a few players. You wish everybody thought like him (trying to do something to win a game). The thought process wasn’t wrong. You want everybody to think like that. I thought like that. It’s like being in the military, you still have to follow orders and that’s what it boils down to. You don’t want to take the thought and desire away.”
Phillips said he didn’t even look for a sign on the 3-and-0 pitch after Kansas City pitcher Kyle Davies had walked six in less than five innings, including two ahead of Phillips in the fifth. Phillips said he was trying to make something happen, trying to score some runs.
“I heard what he said and I talked to him,” Baker said. “Some people are wrong and they talk to try to justify being wrong. That’s the first time it happened to me, that somebody swung away when I gave them the take. I’m the manager and it’s the last time it is going to happen . End of subject. The more you talk, the worse it sounds. So it’s over.”
Willy Taveras, 0 for 32 and the target of much ire from the fans, was not in Sunday’s lineup and Baker went into a long discussion about the situation.
“I’m going work with him person-to-person, go over a few things, let him listen to a different voice saying the same thing. When we got Willy, everybody knew we got an unrefined. Willy has a lot there. But let us do our job to help refine him and help him get better. If he wasn’t unrefined he wouldn’t have been at a couple of places in a short period of time.”
Before the Reds signed him, Taveras played at Houston for two seasons and Colorado for two seasons.
“Sometimes you want it right now, but sometimes it takes more time than people are willing to give that person to be refined. This is where the teaching part comes in.”
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Baker, Phillips disagree on 3-and-0 swing
JUST WHEN YOU think you’ve seen it all, something head-shaking happens. In the fifth inning Saturday of the Reds 7-4 loss, KC pitcher Kyle Davies walked two. Brandon Phillips was up and had a 3-and-0 count. Take one pitch? Take two pitches? Naw, he swung away and flied to right. Un-beeeeee-leeeee-vable. And at the time Davies had thrown 93 pitches in 5 2/3 innings.
Was he given the hit-away sign. Was he given the take sign. He was given the take sign and ignored it. Didn’t even look for the sign.
Manager Dusty Baker was not happy and said Phillips missed the take sign, but Phillips said, “Why shouldn’t swing in that situation? To tell you the truth, I didn’t even look for a sign.
“Honestly, in that situation, why wouldn’t I swing at a 3-and-0, that’s just my opinion. We only had two hits at the time and our offense stinks right now. I respect my teammates and they see what’s going on. We haven’t faced anybody that overmatched us. If we’re facing No. 1 pitchers, but we’re not and our team is too damn good to be making outs against the pitchers we face. We should be undefeated on this trip.”
Baker disagrees about Phillips swinging at the 3-0.
“That was the big play and Brandon was supposed to be taking,” he said. “That could have been the ball game. We had the pitcher on the ropes, he had just walked two and thrown nine balls, then threw three more balls and we gave Brandon the take. Said he didn’t see it. In that situation, you have to know to take that pitch even if you didn’t see the sign.”
Phillips disagrees with that, too.
“We were struggling getting men on base and we’re not hitting with runners in scoring position,” Phillips said. “I had the opportunity, I swung at 3-0. I was trying to make something happen and it didn’t happen. If I would have come through it would have been the best play of the year. For future reference, I will not do it again. I apologized to everybody.”
I still say, un-beeeeeee-leeeeee-vable.
ON DAYS Bronson Arroyo pitches, maybe they should start closer Coco Cordero and have David Weathers or Arthur Rhodes pitch the second, THEN bring in Arroyo.
Arroyo’s first two innings are notoriously hideous. If he gets past the first and second, look out. But lately that hasn’t happened.
He got the first two outs of the game Saturday against the Royals, then loaded the bases, but escaped damage. No such luck in the second and third — five runs, 11 hits.
The Royals took a 3-0 lead in the second and then, get this, the Reds had only one hit in the third, but scored thee runs - which these days is the only way they can score three runs. Then Arroyo gave up two more runs in the third, giving up four hits in each of the second and third after giving up three in the first.
So, after three innings, the Royals had outhit the Reds, 11-1, but led by only 5-3.
REPLAY, REPLAY: In the fourth inning, KC’s Billy Butler hit one into the left field seats. Umpire Tony Randazzo called it foul. KC manager Trey Hillman challenged the call and asked for a review - the only challenge allowed in baseball (home run or not a home run). Umpires checked the replays for three minutes and upheld the call - foul ball. It was the first challenge ever in Kauffman Stadium.
WILLY TAVERAS just popped up and is now 0 for 30, hasn’t hit the ball out of the infield in eight at-bats. And he hasn’t walked in 12 games. Is that good for a leadoff man? Uh, no. Taveras tied Jason LaRue (2006) for hitless longevity and next on the list was Alex Ochoa, 0 for 31 back in 2001. the only thing I remember about Ochoa is that he looked like Denzel Washington
But wait. It gets better. The Reds had a runner on first with one out in the seventh. Taveras up. First pitch. Swing. Grounder to short. Double play. Move over Denzel. And keep all sharp objects and dangerous liquids out of Taveras’ reach. Then he grounded out in the ninth and is now 0 for 32, one away from a 36-year-old record - 0 for 33 by Denis Menke in 1973.
And to think Menke was later a hitting coach for the Reds. And he was hitting coach when Ochoa went 0 for 31.
Of course, those are numbers for position players. Pitcher Aaron Harang went 0 for 49 and once said, “They’re making Catch of the Day plays on me all over the place.” To that, manager Jerry Narron said, “What? The catcher is catching the ball?”
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What’s a manager to do other than cry, “Help”
READY FOR THIS one, Redleg fans?
The Saturday lineup/batting order is almost identical to the one that came up with three hits against Kansas City’s Luke Hochevar, he of the 1-2 record and 7.85 ERA, the guy who beat the Reds, 4-1, on 80 pitches.
There was two slight tinkers. Manager Dusty Baker flip-flopped Ryan Hanigan and Adam Rosales. Hanigan is batting ninth instead of eighth and Rosales is batting eighth instead of the ninth. And Jonny Gomes, who had two of the three hits as DH, is batting fifth instead of seventh.
Any brilliant ideas as to what alternatives Baker has - other Chris Dickerson for Willy Taveras, which I agree on? The lineup is below with some notations next to the n ames that reveals why the Reds are hitting .175 over their last eight games.
The order: Willy Taveras (0 for 28), Alex Gonzalez, Brandon Phillips, Laynce Nix (3 for 22), Jonny Gomes, Jay Bruce (5 for 47), Ramon Hernandez (0 for 18 and 2 for 29), Adam Rosales (3 for 32), Ryan Hanigan.
AMAZING WHAT you learn when they bring a tour group through the press box a few hours before the game.
There is a red chair (every other seat in Kauffman Stadium is blue) right behind home plate and a tourist asked, “Why is that chair red?” Said the guide, that’s the chair occupied by former Negro League star Buck O’Neill. He was a scout for us and always at in the chair until he died a couple of years ago. Now that chair is occupied by some fan who has done something for his or her community above and beyond and we recognize them by letting that person sit in that seat.”
At the time, some Royals players were taking ground balls and a tourist asked, “Who is that hitting the ball?” Said the tour guide, “That’s one of our coaches.” Just at that time, a fielder booted the ball and the tourist said, “Who just missed the ball?” Quickly, a fan wearing a Royals tee-shirt said, “That’s one of our, uh, alleged infielders.” Tough crowd.
JEFF BRANTLEY said he fulfilled a lifelong dream by catching a foul ball. He did it Friday night while broadcasting a Reds game.
In my 37 years I’ve caught two, ducked hundreds and was nearly skulled a couple of years ago when Jim Edmonds of the St. Louis Cardinals fouled one into the Great American Ball Park press box. I was looking at my laptop screen at the time when Reds Media Relations Director Rob Butcher yelled, “Look out!” I ducked my head and felt the baseball part my hair in the middle as it slammed into a back wall.
I did catch a foul ball in the booth in Yankee Stadium during the 1996 World Series, hit by Derek Jeter. Still have the ball.
The other was in Dodger Stadium and nearly cost me my 1976 World Series ring, which I used to wear. It was loose on my finger and when I threw my hands up in the air to catch the ball my ring flew off my finger and tumbled into the stands. I looked over the the pressbox railing and spotted where it landed. I hustled into the stands and the fans were passing it up a down the row looking at it. They gave it back to me with no argument and I was just lucky it didn’t skull anybody.
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Royals’ Hochevar barbecues the Reds
ANY OF YOU remember a song by country singer Ferlin Husky called, “Since You’ve Gone?” OK, even I’m too young to remember Ferlin Husky, but my dad was a country singer and he used to sing that song.
Now the Reds can apply it to Joey Votto. Since he’s been gone, the Reds have scored 37 runs in 13 games - 2.85 game. And they are 5-7. It could be worse.
But it couldn’t be much worse than what happened Friday night in Kansas City. Some guy named Luke Hochevar took a 1-2 record and a 7.85 ERA to the mound. With the Reds flailing at everything he threw up there, he needed only 80 pitches for his complete-game three-hitter.
SIX PITCHES in the first inning for three outs. Six pitches in the second innings for three outs. FOUR pitches in the ninth for three outs. The Reds acted as if they had to catch the last bus out of town and they weren’t about to miss it.
Of the three hits, two were by DH Jonny Gomes (and Hochevar is right handed), a double and a home run. Gomes has 10 homers in 68 at-bats against the Royals. But he couldn’t help his friends.
“I’ve got no magic formula for the rest of the guys,” he said.
THE REDS are not going to win with Willy Taveras at the top of the order with a 0 for 28 on his work sheet?
THE REDS are not going to win with Jay Bruce on a 5 for 48 slide.
THE REDS are not going to win with Adam Rosales on a 3 for 32 skid.
THE REDS are not going to win by scoring 10 runs in their last four games.
OK, enough babbling about what isn’t happening.
THEY PUT $225 million into renovations on Kauffman Stadium and I say, “Why?” this ballpark was built in 1973 and they did it correctly from the start. It is just like Dodger Stadium, a gem that is kept so clean you can eat pudding off the floors.
The fountains and waterfalls help take away how bad the Royals are. Watch the water, ignore the Royals - except, I guess, when they play the Reds.
But as one Royals official said, “It is like a nice home that is 37 years old - the plumbing goes bad.” Well, maybe I won’t eat off the floor.
Cincinnati Reds media relations Rob Butcher’s brother, Pat, works in the Royals box score producing the box score and the statistics for Major League Baseball. With Pat sititng near Rob, he only has to account for eight other brothers and sisters.
Did I ever tell you Rob’s mother, Rita, makes the best strawberry pie and chicken dumplings in America? Yeah, I know I did - a hundred times. Just want to make certain I’m not forgotten when the pie and chicken appear in the press box.
MATT MALONEY’S no-hitter and shutout disappeared in the first inning Friday when Royals first baseman Billy Butler hit a 422-foot home run that nearly landed in one of the cascading water falls in left-center.
The Reds went out 1-2-3 in the first two innings Friday and a Kansas City writer said, “‘Twelve pitches in two innings? This guy has no command (pitcher Luke Hochevar). Guess the Reds don’t believe that a walk is as good as hit?” Well, c’mon fella, the Reds did get one walk.
WHERE ELSE but Kansas City would they have BBQ-flavored sunflower seeds in the clubhouse and dugout?
FORMER Kansas City infielder Frank White, one of baseball truly nice guys, is now a Royals broadcaster and he introduced himself to me in the Reds clubhouse beofre Frikday’s game by saying, “Somebody was just telling me about you.” Then he was distracted by somebody else and never told me what they were talking about. Maybe they saw me wandering aimlessly outside the stadium trying to find my way in when I tripped over a garbage can and ended up with a dirty paper napkin on my head.
FORMER CINCINNATI broadcaster Steve Stewart now works in Kansas City and the players aren’t too happy with him right now. On a trip coming out of Toronto something was wrong with Stewart’s passport and the entire Royals traveling party was detained. What was wrong with it? Stewart takes so long to tell a short story that nobody let him finish.
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‘Going to Kansas City, Kansas City here they come’
I hadn’t been to Kansas City since 1999, so maybe it is understandable that I forgot that the Kansas City airport actually is closer to St. Louis than it is to downtown Kansas City.
When I got into a cab at the KC Airport I wanted to RIDE in a cab, NOT buy a cab. But I almost did.
Once we left the airport, there was no sign of civilization until the meter hit $41.35. No buildings, no restaurants, no hotels, no houses. Nothing but trees, more trees than are in the Black Forest.
The meter hit $41.35 when we reached the Claycomo exit. (Where?)
The meter hit $44.08 when I saw a sign, “Kansas City” limits. Still nothing but trees and a ribbon of concrete highway. The cabbie was humming. Is there a song, “Easy Money?”
The meter hit $47.65 when I saw a Super 8 Motel off an exit ramp. Civilization!!!
The meter hit $56.89 when we passed a sign that said, “Harry S. Truman Museum,” this exit. Give ‘em hell, Harry, who would have been giving this cabbie hell, but, hey, he was taking a direct route unless The Roadrunner was putting up false signs, “This way to Kansas City.”
The meter hit $66.77 when we exited and there, voila, The Sheraton Hotel. Only $66.97 on the meter. Welcome to Kansas City, city boy.
HOW MANY of you have flown US Airways commuter flights out of Washington Reagan Airport. Unfortunately, my hand is waving up in the air with the rest of you.
ALL, and I mean ALL, US Airways commuter flights go out of ONE gate, 35A. A flight leaves about every five minutes and the gate area resembles what the counter area at a McDonald’s would be if they were giving away all-you-can-eat french fries.
When your flight is called, you scramble downstairs or to an escalator to a door that leads to … a shuttle bus. About 20 commuter jets, CRJ’s, are lined up on the tarmac like Air Force Bombers at Wright Patterson AFB.
You board the bus and it takes you to your plane, but there are many, many shuttle buses weaving in and out of airplanes. It’s an Indy 500 for shuttle buses. I spent more time on the bus, which sat and sat and sat, than I did on the flight from Washington to Kansas City this morning.
AND WHATEVER happened to pillows and blankets on airplanes? If they are going to keep the plane temperature at North Pole level, they need blankets. By the end of the flight I needed an ice pick to get out of my seat. And without a pillow I had a stiff neck.
Travel? I just love it these days.
OK, NOT that I’ve purchased a cab and seen the Kansas City backwoods, how about some baseball.
What great reporters we Cincinnati beat writers are. With the three games in Kansas City this weekend, the Reds will use a designated hitter. None of us thought to ask manager Dusty Baker who would be the Reds DH. Probably because we’re not used to the DH and don’t think about it.
Before Baker posted his lineup today, I pondered the question. Kansas City is pitching a righthander so I thought it probably would be Chris Dickerson.
Wrong, rosin bag-breath. It’s Jonny Gomes.
DESPITE GOING 0-for-Washington (0 for 14) and 0 for his last 24, Willy Taveras was back at the leadoff spot Friday.
THE MOST AMAZING thing of all right now about the Reds is that they were 4-4 over their last eight games. Why amazing? They have hit .204 in those eight games and scored 27 runs, 3.38 per game.
How can this be? The pitching staff has a 2.48 ERA over those eight games and the starters have a 1.86 ERA.
THIS IS THE REDS’ first appearance in Kansas City since 1999 when the Reds and Royals played the first interleague doubleheader. It wasn’t scheduled. The first game never got started because of a power outage. All the lights went out. So the game was postponed and they played a doubleheader the next night.
Pitcher Steve Parris, the scheduled starting pitcher that night, actually sat on the Reds’ dugout, with lightning dancing all around, and signed every autograph anybody asked for. And he did it by himself.
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Reds kept trying to lose, then succeeded
ON THE UGLY scale, it was off the charts. Immeasurable.
The Cincinnati Reds tried, tried and tried to give away baseball games to the Washington Nationals. The third time was the charm.
An ill-advised throw by second baseman Brandon Phillips on an attempt for an inning-ending double play ended nothing. His throw skipped past first baseman Adam Rosales and two runs scored, the two runs that beat the Reds, 3-2.
The Reds had only 20 hits and scored only nine runs in the three games in the nation’s capital and luckily won the first two, 3-2 and 4-2 in 12 innings - only because the Nationals are not very good.
In fact, Phillips was back in his “we deserved to lose” mode Thursday and said the Reds should have lost all three.
“Honestly, I feel as if we should have lost every game against the Nationals. We’re not hitting the ball. Two runs a game is not good enough. That team is down, in last place and it’s just terrible how we’re not hitting the ball.”
The Reds led, 2-1, entering the eighth, only because the Nationals were on their way to stranding 14 runners.
Pinch-hitter Willie Harris led with a single off Carlos Fisher and Fisher was replaced by Daniel Ray Herrera. Pinch-hitter Andrew Hernandez singled to put runners on first and second with no outs.
Cristian Guzman bunted and Herrera made a spectacular throw to third base for a force out. When Alberto Gonzalez singled to fill the bases, Nick Masset replaced Herrera and The Big Play arrived.
Ryan Zimmerman grounded softly to short. Alex Gonzalez fielded it and threw to Phillips for the force at second on Alberto Gonzalez.
Alberto Gonzalez knocked Phillips to the ground and his throw skipped past first baseman Adam Rosales as Hernandez scored the tying run and Guzman scored what would be the winning run.
“What happened? You tell me. I was on the ground,” said Phillips. “Game on the line, you try to make a play. That’s what I tried to do. The runner hit me as I was trying to make the play. I tried to hurry the throw to first to end the inning with a double play. I don’t know what happened after that.”
Manager Dusty Baker thought Phillips probably shouldn’t have made the throw because it looked as if Zimmerman would beat the throw to first anyway and it would have been tied, 2-2, instead of Washington taking the 3-2 lead. “Probably shouldn’t have thrown it,” said Baker. “It was just him trying when he probably shouldn’t have, but Brandon is the best around. And you have a novice first baseman (Rosales).
SOMEBODY SAID President Obama ate at Five Guys today. Well, now we know he knows a good burger when he eats one. And french fries, too. Wonder if they charged him.
A double burger and large fries at the Five Guys in Nationals Park costs $17.50. I was looking for the uranium inside the burger, but didn’t find it. I’ll know it was in there if I start to glow tonight.
THE REDS go to Kansas City for the first time since 1999 for three interleague games and due to the luck of the pitching rotation draw they won’t have to face Zack Greinke (8-2, 1.55). The combined record of the three pitchers they will face is 7-10. As was Washington, Kansas City is a team the Reds should devour with their barbecue and steaks in between visits to the Negro Baseball Hall of Fame.
THE REDS did not have a good start Thursday against the Nats. Jerry Hairston Jr. beat an infield hit to short by sliding head-first into first base. Always thought that was a dumb thing to do, that it would lead to broken fingers and hands getting stepped on by spikes.
Anyway, Willy Taveras bunted in front of the plate. Hairston started to second and stopped, probably thinking the catcher had a chance to snag it in the air. So Hairston was easily forced at second. Brandon Phillips singled to left and Taveras stopped at second.
The Reds tried a double steal and Nats catcher Wil Nieves nailed Phillips at second base. Jonny Gomes popped to left. Three baserunners, no runs. That was pretty much the day’s offense for the Reds.
THERE’S A helicopter hovering over the scoreboard in center, but I don’t think Obama is in it. It might be Adam Dunn, though, searching for a hit. Or maybe for a Nationals win. They found it Thursday.
The 1962 New York Mets set the modern record for losses in a season with 120. After 57 games, those Mets were 16-41. The 2009 Washington Nationals are 15-42. Dunn has two more home runs, 17, than the Nats have wins.
BEFORE THURSDAY’S game, manager Dusty Baker said, “Maybe we can get out of town before Adam Dunn hits a home run.” It looked as if they were going to get out of town before he got a hit. He was 0 for 9 and stranded 10 runners before he got a harmless hit in the eighth with a runner on first.
ANOTHER EX-RED and Dunn’s best buddy, Austin Kearns, started his first game of the series Thursday and was 0 for 3, stranding four runners. Kearns and Dunn were two of the original Dayton Dragons and two of the biggest stars to come through there, but their gloss is wearing off in Washington and Kearns was booed loudly.
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More Dibble stories as we await the rain
ROB DIBBLE STORIES never get old. Dibs is now a broadcaster for the Washington Nationals and when Reds third-base coach Mark Berry saw him he laughed and told a story I hadn’t heard.
“I caught the last game Dibs ever started,” said Berry. “It was in Madison, Wis. And we were roommates. After his fourth loss he came back to the room and started throwing things around and cussing away.”
Berry said Dibble said, “They want to turn me into a closer. I’m quitting. I’m done. I’m going to go home and work for my father at his radio station.”
Said Berry, “He didn’t go and the rest is history.”
AND THEN Dibble told one on himself. He came out of a game one day angry about something. He had two hockey sticks in his locker, “One signed by Wayne Gretzky and one signed by Mario Lemieux,” he said. “I splintered those suckers, spent pieces everywhere. Within five minutes, Bernie Stowe and Rick Stowe had that mess cleaned up and saved me from getting into trouble.”
Dibble smiled and said, “Those were the days. Players don’t do stuff like that anymore. Remember when Norm Charlton (another member of the Nasty Boys) burned everything in his locker after a bad game?”
THE OTHER MEMBER of the Nasty Boys, Randy Myers, fancied himself a guerrilla warrior, an insurgent, a mercenary. He kept military stuff in his locker — knives, an Army helmet. Hand grenades. He had a sign hanging on his locker, “No photo’s.” Yeah, I know. He didn’t need the apostrophe in photos, but it was there.
Everybody assumed the hand grenades were not live. But we never were sure.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER kept Jerry Hairston Jr. at leadoff and had Willy Taveras batting second again for Wednesday’s finale in Washington. With that alignment, Taveras was 0-for-5 and enters today’s game 0-for-20, longest hitless streak of his career.
Hairston was 0-for-5 until he singled home a run in the 12th inning of the Reds’ 4-2 win after midnight Wednesday. In fact, the first five batters in the order were 2-for-24, 0-for-20 until Brandon Phillips singled in the 11th.
JUST AMAZING, isn’t it? So many of you are complaining about Dusty Baker, but he doesn’t have Joey Votto, he doesn’t have Edinson Volquez, he doesn’t have Edwin Encarnacion, he is playing a catcher a first base, he dodges and feints with different lineup combinations and guess what? The Reds are 1 1/2 games out of first place.
And for those who keep asking for Baker’s removal? How are you going to feel when he is Manager of the Year. Could happen, you know?
IT IS 3 O’CLOCK and we’re under a severe storm watch that is in effect until 7 p.m. The game starts at 4:30. I figure the rain will hit with the Reds leading, 2-0, in the bottom of the ninth when Coco Cordero walks the first batter and goes 2-and-2 on the next batter.
Then the rains come and we have a two-hour delay. Oh, we’ve heard that one? If it happens again, that’s when I take a dive out the press box window — which is high enough that I’d have time to parachute before I hit the ground.
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It all came out in the wash - another win
Adam Dunn wasn’t kidding when he said, “It rains every friggin’ day here. I kid you not, dude.” And as the course of the night progressed, it rained hardest on Dunn’s head.
But this? This was ridiculous. The Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals played 8 1/2 innings Wednesday night before the rain came - the fifth straight time rain hit and affected a Washington game.
The Reds led, 2-0, in the bottom of the ninth when closer Coco Cordero walked the leadoff hitter and was 3-and-2 on Josh Willingham when lightning and a heavy rain caused the umpires to flee for cover while the tarp was applied.
It was the ninth rain delay of the season for the Reds. And I haven’t carried an umbrella or a rain coat to any of them.
OK, now. The last four games: an 11-inning game. A 14-inning game that lasted more than five hours. A game that’s start was delayed 1:47. And a game that combined both a rain delay and extra innings - a 2:10 delay and 11 innings.
Yeah, I wanted to be a baseball writer. I should have been a basketball writer - a roof, quick games, no muss, no fuss.
Some amazing things in this game. The Reds finally won in the 12th inning when pinch-hitter Jonny Gomes doubled home a run in a 4-2 victory.
THE REDS’ first five batters in the order went 0 for 20 in nine innings, 2 for 24 for the night. And they still won.
JAY BRUCE, 3 for his last 38, hit a two-run homer in the second and doubled in the seventh. Two hits. The Reds had three the first nine innings.
AARON HARANG pitched 7 2/3 innings, giving up no runs and five hits for the seventh straight quality start by a Reds pitcher, 10th in 11 games. And he received nothing but heavy duty work for his efforts.
ADAM DUNN was the Reds’ best friend. In the first he popped out with a runner on first and two outs. In the third he popped up with runners on first and third with two outs. In the sixth, he got picked off second base with runners on first and second and two outs. In the eighth he grounded out to first with a runner on first and two outs.
Harang didn’t win 2-0 because closer Coco Cordero blew his first save since July 21, 2008, covering 29 opportunities. He began the ninth by walking a batter and going 2-2 on the next before the rain came.
After the delay, Cordero was back on the mound and he gave up two runs to tie it, 2-2.
Manager Dusty Baker’s explanation?
“That’s similar to a closer closing both ends of a doubleheader. Same thing. He said he felt great. I conferred with (pitching coach) Dick Pole and we talked to Cordero. Hey, he walked the guy before the rain and walked the guy after the rain and both scored. He’s our closer and it just didn’t work this time.
“Bottom line, we won. But we never do anything easy. That’s not how we drew it up or scripted it, but they tied it and we came back to win it.”
GOMES SAT for 8 1/2 innings, then sat for 3 1/2 more after sitting in the clubhouse for the 2:10 rain delay. Then he rips the game-winner.
“No method to the madness,” he said. “I just took a swing and it fell. Two outs, runner on second, you just want to miss all the gloves.”
Asked what he did during the rain delay, Gomes said, “I watched the end of the Red Sox-Yankees game, I watched the end of the Phillies-Mets game and I watched the end of the Brewers-Rockies game.”
Then he helped end the Reds-Nationals game.
ONE OF THE players had his kid in the clubhouse before the game and Gomes, a throwback to when the clubhouse was a sanctity, walked past and muttered, “What is this, Romper Room?”
Brandon Phillips pinned the kid down on table and made him say, “Brandon Phillips is the best.” Made him say it louder each time.
WHEN THE REDS host the White Sox in the Civil Rights Game on June 20, manager Dusty Baker said his wife, Melissa, and son, Darren, will take the red-eye to Cincinnati, “After Darrin’s All-Star game. It has been a very eventful year for them, the Inauguration and the Civil Rights Game. That’s pretty heavy - although most young people don’t know what ‘heavy’ means in this context.”
WHAT DO players do during rain delays? They go to the clubhouse and play cards, listen to music, drink coffee, snack and, if they’re ahead, hope the game is called. If they’re behind, they hope it is resumed - unless it is the Nationals, who probably don’t care one way or the other.
And what do the writers do in the press box? Well, the media dining room is cleaned and closed. No food. No card playing. Mostly we sit surfing the internet, talking to each other (lies, lies, lies) and listen to Bob Seger singing “Night Moves” on the stadium public address system.
I saw no people, zero, waiting under the stands for the game to continue. When play resumed, less than 100 were still there and they were all standing behind the two dugouts.
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What was said between Dunn-Phillips
SOME OF YOU may have noticed an exchange of words around second base in the sixth inning between Adam Dunn and Brandon Phillips on Wednesday night.
Dunn was on first when Washington’s Elijah Dukes grounded to Cincinnati Reds shortstop Alex Gonzalez near second. Gonzalez stepped on second and threw to first for a double play.
As second baseman Phillips ran off the field, past Dunn, he said (according to Dunn), “Why didn’t you slide and take out Gonzalez? You would have taken me out.”
Said Dunn, “I like Alex better than you. And you wouldn’t have been near the bag, anyway.”
Said Phillips, dodging the controversy (if you can call it that), “He wasn’t close enough to take out Alex. Hey, he (Dunn) loves us. He’s our homeboy.”
At the time Phillips was taking hitting instruction from batting coach Brook Jacoby and Jacoby laughed and said, “That’s love. That’s brotherly love.”
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER made a lineup adjustment Wednesday, flip-flopping Willy Tavers (leadoff to second) and Jerry Hairston Jr. (second to leadoff).
“Just temporary,” said Baker. “Willy hasn’t been playing much and Hairston is swinging the bat a little bit better. This will give Willy some non at-bats - sacrifice bunt, hit-and-run, whatever - because he missed some time and he was struggling a little before and struggling more since he’s been back. Just temporary. He’s my leadoff guy.
“Sometimes you just have to make a change,” Baker added. “If your leadoff guy isn’t getting on base, nothing is happening. If he is getting on base, there is a lot happening.”
Taveras was 0 for 5 Tuesday, reached base on a fielder’s choice in the ninth and was thrown out trying to steal.
SOME NUT JOB/FRUITCAKE walked into the National Holocaust Museum this afternoon and opened fire with a shotgun. At last report, two people were shot and injured and the guy, reportedly an 80-year-old white supremacist, was shot and injured.
I ask: How does an 80-year-old guy carrying a shotgun get inside the door of any Washington landmark? Certainly they didn’t think he was duck-hunting.
My cab driver said, as I got in the car, “They’ve closed the Mall area and parts of downtown so I’m going to try to skirt traffic.” We meandered the streets of Washington until finally Nationals Park appeared.
Said the driver, “Some people would think I was just running up the meter.” I checked the meter. It was two dollars cheaper than my ride Tuesday, without “skirting traffic.” Gee, I wonder which cabbie was running up the meter?
HAD LUNCH today at the Luna Diner on Connecticut with my dentist, Dr. Gary Porter, his father and two of his friends, in town for the Reds games. They were at the Orioles-Mariners game Tuesday in Baltimore. Great lunch. Had breakfast at this place last year and it was fantastic.
One of Dr. Porter’s buddies ask about beer and the waitress said, “We have a number interesting beers on tap.” He said, “OK, bring me an interesting beer.” She brought one and I took a sip. Interesting. And good. What brand? We never asked.
FUNNY STORY from Dusty Baker about getting around in D.C., and this was last year.
“My buddy said he knew his way around D.C. and, man, we got so lost trying to find the ballpark,” he said. “Where we were was so dark I thought the CIA was going to jump out of the bushes. We went across some bridge and we went miles and miles. It was so dark. Man, where are we? About 45 minutes we ended up wandering through Georgetown. I didn’t know where we were other than I saw some CIA stuff, some CIA signs.”
Anybody who has seen ESPN’s Tim Kirkjian interview a player knows that he is a short guy, about 5-foot-5. On Wednesday he walked into the Reds clubhouse and asked me, “Where’s Daniel Ray Herrera? I want to finally interview a guy with whom I can see eye-to-eye.” Herrera, a 5-foot-6, is a tad taller, but it was great watching the eye-to-eye interview.
Despite his height, though, Kirkjian is an outstanding basketball player. He can shoot with the best. I’ve seen it. Years ago during the World Series a bunch of writers got together to play basketball and I was part of it. I’m 6-2 and played high school ball at Akron East and Timmy K. took me to school (on the basketball floor, not in a bus).
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Cueto on pace to be an All-Star
JOHNNY CUETO can be exasperating in the first inning, as he was Tuesday night, but when he gets out of it, as he did Tuesday against the Washington Nationals, he is the best starting pitcher on the Cincinnati Reds staff.
Cueto showed some imagination Tuesday. He put four runners on base in the first inning, but none scored, thanks to an incredible double play started by shortstop Alex Gonzalez. Cueto gave up two hits and two walks in the first.
Then he closed the vault with a thud.
From the second through the seventh he gave up two hits, one a home run to Elijah Dukes. He is 6-3 with one of the league’s best earned run averages, 2.33. If he continues for a month he is my candidate to be an All-Star.
Brandon Phillips gave Cueto a comfort zone in the fifth, breaking a 1-1 tie with a two-run double that skittered just inside the first base bag. Arthur Rhodes gave up an eighth-inning home run to Cristian Guzman but the Reds hung on, 3-2.
The 15-41 Nationals are on pace to lose 120 games, which would tie the 1962 New York Mets, a team about which its manager, Casey Stengel once asked, “Can anybody here play this game?”
I SWEAR ON a stack of Baseball Digests that four seats down from me there is a guy sound asleep in the press box. I mean, the Nationals probably are boring to watch every day, but if you’re coming to cover the game, mix in some coffee and No-Doz. They made a couple of announcements at loud volume and the guy never opened his eyes.
SOME FAMILIAR faces in Nationals Park, besides former Reds outfielders Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns. Former Reds relief pitcher Rob Dibble, one-third of the famed Nasty Boys, is part of the Nats’ broadcast team. Former Reds player and manager Ray Knight does a pre-game and post-game TV show for the Nationals.
The Dibble stories are legendary — his fight with manager Lou Piniella, his tossing of a baseball into the center-field seat that struck an elementary school teacher, his throwing at the legs of Doug Dascenzo as he ran up the first-base line after bunting, his dumping of ice water over the head of writer Mike Paolercio. They’ve all been documented here.
Here’s one you probably haven’t heard about. When the Reds trained in Plant City, there was a large retaining pond behind the right-field wall, home to a 10-foot alligator. One game Dibble was rocked, never got a batter out. The clubhouse was also behind the right-field wall, next to the pond.
Dibble walked into the clubhouse and gathered a stack of chairs from in front of several players’ lockers, walked to the edge of the pond and heaved them into the water.
We were in the press box and never would have known about it, except the son of Columbus Dispatch writer Bob Hunter happened to be playing between the clubhouse and the pond and saw Dibble’s chair-heaving act.
He was forced to pay for the chairs. They should have made him wade in and retrieve them, but they probably feared for the alligator’s life.
KNIGHT WAS a fun guy, too. Remember when he played third base for the Mets and Eric Davis did a hard pop-up slide into third? Well, when Davis popped up Knight popped him - right in nose. Down went Davis, down went Davis.
When Knight managed the Reds he missed several games because of kidney stones and once told the beat writers, “My doctor said I’m the world’s largest producer of kidney stones.” So what did he want us to do with them, line our driveway with them?
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Reds select righthanded pitcher
The Cincinnati Reds took righthanded pitcher Mike Leake of Arizona State University in the first round of the free agent draft.
Cincinnati Reds senior director of amateur scouting Chris Buckley announced the selection of the 6-0, 180-pounder who is pitching in the College World Series.
Leake, 21, is the first pitcher selected by the Reds in the first round since RHP Homer Bailey in 2004. He is the first collegiate pitcher selected by the Reds in the first round since RHP Ryan Wagner (2003). The Reds had selected a position player with their first pick in each of the previous four drafts: 1B Yonder Alonso (2008), C Devin Mesoraco (2007), OF Drew Stubbs (2006) and OF Jay Bruce (2005).
Leake was named 2008 PAC-10 Pitcher of the Year and is a finalist for the 2009 Golden Spikes Award. He is 16-1 with a 1.36 ERA after going 11-3 with a 3.49 ERA last season. The righthander also has been named a semifinalist for the Pitcher of the Year Award presented by the College Baseball Foundation. His 40 career wins at Arizona State are tied for the most in school history. Leake is set to appear in the 2009 College World Series with the Sun Devils.
“Mike is a very polished pitcher with a good delivery and lots of poise. He is an impressive looking athlete who has a great deal of ability and an excellent command of four pitches. We are excited to add this caliber of pitcher to our organization,” said Buckley.
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Dunn on Phillips: ‘Nice, really nice’
ADAM DUNN hadn’t heard the words from Brandon Phillips, the words Phillips uttered in St. Louis, words obviously aimed at Dunn without using his name.
Laynce Nix had a big day against the Cardinals, a couple of hits and a couple of outstanding catches and I asked Phillips after the game about Nix. One of the things he said was, “It’s great to have a guy who not only hits the ball but catches the ball.”
Said Dunn when told of the comment, “Nice. Real nice. I’ll have to ask Brandon about it. Second thought, no I won’t. I could probably think of something nasty or humorous to say. But, hey, that’s Brandon. He has to let me go. I’m not there any more. Let me go.”
Dunn said some nice things about the Reds: “Reds are doing good, huh? Good pitching.” When told the Reds could use his bat, Dunn said, “No, they don’t. They’re doing just fine.”
Then he asked about Jay Bruce by saying, “Jay’s scuffling, huh? What’s he doing? Swinging at everything? Yeah, I know about that. You feel like you have to swing early in the count so you don’t get behind.”
When told Bruce was 2 for 33, Dunn laughed and said, “I’m 3 for 38. But I don’t feel bad at the plate. I feel good. Whatever.” Dunn jumped into the batting cage and somebody said it isn’t likely the Reds would pitch to him and he said, always self-deprecatingly, “Why wouldn’t they? I would.”
JOEY VOTTO worked out at Great American Ball Park Monday and today and will continue while the Reds are on the road. He is working with trainer Mark Mann, who didn’t make the trip because of a broken foot. Votto is eligible to come off the DL Sunday and manager Dusty Baker was asked if he might start minor-league rehab Thursday or Friday and be ready.
“Don’t want to put any kind of schedule on him,” said Baker.
EDWIN ENCARNACION suffered a setback and won’t be leaving for minor-league rehab any time soon. An MRI Monday was not good. Said Baker, “He isn’t going to rehab now. He’s with us on the trip and he’ll take treatment. No baseball work right now - maybe in a couple of days if the soreness (in his cracked wrist) is gone.”
TO ALL THOSE who offered advice and a couple who offered lodging in D.C., thanks much.
Thanks to Chris Welsh and Reds Traveling Secretary Gary Wahoff, I made it into the Reds hotel. Welsh gave up his room because he is staying elsewhere and Wahoff changed the rooming list and put me where Welsh would have been.
It isn’t true, though, that Welsh is staying at The Old Pitchers Home.
WHISKED THROUGH check-in at the U.S. Airways counter this morning, thanks to a helpful young woman. Whisked through TSA security (those guys know me from my frequent visits at the Dayton airport and are great). Whisked from the gatehouse onto the plane, departed five minutes early, then …
I knew it was going too good. We taxied out and just were about to take off when the pilot said a storm hit the D.C. area and air traffic control had everything on hold. We left 45 minutes late and arrived 30 minutes late. Always something - but not U.S. Airways’ fault.
TOOK A CAB from the hotel to Nationals Stadium. The cabbie didn’t look like a high-brow, but he had Mozart on his radio all the way to the park. Mozart as we passed the World War II Memorial, Mozart as we passed the Washington Monument, Mozart as we passed the Jefferson Memorial, Mozart as he cruised up Capitol SE to the ballpark.
GREAT VIEW over the left field stands - the Capitol Building Dome looks as if it is only a couple of blocks away. It is much farther. The great news! There is a Five Guys & Fries in the ballpark. If you haven’t partaken of Five Guys & Fries, well, the best burgers anywhere and more fries in a brown paper sack than you can possibly eat. There is a Five Guys in Cincinnati near UC and a Five Guys in Columbus near Polaris.
Cholesterol heaven!
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Brandon Phillips tells it as it is
Brandon Phillips - you have to love the guy. Brutally honest. Brutally self-deprecating. He calls a jack a jack and a diamond a diamond and if you don’t like it, deal the cards elsewhere.
After the Reds lost horrendously Sunday, a 6-3 14-inning affair to the Chicago Cubs during which they stranded 16 baserunners, Phillips was on a roll. Mike Lincoln, manager Dusty Baker’s eighth and last available pitcher, gave up a home run to Alfonso Soriano on his first pitch in the 14th and then two more runs.
What did Phillips say?
“Mike Lincoln never should have had to be in that game,” he said. “We should have won it long before he took the mound. He should have been home in bed after a win for us long before he was on the mound.
“That was a terrible game. The pitchers did their job but the position players sucked. We deserved to lose. We had so many chances with one out and guys in scoring position. We two outs I can understand it not happening, but not with only one out.
“Down the road this loss might hurt us, the way our division is,” Phillips continued. “We might need this win.”
Phillips tossed a piece of gear into his travel bag and said, “We need to go beat the Washington Nationals into the ground.” The Reds are off Monday, then play three in Washington and three over the weekend in Kansas City.
What irked Phillips even more was when he saw that both Milwaukee and St. Louis lost Sunday and the Reds muffed a chance go gain ground on the leaders. “I said Friday after we lost to the Cubs that I thought we were the better team. Then we played like today and saying that made me look bad.”
JAY BRUCE WAS not in Sunday’s lineup against the Cubs and was told to sit near manager Dusty Baker for at least two innings. It wasn’t punishment, not like a teacher ordering a dunce to sit in the first chair in front of her desk.
It was tutorial time, even though Baker didn’t know Bruce was 2 for 33. All he said was, “All I know is the law of averages are with him and somebody is going to pay.”
“Dusty told me I was going to sit next to him today and learn some stuff,” said Bruce. “I’ll take it in for a couple of innings, then be ready for whatever task I’m given.”
Baker said Sunday’s day off and a day off for the team today should serve Bruce well to sit back, observe and organize his thoughts.
“It’s tough on you mentally when you aren’t getting hits and you’re used to getting hits,” said Baker. “He’s been better the last few days on pitch selection and not chasing bad pitches. He’s taking some walks. I talked to him about narrowing that strike-zone box, make the pitcher come into that box and the walks go up, the RBIs go up and the batting average goes up.”
Whatever Dusty and Bruce discussed worked - for one day, for one at-bat. Bruce pinch-hit in the seventh and drove a double to left-center, didn’t try to pull it.
UMPIRE SUPERVISOR Bruce Froemming was seated in the press box for the second straight game and told a great story about his first year of umpiring, when he was 19 years old and fresh out of umpiring school in Daytona Beach, Fla.
It was his first week in the old Northern League and he was working a series between Duluth and Superior. In his first game he reversed a call on the other umpire that went against Duluth and the pressbox erupted.
“Then they got after me in the newspaper,” said Froemming. “I was there a week and every day in the paper it was, ‘Froemming did this and Froemming did that,’ in big headlines. I got tired of it.”
So before the next game, Froemming ordered the pressbox cleared. Everybody out. The writers refused to leave. Froemming threatened to forfeit the game to Superior. The Duluth management convinced the writers to leave so it wouldn’t have to refund ticket money.
“The main guy I threw out was Arnold Gotha of the Duluth paper and he later worked in Detroit,” said Froemming. “Hey, I was young and they told me I was in charge of the field and to me the press box was part of the field, so I cleared it.”
I asked Froemming who was the best pitcher he ever saw and I got a litany of Hall of Fame and All-Star pitchers.
“Bob Gibson was the best athlete,” said Froemming. “He could throw, hit, run, he was smart and he threw strikes. And if you hit a home run off him and watched it too long you knew what was coming the next at-bat. He’d bury one in your ribs.”
Froemming, of course, listed Nolan Ryan and said, “I worked the plate for his fifth no-hitter, a Saturday afternoon in Houston in 1981 against the Dodgers.”
He also listed Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Greg Maddux, Bob Veale (“Nasty when he could throw strikes, as was John Candelaria.”), Don Sutton (“Great stuff.”), Don Gullett and Randy Johnson.
And one other? “I worked the plate in Class D in Michigan City, Ind. for a guy named Juan Marichal,” he said. “And Jose Tartabull was on that team. A great team.”
Ah, great stuff for us old-timers.
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Maloney no phony in big-league debut
Maybe the Cincinnati Reds found something Saturday night. Something big. Something better than Homer Bailey and maybe better than Micah Owings.
His name is Matt Maloney and he is 25 years old and he made 99 minor-league starts before the Reds gave him his under-the-big-tent chance.
Some chance. Against the Chicago Cubs. In front of 40,914 raging fans - some for the Reds and some against as Cubs fans took up about half the space in Great American Ball Park.
And the guy pitched as if it was just another Louisville Bats game against the Toledo Mudhens - 6-plus innings, two runs (both homers), six hits. And he pitched out of problems nearly every inning, showing poise and steel nerves. Nothing to it, eh?
He left a 3-2 lead for the bullpen to protect, but unfortunately the Cubs scored a run off David Weathers in the eighth to tie it. Weathers was sick about it, but you couldn’t wipe the smile off Maloney’s face after the game with a cement trowel.
The Reds won it in the 11th on pinch-hitter Adam Rosales’ little dribbler up on the third base line on which third baseman Mike Fontenot threw high to home plate, enabling Jay Bruce (walkl) to score from third to end it.
Maloney’s first major-league pitch at 7:10 was swung and missed by Alfonso Soriano. His second pitch at 7:11 was ripped into left field for a double and his third pitch crashed into the ribs of Ryan Theriot.
But thanks to a diving catch by center fielder Chris Dickerson and a smart throw to second base by catcher Ryan Hanigan on a double steal attempt, Maloney’s first major-league inning was scoreless.
IF ANYBODY OUT there has heard of Scott Randall, raise your hand. Put your hand, down Scott. You don’t count. Scott Randle, a pitcher, got a first in his first major-league at-bat for the Reds on Sept. 18, 2003, in Pittsburgh against Kip Well. He was the last to do that until Maloney batted in the second inning Saturday and singled up the middle.
Randall? His career was 2003. Fifteen games. Two starts. 2-5 record. 6.51 ERA. Gone forever.
I DIDN’T GIVE you my choice for the Belmont Stakes because, well, when it comes to horses I know as much about them as I do about women. Very little. But I will tell you I did have Summer Bird in the blind-draw pool in the press box and collected some cash.
ANYBODY OUT there have any pull with hotels in Washington, D.C.? Due to a mix-up (mine) I notified the Reds too late that I needed a room in Washington Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Mayflower Renaissance is sold out. I embarked on my own to find a room and couldn’t find anything under $400 a night. I know the paper won’t go for that price, so I might be grounded for those three days if I don’t find cheaper housing.
THE UMPIRES for this series best be on their toes and make the right calls. Former umpire, now umpiring supervisor, Bruce Froemming is in the press box watching his guys work. His nickname, one you never, ever used around him was Spanky because he looked like Spany in the old, old, old Our Gang movies.
And to Matt Maloney, this post-game brew is for you. Was fun to watch.
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Votto won’t return when DL time is up
Not good news on the Joey Votto front.
Manager Dusty Baker said before tonight’s game that it isn’t likely Votto will be back when his time on the 15-day DL is up on June 14 (a week from Sunday). Votto was at the ballpark, dressed in civvies, watching batting practice Friday, but is not doing anything as far as baseball is concerned.
And there is no timetable as to when Votto might start doing that stuff.
“When he comes back, he’ll have to go out and do some minor-league rehab,” said Baker. “He ain’t The Natural, although he might be close to being natural. Wish I had more to tell you, but I don’t. All I can say is that he won’t be back when his 15 days on the DL are up.”
THIS TIME Jared Burton survived the cut. But Wilkin Castillo.
Manager Dusty Baker and GM Walt Jocketty decided to go with 13 pitchers for a while, so infielder Castillo was sent back to Louisville to make room for RHP Matt Maloney to make his major-league debut tonight as the starting pitcher.
Baker cited the fact that after two games with the Cubs and three in Washington, the Reds play interleague in 12 of their next 15 games. With the DH and pitchers not batting, Baker said he doesn’t need as many position players and added, “Just trying to find a way to make it better and win games.”
AN ASSIGNMENT for you. Remember The Nasty Boys (Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton, Randy Myers), the bullpen bullies of the early 90’s whose theme song was Hammer’s U Can’t Touch this? Somebody asked me about a nickname for the three guys on the back end of the bullpen this year, Arthur Rhodes, David Weathers, Coco Cordero. Since Rhodes and Weathers are both 39 and Cordero is 33, he suggested The Golden Buckeyes. None of the three is really a Buckeye.
So come up with a name for them.
ANOTHER ASSIGNMENT - be careful. Most of you use pseudonyms, which is fine. Don’t, though, use somebody’s real name that isn’t youre own. St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa is suing Twitter because somebody used his name to post some very nasty things, trying to make people believe the poster was La Russa. As I said, be careful.
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Carpenter hammers, nails Reds
A beautiful day in the Busch Stadium neighborhood - 71 degrees at game time and I’m enjoying it. When we come back in August it will be so hot and humid that players will be wringing a jar of sweat out of their underwear every three innings.
Busch beer vendor: “I got beer so cold in this box I don’t want to reach inside, but I’ll do it for you guys.”
The Reds didn’t want to stick their hands into the pitcher’s box where Chris Carpenter stood. No chance, no way. He held the Reds to one run, three hits, in a 3-1 win. The Reds and Cardinals split the four games and the Reds come home with a 2-5 work sheet for the trip.
I’M NOT SURE if I’d EVER give Albert Pujols a pitch to hit. And a St. Louis writer said to me, “The Reds challenge Pujols more than any other team.” Well, Aaron Harang challenged him Thursday in the third inning of a 0-0 game with two outs and a runner on first. The challenge was met by Pujols and he turned it into a Challenger flight, 431 feet worth of home run and a 2-0 St. Louis lead.
Then darned if they didn’t do it again his next time up. With a runner on first and nobody out, Harang grooved his first pitch and Pujols nearly put a hole in the left field wall with a run-scoring double.
It isn’t as if the Reds don’t recognize Pujols. Every other fan who walks into the park wears a No. 5 jersey - and it isn’t for Johnny Bench or Joe DiMaggio.
Harang has given up at least one home run in each of his last eight starts. Now I’m not pitching coach, but I don’t think that’s good. He has given up 11 this year, well on his way to matching the 28 he gave up last year.
Harang, though, has a long way to go to match the team record. In 2005, Ramon Ortiz gave up one or more home runs in 15 straight games. Ortiz’s nickname was The Red Napper because he loved red snapper for a meal but couldn’t say it, calling it, “Red napper.” Just a little side-bit for you.
Meanwhile, Chris Carpenter gave up two hits over 7 2/3 innings, both to Chris Dickerson. both time Brandon Phillips grounded into inning-ending 5-4-3 double plays.
AND HOW IS this one? Harang was able to get out of trouble four times when the Reds turned four inning-ending double plays.
PHILLIPS was watch a game on TV before Thursday’s game and said, “Aaron Hill (Blue Jays) should be the starting second baseman for the American League All-Stars. He is tearing it up. Whoever is doing the best should be starting, but I’ll bet you (Tampa Bay’s) gets it.
Hill is running fourth in the balloting and Longoria leads all vote-getters for all positions with 1,036,071, but, uh, Brandon - Longoria is a third baseman. Ian Kinsler of the Rangers lead the second basemen.
Anyway, Brandon put both the third baseman and the second baseman to work in his first two at-bats with the third-to second-to first double plays.
WHY IS ALEX Gonzalez losing his bat so much when he swings. Three times in his last three games he has swung at a pitch and missed as his bat went helicoptoring toward the seats. Is he allergic to pine tar or what?
ST. LOUIS BROADCASTER and former Cardinals third baseman Mike Shannon was telling tales in front of the Reds dugout before Thursday’s game. He played with Bob Gibson, one of baseball’s all-time mean guys on the mound.
Shannon said Dodgers first baseman Ron Fairly used to hit Gibson pretty good and before a big game and his first at-bat against Gibson he said to a teammate, “I’m not going to like this at-bat, am I?” Sure enough, first pitch. Gibson hit him in the rib-cage. When Fairly walked back to the dugout he said, “No, I didn’t like that at-bat.”
Shannon said Gibson hated to issue intentional walks. “He said he’d rather use one pitch and hit the guy in the ribs than waste four pitches.”
IN CASE nobody noticed, Jay Bruce went 1 for 28 on the trip with one RBI, after ging 0 for 3 Thursday. But he wasn’t The Lone Ranger in futility against Carpenter.
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It’s official: Maloney starts Saturday
Shocking! Stunning! Amazing! After much dodging of the issue, the Cincinnati Reds made it official at 6:27 Eastern time: Lefthander Matt Maloney is starting Saturday against the Chicago Cubs in Great American Ball Park.
Maloney is 4-2 with a 2.00 ERA at Louisville and pitched a complete-game, three-hit shutout in his last start Monday against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the Yankees’ Triple-A farm team. Maloney will be the first lefthander to start for the Reds since Adam Pettyjohn started the last game of last season in St. Louis.
And in answer to a couple of inquiries, Matt Maloney is not related to Jim Maloney, a pitcher in the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. If Maloney can be half as good as Jim Maloney was, the Reds have something special. Maloney, 25, was acquired from the Phillies for Kyle Lohse on July 30, 2007. He was 11-5 with a 4.68 ERA in 25 starts for the Louisville Bats last year and was a third-round draft pick of the Phillies in 2005.
Maloney was born in Sandusky, Oh., graduated from Huron (Oh.) High School and now lives in Columbus.
WHERE DO THEY come up with this stuff? The Elias Sports Bureau does it daily. The latest concerns Brandon Phillips and his Wednesday game against the Cardinals - three hits, a home run, three RBIs, three runs scored and two stolen bases.
Says Elias, the only Reds players ever to match those numbers in all five categories in one game was George Foster in 1976 and Gary Redus in 1983. Amazing. Of course, Phillips stealing third with two outs was a foolish endeavor, but he did make it, only because third baseman Joe Thurston missed the tag.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER’S lineup for Thursday after Wednesday’s 9-3 win over St. Louis is virtually the same - with one exception. Paul Janish ( 1 for 4, an infield hit) was not in the lineup and Alex Gonzalez was back in.
Jerry Hairston Jr. remains at leadoff, Chris Dickerson is in CF and batting second, Brandon Phillips is third, Jay (0 for 24, eight strikeouts) Bruce is fourth, Ramon Hernandez is fifth, Laynce Nix is sixth, Alex Gonzalez is seventh, Ryan Hanigan is eighth and Aaron Harang is ninth.
Harang’s opponent is RHP Chris Carpenter, 3-0 with a 0.62 ERA in five starts. Opponents are hitting .157 against him.
NORMALLY I don’t make comments or get agitated by something like Player of the Month, but I do think Brandon Phillips got hosed for May, losing to Justin Upton. Phillips hit .352 with seven homers and 29 RBIs - and he missed five games. Upton’s number: .373 with seven homers and 21 RBIs for the lowly Arizona Diamondbacks. OK, call me biased, but all three Reds beat writers voted for Phillips.
And did you catch Phillips quote Wednesday in talking about left fielder Laynce Nix: “He’s a great teammate and it is nice to have a left fielder who can both hit and catch the ball.” Do we detect a slam against Adam Dunn’s glove?
Speaking of Dunn, the Boston Red Sox are trying to acquire him from the Washington Nationals.
And Phillips took the loss of the Player of the Month award with aplomb by saying, “I only worry about things that I can control and I can’t control that.”
GREAT STORY from Reds pitching coach Dick Pole. When Ted Williams managed the old Washington Senators, he was more than 50 years old. One day he was watching a rookie struggle in batting practice, “So Ted grabs the bat from the kid and jumps into the cage and says, ‘Lemme show you.’ Williams hit one off the wall and two over the wall and said to the kid, ‘Like that!’ And Williams was over 50 years old.”
Manager Dusty Baker always has visitors from his past visit him in his office and Thursday it was former big-league pitcher Kirk Rueter, “The luckiest man I ever saw,” said Baker. “He’d win every pool there was.”
Baker said Rueter made his major-league debut in 1993 for Montreal against Baker’s Giants and afterward Baker said, “Anybody can come up and pitch well once. Let’s see where he is in five years.” Where was he in five years? “Pitching for me with the Giants,” Baker said with a laugh.
Rueter won his first 10 major-league decisions and, “I was 16-3 for the Expos when pitching coach Joe Kerrigan had me sent back to the minors because he said I still had some things to learn,” said Rueter.
And why was he so lucky, other than winning pools? “Because he kept getting people out and winning games with a bunch of crap he threw up there,” said Baker. Added Rueter, “Yeah, and I once found two twenty-dollar bills on the mound when I was pitching in a game. I scooped ‘em up after the inning and Dusty asked me, ‘What’d you pick up?’ When I told him two twenty-dollar bills, he said, ‘You have to be the only guy in major-league history to find money on the mound.’”
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Does Bruce need refreshing in Louisville?
CALL ME CRAZY, call me nuts, call me demented, but does anybody else out there think maybe Jay Bruce needs a dose of Louisville and Drew Stubbs deserves a dose of Cincinnati? After Wednesday’s game, Bruce is 1 for 24 with eight strikeouts on the trip.
Johnny Cueto pumped up a good one Wednesday in Busch Stadium, giving up one run and seven hits over 6 1/3 innings during a 9-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, Cueto’s first win in four starts. Timely, though, right?
I’M NO baserunning coach, but I don’t think it is good when you have two runners picked off first base by the catcher in a three-game span, as the Reds have had done to them in St. Louis. Chris Dickerson beat out an infield single in the first inning and catcher Yadier Molina picked him off first.
And the run back to the dugout is one of the most embarrassing trots in sports.
ALL FOUR REDS runs scored with two outs Wednesday and the Reds have scored 101 of their 223 runs this year with two outs. On the surface, that’s good, right? I mean instead of making the third out, somebody drives in a run. But, hey, why not do it with no outs and/or one out and probably score even more runs? Just a thought.
LAYNCE NIX gave the Reds a 1-0 lead in the second with a home run, then when former Reds pitcher Kyle Lohse, now wearing Cardinal red, gave up a bunt single in the third to pitcher Johnny Cueto, Cueto’s third bunt hit this year, Lohse vacated with stiffness in his pitching elbow.
The Reds then scored two runs, one on a two-out single by Brandon Phillips, who then stole second, stole third and scored on Ramon Hernandez’s single.
AND I TOLD you Nix is an outstanding outfielder. Did you see that running, backhanded snag he made on the run in the sixth inning on Ryan Ludwick? Then he pushed off the left-field fence and threw a strike to second base that doubled off Albert Pujols - except umpire Jim Joyce was looking at something else and called Pujols safe. Does El Hombre get all the calls his way?
Then Nix hit another home run in the eight, a three-run blast that clinched the victory.
FORMER REDS (among many other teams) pitcher Kent Mercker filled in on the radio broadcast with Marty Brennaman on Wednesday. Mercker is one of the smartest and most humorous players I ever dealt with. He was a guy who got it.
The guy worked the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in about an hour, but it was his funny lines that I’ll always remember. Oh, and he could pitch a little bit, too. Threw a no-hitter once.
My two favorites:
Asked what he was going to do when he retired, he said, “I’m going to turn vodka into urine.” And former pitcher Chris Hammond was constantly reading the Bible in the clubhouse. One day Mercker walked by, saw him reading the Bible, and said, “Haven’t you finished that book yet?”
Oh, and one more classic. “You know you’re getting old when you run in from the bullpen and your breasts jiggle.”
SOME OF YOU questioned my use of ketchup on my hot dogs. You kidding me? I put ketchup on hot dogs, french fries, scrambled eggs, omelettes, steak (meat of all kinds) and if my wife dared to serve me asparagus I’d put ketchup on that, too.
BEFORE THE sixth inning Wednesday, the Busch Stadium fans sang happy birthday to Rachel Kohl. It was her 100th birthday. Man, she was born before both Wrigley Field and Fenway Park were built and before the Titanic took a ten-count from an iceberg.
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Bruce batting fourth? Uh, why?
I’m no hitting coach, but when I saw tonight’s Cincinnati Reds lineup I did a double take. Jay Bruce is batting fourth. So far on the trip Bruce is 1 for 20 with eight strikeouts. Why would he be batting cleanup?
Manager Dusty Baker has another odd twist. Jerry Hairston Jr. is batting leadoff, with Chris Dickerson second. Also, Paul Janish is at shortstop in place of Alex Gonazalez, who is not hurt or ill. His bat, however, is in critical condition. And he had started 11 straight games and, actually, he is hitting .300 over his last 13 games. His glove, though, has been magical.
GREAT STORY at lunch from George Grande. When he was with ESPN he was in the New York Yankees clubhouse when Deion Sanders was called up for the first time. In his inimitable way, Neon Deion said out loud, “Hey, clubbie, you know I want a single-digit number, right?”
The “clubbie” was a long-time equipment manager who nearly bit the stub of his cigar off when Sanders said he wanted a single-digit number. Said the so-called clubbie in a loud voice so everybody could hear, “Would you like No. 3? Ever heard of Babe Ruth? Would you like No. 4? Ever heard of Lou Gehrig? Would you like No. 5? Ever heard of Joe DiMaggio?”
Nearly every single-digit number for the New York Yankees is retired, but Sanders didn’t understand.
WAS SITTING outside the hotel after midnight Tuesday night, puffing my cigar and reading a book by the light of a street lamp, when four guys walked by. Two were wearing Reds jerseys, one a Cardinals jersey and one a Dodgers shirt.
As they started by, one stopped and said, “Hey, guy. Guess who this is? It’s Hal McCoy.” We all shook hands and chatted about the Reds for about 20 minutes and then the guy said, “You probably don’t remember, but about 15 years ago I sat next to you at the blackjack table at the Casino Queen. And you were very nice to me. Never forgot that.”
Well, uh, no I didn’t remember. I’ve probably sat next to enough people at a blackjack table to match the population of Bombay, India. If I was nice to him, it must have been one of those rare nights when I actually won a couple of bucks.
ON MONDAY, it was 92 degrees in St. Louis. Right now, as I sit high above Busch Stadium in the press box that is in danger of getting hit by an incoming American Airlines flight, it is 61 degrees. Are we back in Milwaukee? On the field, Edwin Encarnacion is taking ground balls at third base, Wilkin Castillo is taking ground balls at second base and Adam Rosales is taking ground balls at first base. Where’s Jonny Gomes?
FOR THOSE passing around rumors that Joey Votto’s problem is something authoress Erica Jone wrote about years and years ago, A Fear of Flying, it’s not true. Like a lot of us, he might not LIKE to fly, but he doesn’t have a fear of it to cause stress anxieties.
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Bet on it: Maloney starts Saturday
Who will pitch Saturday for the Cincinnati Reds against the Chicago Cubs and Edinson Volquez’s stand-in? Lefthander Matt Maloney. Book it.
Homer Bailey pitched eight innings of shutout baseball Tuesday to beat Pawtucket, but he would have only three days of rest. No problem. Maloney pitched a complete-game shutout Monday, a three-hitter, to beat Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. His next turn would fall on, ta-dum, Saturday. Nice.
Maloney, 4-2 with a 2.00 ERA, will be the first lefthander to start for the Reds since Andy Pettyjohn started the last game of last season.
NOT MUCH TO say about Tuesday’s game, a 5-2 clunker defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati’s fourth loss in five games on this trip. Snippets about the game are sprinkled throughout the rest of this blog.
LOVED THE VENDOR walking in front of the press box just before game time Tuesday who was yelling: “Everybody else has cold beer. I have ice cold beer.” Now that’s a salesman.
Then Bronson Arroyo gave up a run in the first inning, the sixth straight game in which the Reds’ starting pitcher gave up runs in the first inning. That’s called getting off on both a bad foot and a wrong foot.
THE FOOD WAS so bad in the Busch Stadium media dining room before the game - but only $5 - that I took a couple of bites out of something called pecan chicken and vacated the premises. I went to a concession stand and bought a cheeseburger for $5.95. The pecan chicken was better.
AND HERE’S a little known tidbit - Reds catcher Ryan Hanigan has the highest batting average (.333) and highest on-base average (.420) of any rookie in the NL. Hanigan probably won’t play enough to qualify for Rookie of the Year.
Speaking of Rookie of the Year, pitcher Scott Williamson was the last Reds Rookie of the Year. One of my favorite stories about Williamson was the time the Reds played an interleague game in St. Petersburg against the Tampa Bay Rays.
We stayed at the Renaissance Vinoy, a hotel that supposedly is haunted. Williamson believes. He told teammates that during the night he saw somebody standing at the end of his bed and when he straightened up, they disappeared. Said a teammate - probably Kent Mercker - “That probably was Tampa Bay’s leadoff hitter and he couldn’t wait to get into the batter’s box against you at the ball park.”
Dodger pitcher Chad Billingsley swears he heard his toilet flush several times and he was the only person in the room. Wow, a ghost with bladder problems.
Other major leaguers and former major leaguers who have been spooked at the Vinoy include Jim Fregosi, Cito Gaston, Billy Koch, Gerald Perry, Jay Gibbons and Brian Roberts. Some Pittsburgh players were so frightened that they checked out of the hotel and stayed with a teammate’s family when the Pirates were in town six years ago.
For the Pirates, those were probably Ghosts of Losses Past.
ANOTHER TIDBIT: Kent “Dream” Weaver of FoxSports Ohio was passing around an interesting stat in the press box Tuesday: Entering Tuesday’s game, the Reds had 217 RBIs and 97 came with two outs.
Said Weaver, “Jim Day isn’t on the trip and he was sitting around the house in his underwear, feeling lonely, and looked it up.”
ONLY IN ST. LOUIS would this happen. Skip Schumaker struck out and got a standing ovation. In most parks he would have been booed, but the Busch fans acknowledged that he made Bronson Arroyo throw 14 pitches before he struck out.
YOU KNOW THINGS are going well for the Reds when plod-footed catcher Ramon Hernandez steals second base, his first theft since May 6, 2007, against the Indians when he played for the O’s. Of course, this time second baseman Schumaker had the ball waiting for Hernandez but failed to make the tag. Still, a stolen base.
AFTER THE REDS scored two runs in the fourth inning against the Cardinals Tuesday, the guy splitting hot dogs buns (hot dogs arrive in the fifth inning) said to me, “The Reds are a scrappy little team.” Thanks, man, now slap a wiener between a bun and hand it to me. Nah, I wasn’t mean. What I said was, “Pass the ketchup, please.”
ALBERT PUJOLS. El Hombre, is a great player and doesn’t need any help, but the official scorer gave him a gift RBI when his doubled tied Tuesday’s game, 2-2, in the fifth. Schumaker scored from first on the double, but wouldn’t have scored had left field Laynce Nix not kicked the ball around in the corner. Should have been double, run scores on the left fielder’s error, no RBI.
NIX LED THE sixth inning with a walk. Alex Gonzalez up. A bunt, right? An absolute sacrifice situation. No ifs, ands or buts - just bunt. Gonzalez did not attempt to bunt on the first two pitches and on 0-and-2 he grounded into a double play.
Then Arroyo gave up three runs in the bottom of the inning. Game over.
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Volquez goes back on the DL
Edinson Volquez is back on the DL. His examination in Cincinnati today revealed that he has tendinitis in his right elbow and he won’t even touch a baseball for the next seven to 10 days.
The tingling he talked about was a reaction from the ulnar nerve to the inflammation.
So instead of reporting to Louisville (AAA) after his option Monday, relief pitcher Jared Burton remains on the roster - pending approval by major-league baseball, which is always granted. Rules say a player optioned out cannot return for 10 days, but exceptions are made when injuries occur.
That means, though, the the Reds need a starting pitcher for Saturday. Could we see another Saturday Night Live performance by Homer Bailey, this time against the Chicago Cubs?
Turned my hotel room lopsided this morning, looking for my leather cigar case, embossed with Thompson on it. Couldn’t find it.
So I grabbed a couple of cigars and my Vince Flynn novel (Protect and Defend) and headed outside to a steel park bench behind the hotel for us decadent smokers. I was puffing my Montecristo White Label Churchill when a gentleman in a suit and tie asked, “Were you out here smoking yesterday and did you leave something?”
Ah, ha. My cigar case. When I said yes, he said, “I found it and almost kept it because it had my name on it. My name is Wade Thompson. I’ll go get it for you.”
And he did. Turns out he is Wade Thompson, head of Sales & Marketing for the St. Louis Westin. I offered him a $9 cigar as a reward and even though he said, “I smoke one now and then,” he refused. Nice guy.
HAD LUNCH at Charlie Gitto’s for the second straight day - it’s habit-forming - this time with broadcaster George Grande. We argued over the check. I won. But he’s paying tomorrow, he said. Same time, same location. Nice.
AS I SIT high above Busch Stadium, looking down at the Gateway Arch and up so high I’m certain I can see the top floor of my house in Englewood, they’ve just put the tarp on the field at 3 p.m. St. Louis time. Then a storm, complete with thunder and lightning, ravaged the place.
SUPPOSED TO BE OK for the game, though. Manager Dusty Baker shifted around his batting order, putting slump-ridden Jay Bruce in the No. 2 spot. In the first four games of this trip Bruce is 1 for 16 with eight strikeouts. It’s the first time this year Bruce has batted second (29 times at No. 5, 11 times at No. 3 and four times at No. 4).
Jerry Hairston Jr., Baker’s No. 1 guy in the two-hole, was out of the lineup for the second straight day with flu-like symptoms.
After missing three starts with a sore right hamstring, CF and leadoff batter Willy Taveras is back in the lineup.
CINCINNATI ENQUIRER beat writer John Fay stays at the team hotel, which is a block away. With the heavy rain, he jumped in a cab and gave the driver $10 to keep him dry and drive him to the stadium.
Adam Dunn tried that last year. Didn’t work. When he jumped in a cab and said, “Ball Park,” the driver refused, telling him to walk the block-and-a-half. So Dunn refused to leave the cab - sat in the back and read a newspaper for half an hour. Finally, the cabbie relented and took Dunn on the $3 ride. Dunn handed the guy the three bucks and said, “You missed out on a nice tip, pal.”
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Have no fear, Volquez probably OK
There was fear in the Cincinnati Reds dugout when Edinson Volquez walked off the mound after the first inning, but fear not.
It probably is not that bad.
After Volquez left his assignment to face the St. Louis Cardinals after only one inning, it was announced that he had numbness in the pinky and ring fingers of his pitching hand. Not good. Not good at all.
After the game, though, Volquez described it was a tingling than ran down his arm and into his fingers. And it was only on one pitch.
He is going back to Cincinnati tomorrow to have it checked, but the guess here is that it was much ado about nothing and he’ll take his next turn.
Meanwhile, without Volquez, without Joey Votto, without Willy Taveras, without Jerry Hairston Jr. and without Edwin Encarnacion, the Reds came from behind Monday to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in Game One of a four-gamer in Busch.
All the Reds need is a third baseman with a bandaged head playing the flute and the picture would be complete.
Volquez’s return from the wounded-in-action list lasted one inning Monday night in Busch Stadium and he quickly rejoined his incapacitated buddies.
Volquez missed his last start with back spasms but this time left after one inning against the St. Louis Cardinals with numbness in the pinky and ring fingers of his right hand, or as he described it later, “Tingling from my elbow down to my fingers.”
He joined Edwin Encarnacion (wrist), Joey Votto (stress), Willy Taveras (hamstring) and Jerry Hairston Jr. (flu) on the unable to perform couch.
If that sounds like a prescription for a sound drubbing, well, it wasn’t. After Volequez spotted the Cardinal a one-run lead in the first and Mike Lincoln gave them another in the third, the quilt-patch Reds came back to score a 5-3 victory, moving back to within 2 ½ games of first place.
And although Volquez vacated the mound and is going to Cincinnati this morning to be examined, it may not be serious. After the game Volquez said he didn’t feel it any more and that he felt it on only one pitch, a fastball to the second hitter he faced, Colby Rasmus.
To compensate, “I threw about 10 curveballs in a row and I usually don’t throw more than three curves the whole game,” he said.
And that got manager Dusty Baker’s attention, too.
“We figured something was wrong when he started throwing all those breaking balls,” said Baker. “I mean, he was throwing great in the bullpen — 94 or 95 miles an hour.”
Said Volquez, “I’ll have to check with somebody on what’s going on with me. I’d never been on the DL and then this and I’ve never had this happen to me, either. Never had pain in my arm.
“It disappeared then and I don’t feel it no more,” he said. “It’s crazy. The best part is that we won and stopped a losing streak.”
The win ended a six-game road losing streak and was the Reds’ first victory on this trip after losing three straight in Milwaukee over the weekend.
The Reds pulled this one out with a three-run fourth inning, highlighted by a two-run double by Laynce Nix.
Lincoln followed Volquez with three innings during which a home run to Rasmus was the only damage and Lincoln was rewarded with the win.
“Our guys were scraping and fighting,” said Baker. “They were determined against a good Cardinals team that plays well at home. That’s a big one to stop that losing streak and maybe we can start a winning streak.”
Of Lincoln’s stand-in performance, Baker said, “Lincoln has been struggling but he is throwing the ball better right now. He gave up a double (on his first pitch) and a home run, but he didn’t give up any more.”
Baker was asked before the game about how he has patched together makeshift and quickshift lineups since the injuries began piling up after nearly an injury-free April.
“I haven’t had my infield together for I don’t know how long,” said Baker. “All four have been gone at one time or another. We’ve held together because of our extra guys. Our extra guys have done an outstanding job. But how long can we expect our extra guys to perform like this? That’s the question.
“You want your regular guys back, for sure, but without our extra guys, boy, we wouldn’t be close to where we are. So many times this year we’ve played with 23 or 24 guys.”
And Monday was another time.
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Volquez’s return lasts one inning
Next thing you know Dick Pole will be pitching and Dusty Baker will be playing left field. The Cincinnati Reds are pulling apart at the seams of their socks.
Edinson Volquez’s return off the disabled list Monday last one inning. He threw 24 pitches, gave up a run, two hits and a walk, then fired his glove against the dugout wall and grabbed his back - the back that had him on the disabled list with spasms.
Ah, ha. This time it wasn’t his back. It was numbness in the pinky finger and ring finger on his pitching hand. He will fly to Cincinnati tomorrow morning to be examined by Dr. Tim Kremchek.
So Mike Lincoln was brought in to pitch the second inning.
Baker also was operating short of position players. Willy Taveras missed his third straight start with a sore right hamstring, although Baker said Taveras might be used in some capacity tonight and might start Tuesday.
And Jerry Hairston Jr. showed up in the clubhouse in misery - another bout with flu-like symptoms. For Baker’s sake, here’s hoping it isn’t the same flu that knockeld him out for almost week during spring training and cost him 12 to 15 pounds.
AIRTRAN IS NO longer perfect in my airlines grading system. My flight from Milwaukee to St. Louis this morning left 15 minutes early and arrived 20 minutes early. Excellent. Until I picked up my bag. After a 20-minute wait at the carousel, where bagged from six flights were arriving at the same time, I picked up my bag only to find a slit on the side.
My mood was sour until I hit the St. Louis Westin hotel, tied with Houston’s Inn at the Ballpark as my favorite hotels, then lunch at Charlie Gitto’s, where the sausage linguine was fabulous and the house salad has enough garlic to kill four werewolves and keep my enemies at least five blocks away.
Lincoln just gave up a home run and the Reds trail, 2-0, in the fourth. They don’t have a hit in four innings and their one baserunner, Brandon Phillips, got there on a walk and was picked off.
Things are looking dim and grim.
