Madison graduation 2012
Warren County CC graduation
New Miami graduation 2012
Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2009 > September
September 2009
A peek at the future? (maybe, maybe)
THERE WAS A snapshot Tuesday of what the Cincinnati Reds hope is a big, big part of their future — photos of Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce.
If the Reds are to improve in 2010, if they are to finally shake the anvil weight of nine straight years of losing, Bailey and Bruce must be a big part of it next year.
And as the sun sets on this season, both are giving quick views of what could be a mangificent photograph next year.
Bruce and Bailey were the main operatives in a 7-2 mauling of division-champion St. Louis in Great American Ball Park.
Bruce hit two home runs and produced a career-best five RBIs, giving him 22 home runs in 330 at-bats.
The beneficiary was Bailey and he breezed to his seventh victory, holding the Cardinals to one run and seven hits over seven innings while striking out seven and walking only one.
There was a defining moment for Bailey in this game and it came in the fifth inning with the Reds leading, 4-0. The Cardinals had the bases loaded with one out and Albert Pujols was the batter, owner of five grand slams in 15 bases loaded at bats this year.
Conventional wisdom? Walk the guy and pitch to Matt Holliday.
But they pitched to Pujols and he nearly did it again, driving one to the center field warning track that Willy Taveras caught, a sacrifice fly for one run instead of a home run for four.
“I knew he got under a little bit, but it was still kinda scary in this ballpark,” said Bailey. “How do I approach it? Take a step back, slow the game down, walk around a bit, then look at the glove and throw it as hard as you can.”
Said Baker, “That was big for him to get out of that inning with the dangerous Albert Pujols up there. Albert has been known to make it 4-4, so we’ll take that sacrifice fly.
“Homer is now pitching like he belongs here and he believes he belongs here,” Baker added. “In the past he might not have got out of that Pujols situation, trying to give up nothing and giving up a lot. That’s damage control right there and that’s a big lesson in itself.”
What buoys Baker is the recent progress of the two former No. 1 draft picks, Bruce and Bailey, and what it might mean for next season.
“We drafted them to build on top of them,” said Baker. “Those guys don’t have to prove anything to me. They only have to prove things to God, family and themselves because you can’t fool those three entities.”
Baker said Bruce’s approach to hitting has changed since he came off the disabled list September 13, “Because he is taking pitches that he was swinging at. You see him staying off bad pitches. The key to hitting is hitting high-quality, high-percentage pitches.”
Bruce clubbed three-run homer in the second on a 3-and-1 pitch and crushed a two-run homer in the sixth on a 2-and-2 pitch.
“Bruce stayed off a couple of tough pitches to get to 3-and-1 before he hit the pitch for his first home run,” said Baker. “He’s not out of the woods, but he has come a long way.”
Bruce watched everybody play for eight weeks while his fractured wrist recovered and he learned a few things.
“That’s going to be the biggest thing for me, from Day One, swinging at good pitches,” said Bruce. “Before I broke my hand, it was obvious I was swinging at bad pitches.”
How did it change?
Bruce went into a detailed explanation about how stopped double tapping in his swing, something he noticed that San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez quit doing, too. Simply put, he adjusted his footwork and keeps his feet planted more.
“It gives me more time to see the ball and make decisions,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing. It is hard enough to hit so you need to give yourself as much time as you can.”
And it appears the time for Bruce and Bailey is upon them, with next year the teller of the tale.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Post your comment |
TweetSmile and pass the Gelusil
Is this fair? Pitching coach Dick Pole walked up to me this afternoon and said, “Thanks for the Gelusil.”
Huh?
In the paper, part of my Reds Notebook is a Quote of the Day and last week in Pittsburgh I quoted Pole as saying he wanted to remain pitching coach as long as he didn’t have to resort to Gelusil to calm his stomach.
“I got an e-mail from the Gelusil people offering me a year’s supply of Gelusil,” said Pole.
What did I get for writing it? Nothing. Not a darn thing. I told Pole that perhaps the next time he mentions a product maybe it should be Porsche or Mercedes.
SPEAKING OF POLE, manager Dusty Baker has endorsed the return of his entire coaching staff, including Pole and hitting coach Brook Jacoby. And I double endorse it.
Fans always want to fire the pitching coach, fire the batting coach, fire the manager when things don’t go right - as if they are the reasons for losing. Seldom are they. And if you criticized them heavily earlier this season, where is the praise for the 23-11 record in their last 34.
The hitters are batting .299, scoring six runs a game in those 34 games, and the pitchers have posted a 2.64 ERA in their last 13 games.
Where’s the love?
Yeah, we all know the team was eliminated long ago and there is no pressure, but these also are not the same players. Seven players have undergone surgical procedures, 19 players made 21 appearances on the DL.
The projected starting lineup out of spring training played 10 games together all season. Hey, that probably was a good thing.
Anyway, what happened to this team is not the fault of Pole or Jacoby or any other coach - or the manager.
Pole said nobody has talked to him yet about next year, but added, “I’m not worried about it. Ten years ago I would have worried, but I’m not worried now.”
SPENT 45 MINUTES before today’s game in front of a camera and bright lights for MLB Productions answering questions about the 1975, 1976, 1979 and 1990 Reds. As my forehead broke out in persipiration, a young lady asked me pertinent questions about those teams.
Obviously she didn’t realize I’m 68 years old and can’t remember if I zipped my fly this morning or buttoned my shirt in all the correct holes.
“What do you remember about Willie Stargell in the 1979 playoffs?” she asked.
“Uh, big guy. Big bat.”
“Don’t you remember what he did to the Reds in those playoffs?”
“Uh, if you’re asking, probably something devastating,” I said. “But that was 30 years ago and unless I can check box scores to refresh my memory, well, excuse me. I have to go zip up my fly.”
Permalink | Comments (34) | Post your comment |
TweetGlad not to be covering the Browns
My favorite pro football team stinks. They are flat out odiferous. They stink more than the Cuyahoga River used to stink when it once caught on fire in 1969.
The Cleveland Browns couldn’t catch on fire if they wore gasoline suits. And until they quit wearing those hideous brown pants on the road, they’ll never win. They make the Browns look like Fudgesicles or ice cream drumsticks.
If they win a game this year I’ll be stunned. I swore I wouldn’t watch them this year for the safety of my TV because I once threw a shoe that cracked the screen on my television.
But that was when the Browns mattered, that was when they were not mere muddy door mats.
But I decided to watch the first half Sunday before the Cincinnaiti Reds game started and I saw what I expected. The Browns couldn’t score on Columbia University. Their offense is like an old conga line - one, two, three, kick. One, two, three kick.
Their defense is, putting it kindly, porous. It’s like trying to stop Lake Erie with a sifter.
I grew up in Akron and when I was a kid the Browns won every week. They played in the old All-America Conference and they were The Big Brown Machine long before Cincinnati had the Big Red Machine.
When the AAC folded, the NFL absorbed a few teams and one was the Browns. To teach them a lesson, the Browns were scheduled to play their first NFL game against the Philadelphia Eagles, champions the year before. The Browns destroyed them 35-10.
Before I began covering the Reds in 1973, I covered a lot of things and one was the Browns in 1964. They won the NFL championship that year - Jim Brown, Dr. Frank Ryan, Gary Collins - and they ripped the Baltimore Colts, 27-0 in the title game.
I should have quit rooting for them right then, but I do have some masochistic tendencies.
On my TV, it is now Baltimore 20, Cleveland 0, and it is nearly halftime and the announcers are ga-ga over the Ravens. “They are play magnificently,” said Gus Johnson. “This team could go to the Super Bowl,” said Steve Tasker.
C’mon, guys. They’re playing Browns. It might as well be Brown University.
There was honesty during the halftime show. Said Michael Irvin, “I’ve seen the Browns in person and they’re WORSE than this.”
DESPITE six straight wins to avoid it, the Reds finally did it Sunday - clinched their ninth straight losing season. By losing to the Astros, whom they had beaten nine straight times, the Reds lost for the 82nd time this season and even if they win their last six they’ll finish below .500.
It is nice to see the Reds show sparkle in September, winning 23 of their last 34. Guys like Drew Stubbs, Scott Rolen, Brandon Phillips, Jonny Gomes, Joey Votto, Bronson Arroyo, Nick Masset, Matt Maloney and Justin Lehr have been outstanding.
Very nice. But don’t be fooled. Seven of those 23 wins came against the Pirates, who quit trying long ago and five came against the Astros, who also quit trying long ago.
September will fool you. Teams are playing rookies and some veterans have lost their intensity with all the losing.
While seeing some brightness late in the season, remember the previous five months and don’t get giddy yet about next season’s prospects.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Post your comment |
TweetIt’s the end of the road (trips)
FOR ROBERT FROST, it was the road less traveled. And that will be me in the immediate future.
The long road well-traveled is over for me. I am not accompanying the team to Houston for its Battle for Fourth Place this weekend against the Astros.
I’ll miss the Inn at the Ballpark, a great hotel with a baseball motiff throughout, complete with a baseball library in the lobby. I’ll miss McCoy’s Fine Cigars on Main Street. Found the place by accident and didn’t even know its name when I walked in the door. Only when I was introduced to the owner, Mike McCoy, did I realize the place’s name.
And, no, we’re not related - although I wish we were and my cigar bill my might lighten a bit.
SO I’VE COVERED my last road game. In Pittsburgh. With not enough fans in the stands to start a good bar fight.
I made certain I made one final visit to Primanti’s, a Pittsburgh landmark and staple. They serve sandwiches of all types, but the key thing is that each sandwich has french fries and cole slaw between the bread with the meat. And, of course, you have to have a cold Yuengling Lager with it.
Why do they make their sandwiches that way. I’m told (maybe it’s a fable) that the original Primanti’s was like a truck stop and truckers came in for orders to go. Instead of serving them a sandwich with a side of fries and a side of cole slaw, they came up with putting it all between the bread. That way the truckers could eat everything in one hand and steer their rig with the other.
If that’s true, I’m certain there were scads of truckers with grease stains and cole slaw splotches on their pants, because those babies are messy. But very good.
I’M SITTING in the press box, a press box so high that flights coming in to Pittsburgh International Airport fly under us. Yeah, I know. I’ve used that line in St. Louis, too. But that press box is high, too.
The view up here is spectacular - the Roberto Clemente Bridge across the Allegheny River, the fabulous downtown skyline. PNC Park is gorgeous, my second favorite park behind AT&T in San Francisco. The ballparks are eerily alike, but even a fabulous view in Pittsburgh can’t trump the view of San Francisco Bay beyond AT&T.
It’s too bad they can’t put a winner on the field here - 17 straight years of defeat. There is even a song they’re playing on the radio in P-burgh about the 17 losing seasons. If they could put a winner together and quit trading all their stars, the fans would turn out. The park deserves fans in it. All you see are miles and miles of empty blue seats.
So it’s farewell to Pittsburgh. A lot of people don’t like this town. Me? I have to love it. It’s the home of Heinz Ketchup, a company I keep alive with liberal use of its product.
I could live here. Pramanti’s, pierogies and the Pirates. Two out of three ain’t bad.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Post your comment |
TweetA city and a team under siege
Now my career is complete. I had something happen to me before Wednesday’s game that has never happened in my 37 years of covering baseball: A player asked ME for MY autograph.
I was tempted to slap a cellphone on my ear and act as if I were talking to somebody, which is what the players do when they got off the team bus so autograph-seekers don’t bother them. Or I was tempted to say, “Get out of my face. I’m busy. I don’t sign autographs,” as I’ve seen some players do.
BUT THE request was from one of the nicest guys I’ve run across in a long time, first baseman Kevin Barker. He asked if I’d sign something for him, a baseball or an article I’d written. I was flattered and happy to do it.
The Pittsburgh Pirates gave me a nice scoreboard tribute in the fourth inning Wednesday. A nice gesture from PR director Jim Tridinich and his assistant, Danny Hart. It’s a class operation and one can only wish, with one of the most beautiful baseball parks in America, that the franchise would do better.
Seventeen straight losing seasons? C’mon. Ya gotta try harder than that.
HOMER BAILEY tried very hard Wednesday and it was refreshing. He didn’t have his fastball, left it in the hotel closet or something. So he had to rely on other pitches. He didn’t strike out a single batter, but he won - held the Pirates to two runs and four hits over six innings.
That meant something to both Bailey and Baker.
“It was good for me that I didn’t have my best stuff,” said Bailey. “It showed that I can still go out and compete. I didn’t have my fastball early so I had to make other pitches.
“They hit the ball early but Stubby (center fielder Drew Stubbs) just ran ‘em down and it’s great to have Stubby out there,” said Bailey.
Baker loved what he saw of Bailey’s adjustments.
“He didn’t have good velocity on his fastball, didn’t have his best stuff, so he went to changeups and breaking balls,” said Baker. “That’s part of the maturity process when you can win without your best stuff.”
NOW IT IS time to pack up and try to get back over the Robert Clemente Bridge to my hotel. I’ll probably have to go through Checkpoint Charlie and mention the password. “Pssst. It’s Babe Ruth.”
With the G20 Summit conference in Pittsburgh, security is unbelievable. I’ll need my passport and ID to get back into my hotel. The downtown area is on lockdown. Most businesses are closed from now until Monday.
The helicopters are still circling the city and sirens are constant. Pennsylvania state troopers, in sets of eight, are walking the streets on patrol. I’ve walked the streets for two days and have not seen a single protestor, though they are expected.
A cab driver yelled at a passenger for rolling down the windows and said, “Don’t you know there are people out there throwing human feces through car windows?”
He must have meant some of the Pittsburgh pitchers we’ve seen the last two days.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment |
TweetDusty newest goal: 75-87 (or better)
Now we have evidence that manager Dusty Baker reads the clips that the media relations department provides him, copies of stories and blogs written by the beat writers - or that sometimes thing are pointed out to him. And that’s cool.
Not that anything I write should have any profound effect on a life-long baseball guy like Dusty Baker, but at least he checks it out now and again.
In today’s game story, I wrote, “For some reason Dusty Baker was excited about the prospect of winning a 70th game this season.”
Baker brought it up, pleasantly and with a smile, during our pre-game chat session today.
“There is still a lot to play for and I know Hal wrote he was surprised about being excited about the 70th victory. Would we like our record to be reversed (from 70-81 to 81-70)? Oh, heck yeah,” he said. “You have to see what progress we’ve made with what we have had to work with this year. That’s why we decided we wanted to get to 70 wins.
“For a while there, I thought we’d have trouble getting to 60,” he said with a laugh. “Am I right? I mean with all the injuries, I’m thinking, please no (100 losses).
Now that 70 has been reached, there is a new goal. That would be 75. “How many did we win last year?” Baker asked me. When I said the team was 74-88, he said, “Then our goal is 75-87 or better. That may not be much, but it’s something. We now have something for which we can shoot.”
With five more games left against the Pirates and three against the Astros, that should be a reachable goal. Heck, even third place is reachable. They trail Milwaukee by four games with 11 games left.
One of the things that buoys Baker’s spirits is that in the first 151 games, 75 were decided by one or two runs - and the Reds didn’t do poorly. They are 19-19 in one-run games and 20-17 in two-run games.
“Half of the games we’ve played have been decided by two runs or less, so we’ve been right there in half our games and it won’t take much to get over the hump,” he said. “You figure half the game we were right there, right in the games.
Baker harkens back to what he said when he arrived before last season and hopes those words are remembered.
“When I got here I said I was in it for the long run, not the short run. We want to build something we can sustain and be contenders every year” he said. “Everybody wants quick fixes overnight and that kind of success happens once in a while, but not often. You have to have everthing go right and it didn’t go right for us.”
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment |
TweetVotto: .300 is just a pretty number
You want somebody to put everything in its proper place, like a cleaning lady replacing knick-knacks after a quick dusting? You want somebody to put things in perfect perspective, like a guy who has wrecked his new BMW but walks away without so much as a tear in his new jeans?
Then Joey Votto is your man.
If Votto can keep his batting average above .300, believe it or not, he’ll be the Reds’ first .300 hitter since Sean Casey hit .312 in 2005 and Ken Griffey Jr. hit .301 in 2005.
With nothing much else to play for in this Lost Season, you’d think .300 would be something constantly on Votto’s mind. It isn’t. In baseball, .300 can be a selfish statistic and Votto is not a selfish baseball player.
While Votto admits a number above .300 on your resume is nifty, it isn’t what he is all about.
“There is a pride thing that goes along with hitting .300,” he said. “But I really did my best this year to try not to pay attention to my average because it fluctuates so much that it is pointless.
“I take a lot of pride in driving in runs,” he added. “And I want to get on base as much as possible and score a lot, do what I can to help create runs, which helps the team win.”
Votto, a philosophical guy who can break the game down to its important components, did an excellent dissection after Tuesday’s game.
“Most players realize (that .300) is one of those pretty stats that a lot of guys take a ton of pride in because ever since baseball started, it has always been a benchmark,” he said. “So I’m no different than anybody else, but I do realize it’s definitely not the most important stat.”
But .308? Yeah that’s a pretty-looking number.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment |
TweetBaker puts Taveras in Wally Pipp class
For those holding their breath worrying about when Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker will stick Willy Taveras back in the lineup, well exhale and breathe heartily.
Taveras has been activated off the disabled list, but when Baker was asked when Taveras would play, he answered testily.
“Well, I mean, I don’t know. I’ll work it, not to be a smart-ass, but I’ll work it like I feel like it,” he said. “You know what I’m saying? Drew Stubbs has been playing good. We’ll see how Willy is feeling and I’ve asked him and he says he is still feeling something (in his quadriceps).
“We’re doing fine with who we’ve got out there,” Baker added.
IF HE TRULY subscribes to that, good for him. Taveras was a bust on top of a failure on top of a big disappointment all year. Since he went down and Stubbs arrived, Stubbs leads the team in home runs (8), total bases (65), steals (7) and runs scored (20). That’s more production in 32 games than Taveras produced in three-fourths of a season.
ONE SUSPECTS that Taveras somehow fell out of favor during his stay on the disabled list, perhaps didn’t work hard enough to suit Baker.
“He’s been out quite a while,” Baker said. And the most telling thing Baker said?
“Sometimes Wally Pipp is still alive,” he said. Pipp was a first baseman for the New York Yankees and took a day off. He was replaced by Lou Gehrig, who then played 2,130 straight games and Pipp was never heard from again as a Yankee.
Now when a player sits out some games and loses his position to another player, it is said, “He was Wally Pipped.”
THEN THERE is Ramon Hernandez. He came off the DL Sunday and there he was in the lineup Tuesday.
“He’s worked hard to get to this point and I like to reward guys who work hard to get back in there to play,” said Baker.
Just reading between the lines here, one suspects Taveras did not work hard enough to get back, not the way Hernandez did after having knee surgery July 21.
Also sounds as if Baker wouldn’t mind if Taveras was not back with the team next season. He didn’t say that, but when a manager brings up Wally Pipp, that’s Serious Business.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment |
TweetFour catchers? Pick your pair
THERE ARE FOUR catchers in the Cincinnati Reds dugout these days and in alphabetical order they are: Ryan Hanigan, Ramon Hernandez, Corky Miller, Craig Tatum.
By the time they pack four sets of catching gear in the hold of the team’s chartered aircraft, there is not enough room for all of Brandon Phillips’ bling and slick suits.
So two most go by next year. This is your assignment, if we can get you away from the football stuff: If the Reds can keep two catchers next year, which two. Who stays, who goes?
My choices are Hanigan and Miller stay, Hernandez and Tatum go. Hanigan may not be the ideal starter because of his offense and small stature, but he is a gamer, has a sound arm and calls the game with intelligence.
Miller is my backup. He is a veteran who is excellent behind the plate, on the mound straightening things out with wobbly pitchers and in the clubhouse as a solid leader with a strong personality and an abundant sense of humor.
I would not pick up Hernandez’s option and Tatum hasn’t shown much.
MILLER IS OLD SCHOOL and we’re talking one-room schoolhouse with pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room.
He doesn’t wear a hockey-type mask, just the old Johnny Bench-type that straps over a batting helmet. He doesn’t wear the fancy do-dad pads on his shin protectors.
He is one of four catchers, probably No. 3 on the depth chart now that Ramon Hernandez is off the disabled list.
And just because he was 2 for 34 and was hitting .121 when he walked to the plate Sunday in the fourth inning doesn’t mean he hasn’t learned which end of the bat is up.
Miller’s three-run homer, his first homer in the majors since June 11, 2008, was a back-snapper delivered to the Florida Marlins in an 8-1 Cincinnati victory. It was 1-0 when Miller delivered.
“Hey, you never know — never know when it is going to be your last one,” said Miller. “I haven’t been swinging great this year but to get a four-run lead for (starting pitcher) Kip Wells helped him a lot, too.”
IT WAS THE 33-year-old Miller who guided Wells through seven innings of two-hit shutout until the fuel tank went dry in the eighth.
“Wells was unbelievable and we changed it up for him a little bit,” said Miller. “Instead of just going after him with fastballs we used his off-speed a lot and that helped him throw his fastballs for strikes later on in the game.”
Command and control have been problems for Wells, but he didn’t walk anybody Sunday.
“His ball was moving more and he wasn’t trying to do as much with his fastball because his ball was moving and it kept those guys off balance,” said Miller.
MILLER’S HOMER stretched the lead from 1-0 to 4-0 and a two-run home run boy Joey Votto in the seventh stretched it from 5-0 to 7-0.
Wells is an outside candidate, a long shot, a sleeper for the fifth spot in next year’s rotation. So far he hasn’t done much to earn a second look — until Sunday.
“I tried not to change my game plan when I got the lead, tried to stay aggressive,” he said. “It was good to know that if they hit the ball out of the ball park, so be it. Corky did a great job of making me as productive as I could be.
“I’ve thrown more changeups in the last month — 3-and-2 changeups, 1-and-0 changeups that are still fairly hard, 86 and 87, but enough off that I get mishits or they swing over it,” Wells added.
While Wells gave credit to Miller for the way he called the game, he was appreciative of the three-run homer but tried not to check how big of a lead he had.
“I don’t look at the scoreboard while I’m pitching,” he said. “I don’t want to know if we’re up by three or five or six or eight because it doesn’t play in to what I’m trying to do. You only know if our team has scored and I haven’t given up a run.”
Pssst, Kip. You won. 8-1.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment |
TweetFrancisco’s debut an air-stirring event
FOR MY RETIREMENT, the Florida writers gave me an official Louisville Slugger bat with my named burned into the barrel where a player’s name is usually stenciled. Under it it said: “Dayton Daily News, Hall of Fame, 2002.”
Another very nice gesture by the greatest people in the world, the baseball writers.
While I don’t want the bat tarnished or knicked or dented, I felt like I should have offered it to the Cincinnati Reds Saturday night. They needed some help. As usual, Bronson Arroyo needed some offensive help and wasn’t getting it.
He pitched good and his team hit bad. So what else is new?
WITH THE TEAM stalled in neutral, spinning its wheels in six place and the owner of 81 losses (one more loss and the team is guaranteed its ninth straight losing season), it makes no difference who plays where and why.
So, a glimpse of what-might-be was unveiled Saturday night in Great American Ball Park when 22-year-old rookie Juan Francisco found his name on the Cincinnati Reds lineup card — giving him a belly full of butterflies and his first major-league start.
It wasn’t a scrapbook evening for Francisco, 0 for 3, all strikeouts, but it wasn’t a Memorex evening for the Cincinnati Reds, either, losing 3-2 to the Florida Marlins.
And Francisco wasn’t along with the big swish. The Reds struck out 11 times, 10 by Florida starter Ricky Nolasco in seven innings.
“Nolasco has a strikeout per inning on his record, he is a strikeout pitcher,” said manager Dusty Baker. “He’s no slouch. And we have some young guys prone to strike out so he was teasing them around the strike zone.”
Starter Bronson Arroyo gave up a two-run home run to pinch-hitter Ross Gload in the eighth inning for the game winner after the Reds provided Arroyo with only solo home runs by Drew Stubbs, leading off the first, and Ryan Hanigan.
“I told Scott Rolen he was off (Saturday) with a lefthander pitching for Florida (today) and a day game after a night game,” said Baker. “So it was time to play Francisco.
“He is going to be a very good hitter because he has power to all fields,” Baker added. “It’s a matter of, like most young guys, he has to swing at strikes.”
Right on cue, batting in the first inning, Francisco struck out on a pitch he couldn’t have reached if he stood on a ledge. And on his second at-bat he struck out on a pitch in the dirt he couldn’t have hit with a post digger.
He swung at a good pitch his third time, but still struck out .
“He’ll learn the zone,” said Baker. “They don’t strike him out, he gets himself out.”
And defense?
“He works hard at it and still makes some young inexperienced errors and made quite a few in the minors,” said Baker. “Most of that is probably being overzealous versus being underzealous.”
Francisco, a third baseman, played third Saturday, but he is working on mastering the outfield, “Because Scott Rolen is our third baseman for the next few years. He’ll play outfield in winter ball and work on it in the instructional league.
“A guy with a bat like that, if a guy can hit, you’ll find a place for him to play as long as he doesn’t hurt you too much defensively,” said Baker.
His first defensive play came with two outs in the third, a slow roller hit by pitcher Ricky Nolasco. Francisco charged, picked it up and fired it on the run. A strike at first base. He didn’t have another play until he started an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play in the seventh.
Stubbs gave Arroyo a 1-0 lead in the first with his eighth home run, third leadoff home run of the year.
Arroyo guarded that fiercely, one hit through four until he fell 3-and-1 behind Jorge Cantu, leading off the fifth.
“It was a 3-and-1 breaking ball because I was having trouble controlling my fastball,” said Arroyo, who fell to 13-13. “I knew he was looking for it (breaking pitch), so I figured I’d just give it to him and if he can hit a 3-and-1 breaking ball out of the park, go ahead. And he did.”
Hanigan’s home run in the seventh gave the Reds a 2-1 lead, but Arroyo gave up a leadoff double to Ronny Paulino in the eighth and with one out Gload batted for Nolasco.
Gload crushed a 1-and-0 pitch out of the park.
“I didn’t have the greatest fastball control after the third inning and I was relying on my changeup,” said Arroyo. “These guys are pretty aggressive and I was getting a lot of easy outs with it.
“Russ Gload came to the plate and I hadn’t seen him a lot the last few years,” Arroyo added. “He is a guy with a quick bat and I figured to stay way — worst case scenario, they tie the game. But I threw a changeup, figured he’d take it for 1-and-1, but he hit it out of the park. Way it goes sometimes in this game.”
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment |
TweetMaloney needs only three fans
If nobody is there to see it, does it really count? Well, yes, it does, but Matt Maloney wouldn’t have cared if they only folks in Great American Ball Park Thursday were his mother, father and fiance.
There were barely more than that.
With an announced crowd of 9,685, the Florida Marlins should have felt as if they were playing in the comfort of their own North Miami home, where there are more alligators within a mile radius than baseball fans.
With cell phone conversations discernible two sections apart all night, the Cincinnati Reds put a crimp in Florida’s wild card aspirations with a 3-2 victory, the Reds’ eighth straight home victory, most of them played in relative silence and with enough empty red chairs to seat the Ohio homeless.
The Reds lit into Florida starter Anibal Sanchez for three first-inning runs on Darnell McDonald’s leadoff home run and a two-out two-run soft flare single to left field by Jay Bruce.
Matt Maloney wobbled inning after inning with that 3-0 lead, but never toppled, pitching four scoreless innings before the Marlins scored their two runs in the fifth.
Maloney didn’t care how many or how few were in the park. With his mother, father and fiancé in the house, he was happy to get the start in place of Johnny Cueto (flu-like symptoms) and happy to be back on the mound after he was skipped a turn with a blister.
It all resulted in his first career major-league victory.
He gave up two runs and seven hits in five innings, then watched the bullpen of Ramon Ramirez, Arthur Rhodes, Nick Masset and Coco Cordero combine for no runs and one hit over the final four.
“That was awesome,” said Maloney. “Got the beer shower and the game scorecard. My finger was sore, but I was able to get through it and keep the ball down.”
Maloney survived because he ignored the cutter, the pitch that caused the blister. He stuck with an effective sinker, then went into the clubhouse to sweat out his one-run lead.
“I was in here talking to Homer Bailey and trying not to think about it too much,” said Maloney. “I was anxious, but the bullpen guys just nailed it down.”
McDonald, who homered to lead the bottom of the first, was playing in place of a resting Drew Stubbs.
“Stubbs has played every day since he has been here,” said manager Dusty Baker. “Time to give him a day off. I have another good center fielder in Darnell, too. Drew will be strong and better down the stretch if you give him a day off now and then, a mental day off. He’ll be back in there (tonight).”
It was a night for stand-ins — McDonald and Maloney — and of Maloney Baker said, “He ran out of gas in the fifth, but we tried to stick with him, which we did.”
McDonald gave up three hits for two runs in the fifth and had two outs with the tying run on second. Instead of lifting him, Baker stuck with Maloney so he could get the final out to qualify for the win.
Maloney retired Cody Ross on a pop up to first.
“Then our bullpen came on to do a great job because rarely do you score three in three in the first, then don’t score any more and end up winning,” Baker added. “Matt battled through the fifth inning and we were all pulling for him so he could get that first win.
“It’s fun for me to give a guy like Maloney the lineup card when he gets his first win,” said Baker. “Back in the day, I wish I would have had mine. Memorabilia stuff wasn’t as important as it is now.”
Maloney said he planned to give the lineup card to his dad, Joe, “And let him take care of it.”
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment |
TweetGomes: ‘This one’s for you’
AS I WALKED toward the field Wednesday before the pre-game ceremonies on Hal McCoy Night, I passed Jonny Gomes and he said, “Hey, Hal, I’m going to try to hit one for you tonight.”
Anybody who has watched Gomes knows that he tries to HIT ONE every time he swings the bat, swings as if he is trying to land a ball in Sparta, Ky.
After the ceremony, I joined family and friends in the outdoor Frontgate suite next to the press box and was not paying attention when Gomes came to bat in the top of the second, leading off, carrying a 3 for 24 slide with him.
On a 0-and-1 pitch, he put the torch to one, blasting a home run off the front facade of the upper deck.
I casually turned to my wife, Nadine, and said, “He hit that for me.” I was kidding.
BUT WHEN I walked into the clubhouse today, Gomes called me to his locker. When I got there, he proudly handed me the bat with which he hit the home run, complete with the pine tar on the handle and several dents on the barrel.
He had written in silver ink on the black barrel, “To Hal, Thanks for the support. HR #20 on Hal McCoy Day, Sept. 16th, 2009.”
Now I ask you, how cool is that? How neat is that? That’s the best thing a player has done for me along those lines since Ken Griffey Jr. handed me the baseball he hit for his 30th home run one year for the Reds.
That was the year Griffey had one home run in April and fans were all over him. I wrote in a column, “If Ken Griffey Jr. doesn’t hit 30 home runs this year, I’ll eat this column on Courthouse Square and bring my own ketchup.”
Well, I had no idea Griffey knew about that column. So it was late August in Washington when Griffey tagged No. 30. After the game, he walked past me and flipped me the ball he hit for No. 30 and it was similarly inscribed: “Hal, thanks for the loyalty and support. Home run No. 30,” and that date and his signature were on it.
HAL McCOY NIGHT beyond description, a memorable day in my life. The Cincinnati Reds were so classy and it shows they either understand my job or have a great sense of humor. I haven’t been that kind to them over the past few losing seasons, but the show they put on for me Wednesday as outrageously awesome.
I can’t begin to thank everybody but know that everything everybody did for me was deeply appreciated. And I thoroughly enjoyed the one-hour autograph session in the Hall of Fame Wednesday. I was astouned how many fans were there, a steady line and a steady flow. It was fantastic to chat with the fans.
And you know those pictures of me they sold for $5 for me to autograph? I didn’t get a cent of it. Honest. But it was nice of them to tell me it was the most successful signing session they ever had and they ran out of pictures.
The night was a blur and I’ll have to watch the DVD to drink it all in.
THEN THE night became crystal clear in a heartbeat. I got home at 12:30 a.m. and was sitting in my Man Cave (the garage) smoking a Cuban Romeo y Julieta cigar given to me my Jeff Piecoro when I heard my wife, Nadine, screaming in the kitchen.
I ran in and discovered she had sliced her finger with a pair of scisscors, a deep ugly wound. I wanted to call 911, but she said, “Not for $900 you aren’t.” Being the trouper she is, she drove herself to emergency (with me in the passenger seat because I am unable to drive), bleeding all over the steering wheel.
We got to Emergency and they told us, “Have a seat, it’s a four-hour wait.” A few minutes later, either a doctor or a male nurse (he had on green scrubs) walked through some double doors, looked at me and said, “What are you doing here? I was just looking at your picture in the paper and I walk out and here you are.”
I said, “My wife tried to cut her finger off.”
A few minutes later, we were inside (thank you, whoever you are) and she was fixed up. She is wearing a wrap that makes her left hand look like a first baseman’s mitt, but again being the trouper she is, she went to school to her teaching job this morning.
No0w I[‘m in the press box tonight, ready to cover the Reds-Marlins game and finding it difficult to concentrate. After last night, tonight is a downer.
Thanks, EVERYBODY, and thanks, Jonny Gomes, for making it even more special.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment |
TweetJanish: a kid for whom you root
THERE ARE TIMES when you lose your objectivity, when you pull for somebody’s success. They don’t come much nicer or more polite than Paul Janish. If he could use a bat the way he uses his personality, he’d be a .300 hitter.
Right now, he isn’t. He is a magician with the glove, a bag lady with the bat. But he is getting better. Maybe more playing time is paying off.
At least for one night, Tuesday against the Houston Astros, Janish was Paul O’Neill and Paul Waner - all those good hitters named Paul. (Not Householder). He had three doubles, one that drove in the winning run in a 5-4 victory.
What do you think? Can Janish be next year’s every day shortstop? Should they give him the opportunity, knowing they can’t afford to go buy a big-ticket free agent? Or should they try somebody else?
THE REDS WEREN’T expected to beat the Astros in Great American Ball Park because:
(A)Roy Oswalt, nursing a bad back, pitched for the Astros and the Reds couldn’t beat him if he had his right arm and both legs amputated six minutes before game time.
(B)Dick Vitale spent the evening with general manager Walt Jocketty and owner Bob Castellini and the Reds were thinking basketball instead of baseball.
(C)A Metallica concert was next door at U.S. Bank Arena and players couldn’t hear themselves strike out.
(D)It was Bark in the Park Night, with 562 dogs in the stands, and well, fill in your own punch-line on this one.
The Reds didn’t beat Oswalt, but he remains 23-1 for his career against them because he received a no-decision, giving up four runs and six hits in five innings.
WHAT WASN’T figured into the equation was light-hitting Janish’s fetish for doubles on this night.
Janish doubled once during a two-run first after Drew Stubbs led with a home run, once in the sixth when he scored one of two runs that chased Oswalt, and once in the seventh, a two-out run-scoring blast to right center that broke a 4-4 tie.
Janish was 2 for 32 when manager Dusty Baker gave him Saturday off, a chance to sit and watch the vines grow in Wrigley Field. Since then he is 6 for 13 and hitting the ball with thundering authority.
Janish showed a sense of humor when asked about his last double and he said, “That was good, huh? It won the game.”
JANISH CREDITED a talk with Baker in Chicago and his mother, Debbie, showing up in GABP. While most mothers bring cake and cookies, “My mom always seems to bring me some hits,” he said. His mother (and Janish during the off-season) live close enough to Minute Maid Park in Houston that they can smell the oranges on the train above the viaduct in the ball park.
“We had a rough road trip after taking three straight from Atlanta (six losses in seven games) and I, in particular, was struggling,” he said. “I talked to Dusty in Chicago because I was in a funk and it was snowballing and the day off helped mentally more than anything else.”
Janish knows he is in audition mode for next year and needs to show as much ability with the wood as he does with the leather.
“Without a doubt, that’s the way it works in this business and I’m doing my best to keep my mentality loose,” he said. “This is the first time in the big leagues where I’ve had the opportunity to play every day and play loose.”
SAID BAKER, “Janish is working hard on his hitting and he is a real good student who listens and tries to apply it. It’s a situation where he wants the job and we’re giving him every opportunity for him to show what he can do.
“With inexperience and youth, you are going to be hot and cold,” Baker added. “What you are looking for is consistency, especially a guy in Janish’s position. We traded (shortstop) Alex Gonzalez and Paul was the recipient, an opportunity to play. As a manager, all you can do is give them the opportunity and the rest is up to them. You can’t hit for them, field for them or pitch for them.
“You can instruct them and all you can do is hope they adhere to the instruction,” said Baker.
On this night Janish had his mom’s help, or maybe it was his Labrador Retriever, Remington, on Bark in the Park Night.
Some time soon, Janish hopes it’s all on his own
Permalink | Comments (27) | Post your comment |
TweetAaron Boone: a man with a big, big heart
It sounds goofy, I know, but it may have been the nicest thing anybody ever said about me and it was uttered Monday in the Houston Astros dugout by Aaron Boone.
Those who know me know how I credit Aaron Boone with adding six years to my career with some tough love.
Boone was doing an interview in the dugout Monday and C. Trent Rosecrans asked Boone about our relationship and he said, “Hal and I are joined at the hip.” What an amazing thing to say.
Boone has always been very downbeat about his part in extending my career, as if he doesn’t even remember doing it. But he did. And that he is fuzzy about it just shows he did it out of compassion and did not expect the credit he gets.
Short version:
After having strokes of the optic nerves in my eyes in 2003, I walked into the spring training clubhouse and everything was dark and blurry. I couldn’t recognize people I’d known for a long time.
Boone saw the perplexed look on my face and said, “What’s up? What’s wrong?” I told him what had happened to my eyes and said, “You’re seeing me for the last time. I’m quitting. I can’t do this.”
Boone grabbed my arm, led me to his locker, sat me down, and said, “I don’t ever want to hear you say the word quit again.” And he gave me other words of encouragement that turned me around that day. I was going to quit. I was going home.
I credit Boone for that everywhere I go and people constantly ask him about it and he shrugs and downplays it. Trust me, he turned me around big-time that day and I’ll never forget it.
Maybe his reward was that game-winning home run he hit for the New York Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, Game 7, against the Boston Red Sox. Nobody was happier for him than I.
AND I GOT TO SEE him again today. We chatted briefly in the clubhouse before his press conference to talk about his open heart surgery. Yes, open heart surgery in March and back in uniform in July.
I was tempted to say, “Well, they finally proved you have a heart.” But I knew that. A big, big heart. If I had, he would have laughed. Moments after I was elected to the Hall of Fame, I received a phone call. Without identifying himself, Boone said to me, “Well, now we know they’ll let anybody into the Hall of Fame.”
BOONE ISN’T concerned that his name rarely is on the Houston Astros lineup card — 0 for 6 since he was added to the roster off rehab on September 1.
“They have about five third basemen on this team, all lined in a row, and they have to see what they can do,” said Boone.
That’s OK with Boone; he is just happy to once again be able to slip on the rust-colored jersey with the No. 8 (his father, Bob’s, number), thrilled to be wearing a major-league uniform.
On March 26 of this year, it was touch-and-go for Boone. And it was about life-and-death, not baseball. Boone underwent open heart surgery.
Amazingly, he is back on the field, ready to play, when called upon, and the 36-year-old, third-round draft pick of the Cincinnati Reds in 1994 talked freely Monday of his ordeal.
Asked if he now has a different perspective on life, Boone said, “No, I’ve always had a pretty healthy perspective on things and maybe this sharpens your appreciation for things. Nothing has changed for me and I’m doing really well.”
The response to his surgery and his recovery is what dazzles Boone.
“Overwhelming,” he said. “That’s been the greatest thing about this whole thing. The people who have reached out to me, people I barely know. It has been absolutely the most touching thing through all this.
“I wouldn’t say it put my faith in humanity, but it really makes you appreciate the many people in your life you’ve come across who have reached out on some level,” he added.
Boone, playing for the New York Yankees, hit the famous game-winning home run in Game 7 of the ALCS in 2003 that beat Boston and somebody said, “You’ve even heard from Red Sox fans?”
Boone didn’t even smile when he answered and said, “They don’t care any more. They’ve won since then and now it is just part of the story.”
Boone wasn’t in Monday’s lineup, but drank it all in and said, “It’s always awesome for me to come to Cincinnati, even though there are no players left with whom I played. It is always great to look around and see Cincinnati.”
For me, it was great to look around and see Aaron Boone and I think, I hope, when I try to throw out the ceremonial first pitch Wednesday, Boone will be there to catch it. He won’t need a glove.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment |
TweetOne last fond look and a good-bye to Wrigley
WRIGLEY FIELD is empty, the 39,805 fans scattered throughout Wrigleyville or on the El or headed home on the freeways - after singing that catchy song they sing after every victory, “Go Cubs Go.”
The Cubs won, 5-2, officially eliminating the Cincinnati Reds from the pennant race, but I’m not giving that much thought.
As I sit in the press box high above Wrigley, scanning the horizon to see the high-rise buildings and Lake Michigan, I think of 37 years of coming to these hallowed grounds. They can talk all they want about Fenway Park, this is THE place to watch baseball. This is what baseball is all about.
Amazingly, the place has changed very little over 37 years - a few new seats crowded into the corners and a bunch of grandstands atop the brownstone buildings on Waveland and Sheffield.
The old-time scoreboard remains the same and the boisterous and belligerent Bleacher Bums remain the same.
But they’re gone now and I’m left here with my memories, of great times, of mostly day baseball, the way it was meant to be played. I love this park when it is empty and I love it when it is full.
I won’t miss walking the ramps. They finally put in an elevator for former broadcaster Harry Caray, but it is down in the left field corner and usable only when you arrive at the park and when you leave. To go to and from the clubhouse and to and from the field, you walks the ramps, just like the fans.
I could sit here and gape for hours, watch the elevated trains beyond the center field bleachers, watch the fans hitting all the bars in Wrigleyville, listen to the sirens from the firehouse behind the left field wall - a firehouse that has to be one of the busiest in Chicago because sirens are constant.
I can look at the ivy on the brick outfield walls and remember outfielder after outfielder getting tangled in the branches and searching frantically for lodged baseballs.
But I have a plane to catch home, so I’ll take my last look around this baseball pasture, this REAL Field of Dreams, and with a tear or two at the corner of my eyes, I’ll walk to the left field corner, take one last glance very close to the left field foul pole, then walk down a portal to the elevator and leave by the gate across from the firehouse. I’ll hail a cab and watch another dream fade over my shoulders.
AS JONNY GOMES calls it, “Your victory tour,” continued Sunday in Wrigley Field.
I was standing in front of the Cubs dugout chatting with manager Lou Piniella. After a 15-minute chat, I turned around and there was a semi-circle of Cubs writers and officials standing behind me.
General Manager Jim Hendry started it off, presenting me with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, from his own winery in Napa Valley. Very nice. Hendry is a class act, a great friend over the years, who often asked me why I didn’t come to work in Chicago. They didn’t want me, Jim, and the Chicago writers are a great bunch of people. They all took me out for a drink near Wrigleyville after Saturday’s game.
A couple of them who were off and didn’t cover the game showed up for the mini-party. What a great time with Bruce Miles, Dave Van Dyck, Paul Sullivan, Carrie Muskat and Alan Solomon.
The establishment was The Piano Man on Clark Street and as soon as I walked in I saw the jersey of Reds’ pitching coach Dick Pole hanging on the wall. It was a Cubs uniform from the 1980s, when Pole was pitching coach for the Cubs. Then I looked up and there he was, sitting with friends near the bar.
Pole bought the first round and when he got the bill he looked at it and said, “What did I do, break a window?” Turns out he always says that and it never fails to get a laugh.
Next on Sunday, after Hendry, was Piniella, who handed me a box of Macanudos and said, “I first met Hal back in 1990 when I became manager of the Reds. I asked him for a rundown of the team and how to approach them and what kind of guys they were. Hal gave me a great rundown, he was right on all counts, and we won the World Series.”
I’m still waiting for my World Series share and my World Series ring, but Piniella’s words and friendship were enough.
Then Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster, who pitched briefly for the Reds and is one of the all-time great people I’ve met in this game, stepped forward with a gift from the Cubs: The actual No. 37 from the Wrigley Field scoreboard, where they still hang numbers manually. The 37, of course, represents the years I worked the beat. What a fabulous, unique gift. It’ll hang prominently in my home office.
The No. 38 is on the back and Hendry said, “That’s in case you pull a Brett Favre on us and come back.”
EARLIER IN THE DAY, when I was standing in the Reds clubhouse, somebody stuck a bag of cigars in the my face and handed me a note. It was from Cubs home clubhouse attendant Tim Hellmann, who worked the Reds’ clubhouse every spring in Sarasota and was an invaluable help to me after my eyes went bad.
The hand-written note said, “Thanks for everything, you will be missed. Hope to see you again down the road. Best wishes and good luck. TIM HELLMANN.
What a great gesture from somebody who some people in the game consider the “little” people, but he and many, many other clubhouse personnel, from the Reds to all those around the league, are fabulous folks who are tireless workers doing the menial jobs, but they are giants of the game to me. Thanks, Tim.
Thanks, Cubs.
Before the game, I went on the Cubs/WGN pre-game show with TV broadcaster Len Casper for a well-done interview (not by me, by Len and his questions, which made it easy and fun).
THEN I went back to the pressbox to dig into my late Big A** Burrito. Reds media relations director Rob Butcher always makes the burrito run to a little Mexican hole-in-the-wall place under the El tracks about a half a block away.
It was Butcher’s second run of the day. On Sunday morning he ran a half-marathon, The Chicago Half-Marathon. Butcher was one of 15,000 finishers. He did the 13.1 miles in 1:42.09 (980th out of 15,000).
Nice going, Rob. But your short run for the burritos was your best run of the day. It was my third straight burrito for lunch and today’s was my last.
I’ll miss ‘em.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Post your comment |
TweetCueto: a lesson that hurts the W-L record
IF YOU HAVEN’T read the blog before this one, do me a favor and slide through it for me, will you? Thanks.
SOMETIMES WE in the press box get a little bored or a little giddy and need a distraction. Here is one game we play - come up with alliterative names for baseball terms.
For example, here are some terms I came up for a stolen base:
Swiped sack.
Pilfered pillow.
Hijacked hassock.
Burglarized bag.
AND I TRY to stay away from clichés, but through the years these are some of the terms I’ve heard used for home runs and I’m proud to say I’ve never used them in a story until today:
Tater.
Round-tripper.
Johnson.
Four-ply wallop.
Dinger.
Circuit clout.
Think of any others? I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones that come quickly to mind.
And then there are terms for a pitcher:
Hurler.
Flinger.
Moundsman.
Hilltopper.
Staffer.
Twirler.
Portsider (for a lefthander).
Southpaw (for a lefthander).
*Why are there no nicknames for righthanded pitchers - like starboardsiders or northpaws?
ENOUGH NONSENSE for today. Young pitcher Johnny Cueto learned (hopefully he learned and doesn’t forget) a valuable and costly lesson Saturday. He had a 5-0 lead over the Cubs, a sure win. He had given up no runs and one hit over five innings. Then one pitch led to a meltdown and enabled the Cubs to tie the game.
The Reds won, 7-5, on pinch-hitter Drew Sutton’s two-run double, but Cueto did not get the win.
Cueto started and owned a 5-0 lead after five, then he walked Ryan Theriot to open the sixth and open the gates. And the walk came on a 3-and-2 pitch on which he shook off catcher Corky Miller’s call for a fastball.
Cueto wanted to throw a changeup. And did. Ball four.
“Cueto was throwing great and that was his game,” said manager Dusty Baker. “Then he walked Theriot. That was part of the learning process for Johnny. He started shaking off the catcher.
“On 2-and-2 to Theriot he wanted to throw a slider (ball three). Then he wanted to throw a changeup (ball four),” said Baker. “What we’re trying to teach them right there is, ‘Is the risk worth the gain?’ You have a 5-0 lead and they had their big guns coming up behind Theriot.”
Derrek Lee singled, Aramis Ramirez singled, Geovany Soto doubled for two and Cueto was done, still leading, 5-2. But the Cubs caught up against the Reds bullpen.
“What haunted Cueto was that he walked Theriot at 5-0,” said Baker. “You have to throw a strike in that situation.”
Cueto knew he messed up and sheepishly said through interpreter Carlos Fisher, “Maybe now I know I shouldn’t have thrown Theriot a change (on 3-and-2), because that’s where the game went downhill for me.”
Cueto did not appear happy to leave the mound but Baker quickly said, “It didn’t matter if he was mad or not. He did it to himself, y’know. He was dealing (no runs, one hit through five). That’s what we’re trying to teach. When you try to throw a 2-and-2 slider and a 3-and-2 changeup, you’re going for the strikeout instead of the out.
“Corky was directing him big-time through that game and sometimes when things are going good you say, ‘I’ll take it from here,’ and that’s when you get in trouble,” Baker added. “That should have been his 10th victory because he didn’t have that many pitches (89) and his fastball was still 94 to 95.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment |
TweetJust a few personal nuggets
I wish all of you could be in Great American Ball Park Wednesday night on Hal McCoy Night so I could thank you all for being the most loyal readers and followers in the world.
Those who can attend, well, I hope you can stop in at the Hall of Fame building at GABP. They want me to sign autographs from 4:30 to 5:30 and it might be a very lonely experience if a few of you don’t show up.
I’m going to throw out the ceremonial first pitch Wednesday and I’m doing that with trepidation. I’ve done it three times in other professional parks, but that was six years ago when I could still see. I did it last year as Grand Marshal of the Englewood Little League parade. That was only 45 feet and after I released the pitch I never saw it until it hit the glove of the kid catching it. A lucky heave.
Wish me luck that I make another fortunate heave, but it’s OK to laugh if I hit the screen.
JONNY GOMES keeps calling what I’m doing now, “Your Victory Tour.” They’ve done some nice things for me in St. Louis and Milwaukee. They even recognized me on the scoreboard in San Francisco and I wasn’t even there. Lou Piniella promises me a box of cigars here in Wrigley tomorrow.
ONE OF THE nicest gestures comes from the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. They asked Reds media relations director Rob Butcher to check with me on my favorite charity so they could make a donation in my name.
Thanks, guys. That’s first class.
ONE MORE personal item in this personal blog - and sorry if I’m boring you to death. Building Bridges, Inc. of Dayton, an organization for troubled and underprivileged kids, is holding the Hal McCoy Baseball Clinic on Saturday, October 3 at Fifth Third Field in downtown Dayton. More on this later, but check the Dayton Daily News (the paper or the web-site) on Sunday for details, which I don’t have in front of me at this moment as the Reds-Cubs begin a Saturday afternoon game in Wrigley Field.
Only 20 more games left in the beat-writing career and I’m getting sadder and more emotional as the days fly by. I’ll miss you all.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment |
TweetWhat should the Reds do with Gomes?
Before I rush off to Rush Street for a pizza from Giordano’s tonight, how about some chatter about Jonny Gomes?
The question: Do you think the Reds should sign him for next season? Is he good enough offensively and not a big enough defensive distraction to be the regular guy in left field? Is his defense too messy? Is he a role player? Should they not sign him at all.
Here is what he did Friday and what his thinking is.
With Elimination Day lurking over the Cincinnati Reds like an angry mother-in-law, what’s left?
How about a Comeback of the Year Award for Jonny Gomes, whose three-run home run Friday was pretty much the extent of a moribund offense in a 6-4 loss to the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field.
The Reds trailed, 4-1, in the fifth, but Gomes ripped his 19th home run in only 239 at-bats into the snout of a stiff wind blowing in off Lake Michigan.
“I picked a bad day to hit three fly balls,” said Gomes, who flied out deep to center twice, once in the third with two on.
After Gomes tied it in the fifth, Reds starter Justin Lehr gave the lead right back in the bottom of the fifth and the Reds never scored again.
“My biggest mistake of the day was walking the leadoff guy (Kosuke Fukudome) to start the fifth right after Gomes got us back in the game,” said Lehr. “He came all the way around to score.”
As they have done so often this year, the Reds littered the bases with bodies that didn’t move because the hitters couldn’t move them — nine more stranded runners.
And Gomes threw himself under the bus in talking about it.
“We left a lot of guys on base and I’m guilty of that, too,” he said. “It’s our job to get them in and we were guility of not doing that today.”
So here is the day’s quiz: do the Reds want Gomes back next year and does Gomes want to come back?
“He has been our biggest and best run producer, producing runs big-time,” said manager Dusty Baker. There are, though, some defensive issues and that plays into it.
Gomes?
“Come back here? For sure, for sure,” he said. “I like it here a lot. You have opportunities for the most money, you have the opportunities to play close to home (he lives in Phoenix) and you have the opportunities to get playing time. That’s where I’ll be at this off season — go where I can get the most at-bats. I would love it if it would be here.”
Gomes began the season in Louisville when he probably should have made the team, then was called up and platooned in the outfield, but with all the injuries he is playing more and more and producing more and more — .279, 19 homers, 11 doubles, 67 runs scored, 48 RBIs.
“I’m just bearing down these last few games,” he said. “They have a pretty good idea what I can do and won’t find out much more in 30 more at-bats. The door is open for me right now and I have one foot in. I just have to get my other foot in the door.”
The Reds have both feet dangling over the edge of being eliminated from the pennant race. Figuratively, they were eliminated a couple of months ago, but now it is mathematically.
“We can’t get the big hit early in the game,” manager Dusty Baker said of Friday’s defeat. “(Pitcher) Rich Harden had 100 pitches after the fourth inning. I don’t know how many guys he walked, a ton (five), but he struck his way out of trouble (six strikeouts). Whenever you’re struggling, you don’t get the big hit.
“They got some, especially from Aramis Ramirez, who wasn’t hitting before we got here,” said Baker, referring to the three hits and three RBIs produced by the Cubs third baseman. “We didn’t make very good pitches on him - some balls up in zone and out over the plate and you can bet he isn’t going to miss ‘em.
“And how many did we leave on (nine)? We’re having trouble getting that big hit,” Baker said. “The difference was they got the big hits when they needed them and we didn’t. Our only big hit was Jonny’s home run, then we didn’t get anything else.”
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment |
TweetA twist on the quote: ‘United we fall”
United we stand, divided we fall? Somebody got that backwards. United we fall - if it is United Airlines.
Yep, they got me one last time and I swear they know when I’m coming.
I had a seat in the back of the plane this morning and asked the agent if she had anything closer to the front, away from the whining engines. “Well, sir, the plane is very full and there is nothing empty in front of you.” Then the plane was boarded and it was, oh, maybe three-fourths full and there were empty seats in front of me all the way to the cockpit.
The flight was scheduled to leave Dayton for Chicago at 8:01 a.m. and I guarantee you that flight hasn’t left Dayton on time since Eddie Rickenbacker was a pilot.
First it was paperwork, the pilot said. Oh, the dreaded paperwork ploy. Then they had to add fuel to a plane that sat in Dayton overnight and the airline KNEW it was flying to Chicago in the morning. Then it was weather-related issues in Chicago.
Before all the delays, the pilot said it would be 41 minutes, wheels up to wheels down in Chicago. Well, we sat at the gate and on the tarmac for 51 minutes.
When we landed in Chicago, it was hot and sunny - better weather than in Dayton and we all just laughed over more Tall Tales from the airline industry.
SAW SOMETHING in the visitor’s clubhouse I’d never seen in 37 years of covering Reds. The team was issued new hats Friday to commemorate 9/11. The first thing Nick Masset did was wet his hat, soak it in water. Then he stuck it in a microwave oven.
“What are you doing to that hat?” he was asked as smoke creeped from the doors of the microwave.
“Shrinking my hat so it fits,” said Masset. “First you get it wet, then you stick it in the microwave until it is medium well, then you stretch it out on your head and it fits perfectly.”
If it had been a dress hat he could have called it a homburger.
MANAGER DUSTY BAKER’S 14-year-old hunting dog, Bailey, had to be put down Thursday, a victim of cancer. But Baker already has a replacement, another German Short-Haired Pointer.
“Bailey was the best hunting do I ever had,” said Baker. “The pup, Bella, is being trained but is already sniffing the air when birds are around. What my wife doesn’t know is I’m going to get another dog, a Labrador Retriever, to hunt ducks.
HAD A NICE visit before Friday’s game with Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella. Sweet Lou lamented the fact that near the trade deadline the St. Louis Cardinals added Matt Holliday, Julio Lugo, Mark DeRosa and John Smoltz. The Cardinals and Cubs were close in the standings at the time.
“We couldn’t do a thing, not one thing,” he said. “The team was in bankruptcy proceedings just before the sale and we couldn’t spend one cent. Not one penny. And we haven’t hit all year.”
Now the Cardinals lead the Cubs by 11 1/2 games and Piniella says, “I’m not so sure the Cardinals aren’t the best team in the National League right now.”
Sounds familiar, eh?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment |
TweetA rocky few days in the Rockies
OBVIOUSLY, THE CINCINNATI REDS can’t do it without me. I help them put together a seven-game winning streak, then I don’t go to Colorado and they return to early-season losing form.
Yeah, as if I had anything to do with it. The last team I managed my right fielder picked dandelions and my shortstop watched airplanes on the flight pattern into the Dayton airport.
If nothing else, I’m happy for Rockies manager Jim Tracy from Hamilton. The Rockies were hob-nobbing with San Diego at the bottom of the NL West when the Rockies fired Clint Hurdle and gave the job to Tracy for the rest of the season.
Now he has them leading the wild card and if he isn’t manager of the year I don’t know who is. Yeah, Tony LaRussa has done a great job with the Cardinals, but what Tracy has done has been phenomenal. Not only is he manager of the year, if the Rockies don’t take the interim off his title and make him manager, then they aren’t trying to win.
OF COURSE, I thought the Reds should have kept Pete Mackanin when he was interim manager but owner Bob Castellini wanted a name manager so the Reds hired Dusty Baker.
I MISS DENVER, one of my favorite cities. When I could drive, I used to love to drive the 20 or so miles from downtown Denver, where it is a mile high, up to Central City and Blackhawk. It’s only 20 miles away, but it is up a mountain, two miles high.
Central City at one time had the biggest producing silver mines in the world. Once the silver played out, Central City and Blackhawk became ghost towns. Then some entrepeneurs put an Opera House in Central City and some casinos and the place was reborn. Instead of giving silver, Centeral City now takes it away.
One day I walked out of a casino (no, not the opera house) in Central City and there was two inches of snow on the ground. I inched my way down the mountain the 20 miles to Denver, where it was 76 and the sun was shining brightly.
I WATCHED the first three Reds-Rockies game in the Man Cave with my friends Murray Greenberg, Jeff Gordon (No, not THAT Jeff Gordon) and John Robison. The Man Cave is my garage, which has a couch, chairs and a TV and that’s where I watch games and smoke my cigars, along with my buddies.
Nadine and I had a beautiful sun room with 10 windows built as an addition to the house a coupe of years ago. My smoking room. Only $35,000. When it was finished, Nadine said, “This room is too nice to smoke in. Back to the garage.”
So back to the garage I slunk (is that word?).
Anyway, I’ll rejoin the Reds for the three-game series in Chicago where I’m looking forward to seeing Lou Piniella and partaking of my favorite steakhouse, The Saloon, and watching the Ohio State-USC game on TV Saturday night at The Lodge, the favortie watering hole for baseball writers in Chicago.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment |
TweetAnother Red takes one off the helmet
There is nothing worse in baseball than to hear the loud thwack of a baseball bulldozing its way into the side of a plasticized batting helmet. It is a sickening sound. A scary sound.
And we heard it again Sunday. First it was Scott Rolen in early July and he suffered a concussion. On Sunday it was pitcher Micah Owings and, as always, it was a frightening thing.
I can’t imagine the days when players went to the plate without a batting helmet. It is amazing to me that only one player ever lost his life in a big league game - Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman when he was hit in the head by a pitch thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees on August 17, 1920.
Anyway, they played 12 innings today, now there is a Christian band on the field blaring loud Christian rock music as I write, and there is a plane to catch.
So I’m posting the story I wrote for the DDN on the beaning of Owings’ and the Reds seventh straight victory.
Micah Owings looked as if he had just gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson — his left ear bloody and closed with four stitches and his hearing temporarily gone in that ear.
But he was standing and he won the decision — a tough way to win a baseball game.
Owings was in the batter’s box with the bases loaded and one out in the 12th inning of a tie game with the Atlanta Braves, facing Kenshin Kawakami in the twilight gloaming.
An up-and-in 92 miles an hour fastball crashed flush into the ear hole of Owings’ batting helmet and he went down for several moments.
The hit-by-pitch forced in the winning run as the Cincinnati Reds extended their winning streak to seven games, 4-2.
A groggy Owings stood near his locker after the game and when somebody said it was a tough way to win a ballgame, he said, “It was. But I’ll take it, any way we can win a ballgame.”
Owings is from nearby Gainesville, Ga., so his mother (Danise), father, sister and brother-in-law watched the ball carom off his helmet and his mother was in tears.
Owings, though, didn’t lose consciousness or his sense of humor. When he finally got to his feet, he told manager Dusty Baker, “I was going to cut loose on one. I was going to hit one out.”
Kawakami was about as shaken as Owings’ family as he stood near home plate with Owings on the ground.
“The sign was a two-seamer inside and he held up his glove high, so I tried to jam him,” said Kawakami through an interpretor. “I knew he was a guy who was going to come up swinging. I saw some blood. It’s the worst place to hit a person, in the head. So yeah, of course, I was very scared for him.”
Owings did not accompany the team to Denver after the game because he was advised not to fly for a couple of days.
“As soon as I went down, I saw the sky, so I was never out cold,” he said. “Even without the shadows, I doubt if I could have gotten out of the way. I barely saw it out of his hand.
“I’m not in pain, it’s just numb and I can’t hear out of my left ear,” he added. “Caught me off guard. I’m a pitcher, so I know it can happen, the ball can slip out of your hand.”
Coco Cordero pitched the bottom of the 12th and struck out the side and Baker said, “You saw how the Braves had trouble in the twilight. That’s the most dangerous time. In the twilight the lights don’t help and there isn’t enough sun and everything is gray. It was a loud sound. Real loud.
“The pitcher was just trying to come up and in, not try to hit him and it was an ugly situation but Micah had a sense of humor about it,” Baker added.
Johnny Cueto started for the Reds and held the Braves to one run and three hits over six innings, but kept it interesting by walking two and hitting two while throwing 107 pitches to get nine strikeouts.
Atlanta catcher David Ross homered on relief pitcher Jared Burton’s first pitch to give the Braves a 2-1 lead in the seventh, then Drew Stubbs tied it in the eighth with his fifth home run.
“Johnny was outstanding and other than a walk to Ross that led to a run (in the fifth) he was flawless,” said Baker. “Stubbs had a big day for us, too, with a single, home run and a triple — just a double short of the cycle.”
After Stubbs tied it with his homer in the eighth, he hit one over right fielder Matt Diaz’s head (Diaz misjudged it) for a triple with one out in the 11th. Darnell McDonald then hit a fly to center and Stubbs tagged. But he was thrown out by center fielder Nate McLouth.
Joey Votto led the 12th with a walk. With one out, Rolen singled and Wladimir Balentien walked on a full count. That’s when Owings was hit by a pitch, forcing in Votto to make it 3-2. Corky Miller’s sacrifice fly made it 4-2.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment |
Tweet…and, oh yeah, the Reds won again
As I waited for a cab, the doorman at the J.W. Marriott in Buckhead ask me, “What event are you in town for?”
I told him to guess.
“Britney Spears concert?” Uh, come on, my friend. Do I LOOK like a Britney Spears fan? What’s her mother or grandmother look like?
“Dragon*Con convention?” Again, do I look like a sci-fi/fantasy geek? Answer this one right, pal.
“NASCAR race?” If my cologne smells like racing fuel, I’m sorry.
“Georgia Tech-Jacksonville State football game?” I may be a ramblin’ wreck, but I’m no Yellow Jackets fan and I never heard of Jacksonville State.
“Virginia Tech-Alabama football game?” I’m still trying to figure out what a Hokie is. Since they’re also called the Gobblers, I assum a Hokie is a turkey and what a terrible nickname for a football team. Go Turkeys? Ya gotta be kidding.
“Well that leaves the Braves-Reds game.” Bingo. I’d rather be at the Britney Spears concert.
MY TOP FIVE favorite visiting managers:
ONE - Jack McKeon when he was with the Florida Marlins. I’m cheating on this one because we already were good friends from when he managed the Reds. I loved it when he beat the Yankees in the World Series. Before every game in Miami Jack invited me under the stands in a small room where nobody could find us and we smoked cigars and talked, just Jack and me.
TWO - Lou Piniella with the Cubs. Cheating again. Lou and I were good friends when he managed the Reds. Before the 1990 World Series with the Oakland A’s, Lou told me, “We’re going to beat these guys.” He wouldn’t let me write but he said, “I mean it. We’re going to take ‘em.” The Reds were big underdogs, but won in four straight. If I had believe Lou and visited Las Vegas I could have retired long, long ago.
THREE - Jim Tracy (Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Colorad). I once said of Ray Knight that when you ask him a question it is like asking for a drink of water and getting Niagara Falls. Tracy is like that, but it’s good, fun conversation. A nicer man you won’t find anywhere.
FOUR - Bobby Cox. I have to like a guy who loves a good cigar and always invites me to sit down and chat with him no matter what he is doing. I once popped into his office early on a Sunday morning and he was meeting with a couple of his coaches. I apologized and said I’d come back, but he shooed the coaches and told me to come on in and we chatted for 30 minutes.
FIVE - Joe Torre. He never changed. He lost with the St. Louis Cardinals. He lost with the Atlanta Braves. He lost with the New York Mets. Same guy. He won big with the New York Yankees. Same guy. He is winning with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Same guy.
During spring training one year Torre heard I was going to the dog track that night and he had a friend who was racing a dog that night. Torre gave me some cash to wager on his friend’s mutt. And it was a mutt. It finished seventh in an eight-dog race. I think the dog I bet on finished eighth. Anyway, Torre never asked for the ticket to prove I bet on the dog, but I left it on his desk anyway.
OK, SO why wasn’t Jonny Gomes in Saturday’s lineup? In his last 13 games Gomes is hitting .349 with two homers and seven RBIs. He has 17 homers in 218 at bats this year.
But when the lineup went on the board Saturday Gomes was on the bench and his left field spot was being manned by INFIELDER Drew Sutton. Manager Dusty Baker said they have to see if Sutton can play the outfield and be a useful utility player in 2010.
Meanwhile, it reminded me of the time former pitcher Pete Harnisch saw a lineup card sprinkled with non-regulars on the night he was pitching and he shouted across the room, “Hey, skippuh. Are we trying?”
A THUMBNAIL sketch of Kip Wells: “A stopgap, plug-in pitcher rescued off the Washington Nationals scrap heap.”
Don’t try to sell that to the Atlanta Braves, who thought they were facing David Wells on the night he pitched his perfect game.
They knew better because they saw Kip’s 0-3 record and 5.48 ERA before the game started, but they were wondering after they lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1, Saturday night in Turner Field..
Wells held the Braves to no runs and one hit over six innings, although he made it exciting by walking the first two batters he faced and walking four while hitting one during his time on the mound.
“He gave us all he had and it got a little hairy a couple of times,” said manager Dusty Baker.
“At times I’m my own worst enemy, at times battling the strike zone and myself at the same time,” said Wells. “For me it’s the same recipe for me — two-seam fastballs and four-seam fastballs. Sometimes you worry about getting caught with my hand in the cookie jar too often, but as they say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
AND TO SAY it hasn’t been good for Joey Votto on the baseball field the past few days is to say it never gets insanely hot in Atlanta in August.
When Votto walked to the batter’s box in the sixth inning, he was 1 for 21. And in the previous half inning he made his team-leading 10th error that put Wells in peril.
Wells escaped Votto’s miscue, then Votto made it all better by breaking a scoreless tie with a two-run home run over the center field wall, his 21st homer.
“I went through a real good stretch in the beginning, have gone through a little bit of a drought and that’s how it works,” said Votto. “Hopefully I’m coming back in time to help the team finish strong.
“I was missing a lot of pitches I was driving before,” he added. “I struck out quite a bit in the last month and you’re not going to have a lot of success when you don’t put the play in play. Just one of those bad stretches and I think I’ve turned the corner.”
The Reds have won a season’s best six straight and 11 of their last 13.
Both Wells and Atlanta starter Jair Jurrjens had one-hitters after five innings, but Jurrjens night evaporated with one out in the sixth.
“You knew something was going to break,” said Baker. “A one-hitter on both sides of the board for both sides.”
He walked Paul Janish on a full count, Votto homered to make it 2-0, Brandon Phillips doubled and Scott Rolen singled to make it 3-0.
“The big thing was Janish drawing that walk and putting the pitcher into a stretch, because he wasn’t pitching out of a stretch too much,” said Baker. “Then we got three quick hits and that’s how it usually happens. Most of the game happened in 30 seconds, a feeding frenzy.”
The Braves scored one off Nick Masset in the seventh and closer Francisco Cordero gave it his usual excitement, giving up a one-out double to Adam LaRoche and a two-out walk to pinch-hitter Greg Norton before getting the final out for his 32nd save.
“It’s like that with most closers,” said Baker. “That’s a tough job to take away a team’s last breath.”
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment |
TweetIs Gomes the left fielder in 2010?
Nice matchup Friday night - former Boston Red Sox teammates Bronson Arroyo and Derek Lowe.
It didn’t look like much of a matchup in the first when the Braves loaded the bases with no outs in the first. But third baseman Scott Rolen started a third-to-home-to-first double play and Arroyo got Adam LaRoche to fly to left.
THEN JONNY GOMES crashed a two-out two-strike home run in the second. Remember all winter and all through the first half of the season how fans wanted a righthanded power hitter. He was under the Reds’ noses all along. They started him in Louisville and called him up May 27.
Most of the time they spot-started him against lefthanders only, platooning him with Laynce Nix. But as the injuries piled up, Gomes showed he could hit righthanders, too, including the home run off Lowe Friday.
In only 218 at-bats, Gomes has 17 homers. In fact, 12 of his 17 home runs have come off righthanders.
And he is a positive influence with his all-out hustle on the field and his demeanor in the clubhouse. If they don’t give Gomes a shot at playing left field next year they’re missing out, but then the last time I made a player personnel decision the player was a 12-year-old Little Leaguer.
DISPOSING OF THE woebegotten Pittsburgh Pirates four straight games was two ho-hums and a couple of so-whats, beating up your younger cousin, but on Friday night the Cincinnati Reds played a real baseball team and the result was the same.
The Atlanta Braves, panting heavily as they chase the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East, sent 13-game winner Derek Lowe to the mound and the Reds dissected him for a 3-1 victory in Turner Field.
Asked if the spoiler role suited the Reds, manager Dusty Baker said, “We’re not thinking that way. We’re only 12 games under .500 and there are a couple of teams ahead of us we think we can catch.”
Bronson Arroyo, foiled over and over in recent starts with good performances and no results, held the Braves to one run and six hits over seven innings and flattened his record at 12-12.
Well, it’s a new month. In August Arroyo made six starts, all quality starts, and he was 1-2 with a 1.99 earned run average.
AMAZINGLY, ARROYO said he was in a sick funk until he got hit in the spine area with a line drive in the fourth inning, “And that kinda woke me up,” he said.
“I didn’t feel good until I got hit with the line drive, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I was having problems, didn’t know what was going on. My body was just sluggish and I felt as if I was in a straight jacket trying to throw.”
It was the Braves who were put into a straight jacket and Arroyo said, “I was having some problems with my mid-section, but I was able to get out of some big innings early on.”
Arroyo escaped a bases-loaded and no outs dilemma in the first when Scott Rolen started a third-to-home-to-first double play and Adam LaRoche flied to left.
“The game started out a little hairy, but that was a great play by Scott Rolen to go to the plate,” said Baker. “Most third basemen probably would have conceded the run and gone the long way to second for the double play. That was a big play for Bronson.”
He was in trouble again in the fifth — two on and nobody out, but catcher Corky Miller picked pitcher Derek Lowe off second base and Arroyo retired the next two.
“That was a huge play by Corky,” said Baker. “With the pitcher out there on second, he was trying to get a good jump to get to third. That’s a tough read sometimes but it was a great play by Miller.”
GOMES GOT THE Reds offense jump-started with a two-out, two-strike home run in the second, Gomes’ 17th homer in only 218 at-bats. And 12 of his 17 home runs have come off righthanded pitchers.
The Reds tacked on two in the sixth on a walk and three straight hits by Brandon Phillips, Rolen and Gomes.
Phillips, playing in front of the home folks from nearby Stone Mountain, had two hits and drove in a run.
Atlanta’s only run came on Nate McLouth’s two-out home run in the sixth.
Once again defense, especially in the infield, sparkled for the Reds.
“That’s a big key for us winning 10 of our last 12,” said Baker. “There are more balls hit to the infield than the outfield. Those guys have been outstanding — Janish has been playing great shortstop, Scott is Scott at third base, Brandon Phillips is a Gold Glove at second and Joey Votto at first has been getting better and better (he had
Permalink | Comments (35) | Post your comment |
TweetAtlanta’s traffic and other digressions
I was going to rip on Delta again (such an easy stationary target) when I reported to the Dayton airport nearly two hours before departure and got my ticket - without a seat.
What is it with that? You book a flight months in advance and you report to the counter and they hand you a ticket with no seat and say, “You have to get your seat assignment at the gate.”
Hate that. Then I went to the gate and recognized a woman who has worked for Delta many years. I handed her my “ticket” and said, “I don’t have a seat?” She said she’d get me one and I asked for a bulkhead seat. “No, we don’t have one. But I’ll bump you up to first class since you won’t be flying as much any more.”
Yeah, Delta.
HOW DO PEOPLE drive in Atlanta? I mean, I75 and I85 are about ten lanes wide and traffic creeps through town, no matter what time of day it is. I’m staying at a Marriott in Buckhead, about nine miles from Turner Field. It took my cab 45 minutes to get to the park.
But Atlanta isn’t the worst. My list of worst traffic cities in the NL:
ONE - Los Angeles. The team stays in Century City and it takes the team bus an hour to go a few miles and players who take cabs just love it sitting in stalled in traffic with the meter spinning like a slot machine. I stay in downtown LA on Figueroa and it takes six minutes to get to Dodger Stadium.
TWO - Houston. It is a city of interstates and, like Atlanta, they have lots of lanes. Doesn’t matter. If you get on the 610 that circles the city you might stay on it forever trying to get off on an exit ramp - sort of like Atlanta pitcher Pascual Perez once did on the freeway that circles Atlanta. He was trying to find the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and just kept circling the city like Delta trying to find the Atlanta airport.
THREE - Atlanta. No traffic from 3 a.m. to 3:15 a.m.
FOUR - New York City. Even if I could drive, you couldn’t pay me enough to drive in Manhattan. There are 12,187 cabs in New York, a yellow blur, and it seems as if all 12,187 are trying to get to Broadway & 42nd at the same time and with the same rapidity.
FIVE - Pittsburgh. They have this great tunnel just before you reach the bridge into the city and when you emerge from the tunnel to the bride you see the panorama of downtown Pittsburgh in front of you. It is spectacular, especially at night. But most of the time you are choking and gagging when the view appears from the exhaust fumes in the tunnel, where traffic creeps at rush hour.
The easiest cities to get around:
ST. LOUIS - Even with the baseball stadium downtown and the football stadium downtown and a new casino downtown, Downtown St. Louis died a few years ago and left no forwarding address. At noon you can walk across the major streets downtown when it says Don’t Walk and never fear of getting hit. At night they turn the traffic lights to blinking yellow and blinking red.
PHILADELPHIA - For a major city with streets about as wide as a one-car driveway, traffic always seems to move in the City of Brotherly Love. Never been stuck in traffic there, never saw anybody give the one-finger salute or engage in road rage.
CLEVELAND - Another place where you can walk against the Don’t Walk signs and not get hit by a bus. I’ve walked from the ball park to the hotel, about eight blocks, on some nights without every stopping at a crosswalk and never once had anybody honk a horn at me.
THIS IS A busy weekend in Atlanta. In additon to the Reds-Braves weekend series, Georgia Tech plays a home game Saturday afternoon against Jacksonville State and Alabama plays Virginia Tech Saturday night in the GeorgiaDome. On Sunday there is a NASCAR race at Atlanta International Speedway in suburban Atlanta.
There is also a comic book convention and a Black Gay Pride convention. Hotel availability is negligible.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment |
TweetIs broken and fractured the same word?
Brandon Phillips doesn’t carry a New American Heritage Dictionary under his arm, but maybe he should. Then he would know there is no difference between fractured and broken.
After Monday’s doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Phillips told a media swarm around his locker that he was playing with a fractured left wrist. Everybody dutifully wrote stories that the gritty, tough, take-one-for-the-team second baseman was playing with a broken hand.
On Tuesday, he told Media Relations Director Rob Butcher he wanted a meeting with the media for clarification. Uh, oh.
Phillips sheepishly walked up to the writers and said, “I, um, my wrist is not broken. So, uh, I didn’t mean to say broken. I know I didn’t say broken. I said fractured. I didn’t know fractured and broken were like the same thing.
“My wrist feels like it is fractured,” Phillips added. “And, you know, yeah, it’s that right there.” Then there was a long pause.
“The last time I took an X-Ray, it said nothing broken,” he said. “Broken or fractured, basically is the same thing, so, well, it feels like it is broken, I mean fractured. Broken. It’s the same thing.
“But my (left) wrist really does bother me,” he continued. “Is that it? Is it cool? Is that cool? I’d have to sit out, sit on the bench, that’s the only thing that will make it better. And I won’t do that. So that’s why I’m talking to you all right now.”
How about a cortisone shot?
“There is no bleeping chance,” he said. “No bleeping chance.”
As Phillips walked away, he said, “Now I guess I’ve saved some people’s jobs. And you know they made me say all this.”
Stay tuned.
AND SPEAKING of the bench, first baseman Joey Votto was sitting there Tuesday, resting a 0 for 15 slide, tying the longest slump of his career.
“Joey needs it and deserves it,” manager Dusty Baker said of Votto’s day off. “I think his concentration isn’t quite there. Usually he is at a very high level of concentration. I can tell he is frustrated. He doesn’t get angry, but he has been getting angry lately and you can tell. So it’s time to do it.”
What is happening to Votto on the field is a compliment because, as Baker said, “Teams are pithcing him tough. When you get to a certain level of excellence, they are going to throw 94 to him when they’re throwing 91-92 to everyone else. And that’s the truth.
“That’s why I admire the guys who have been at the top of their game for so long when you know pitchers are going to throw their best stuff at them,” Baker added. “And they spend more time on Joey in their pre-game meetings.
“All this comes with the territory of being held in high esteem. And if they have one lefthander in the bullpen, they are going to save him for Joey. And even though he is not going well, they still intetionally walk him, which adds to the level of frustration” Baker said.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment |
Tweet
