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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2010 > July > 25
Sunday, July 25, 2010
A Dirty Dozen: Reds shut out 12th time
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS while sitting in The Man Cave flip-flopping channels while watch the Cincinnati Reds-Houston Astros and the NASCAR Brickyard 400 - and the person who invented the TV remote control should be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
On this day, watching Jamie McMurray win the Brickyard 500 was more exciting than watching the Reds stir the breeze without much bat contact Sunday during a 4-0 loss.
Another shutout? Can anybody answer me as to how the National League’s best offensive team can be shut out 12 times, most in the league? It’s an anomaly, isn’t it? An enigma? A mystery? For certain it is frustrating.
Joey Votto had a two-out single in the first innng against left-hander Wandy Rodriguez, who began the game 7-11 with a 5.11 ERA, and didn’t get another hit off him through seven innings. They had two walks and seven strikeouts.
Over the last two innings they managed two more hits off the Astros’ bullpen but couldn’t score a run, advancing their strikeout total to 10.
ONCE AGAIN the unfortunate pitcher for the Reds was rookie Mike Leake, who has pitched well enough to be 11-1 but is 7-2.
Leake gave up a lead-off home run to Hunter Pence (don’t you love that name?) in the fourth and it stayed 1-0 until the Astros’ seventh. With one out, Houston third baseman Chris Johnson hit one on top of the viaduct in left field and the ball bounced off the railroad tracks on top of the viaduct for a 2-0 lead.
MINUTE MAID Park is on the site of the former Houston Union Station and the Astros kept the railroad motiff with the viaduct and the railroad tracks atop it. And when the Astros score, a loud train whistle rattles the windows.
There was more window-rattling to come in the seventh after the Johnson home run. Leake gave up a single and a double and his day was done. Left-hander Arthur Rhodes came on to face left-hander Michael Bourne and the count went to 3-and-2 before Bourne displayed some big-league hitting. Rhodes threw him an outside pitch and Bourne reached out to slap it to left field for a two-run double and a 4-0 lead that stood the test of the final two innings.
THERE WAS ONE strategy question that leaped out. It was in the fifth inning when the Astros led, 1-0, and Miguel Cairo led the inning with a walk. Doesn’t that call for a sacrifice bunt by Drew Stubbs? One run loomed large in this game, especially the way Rodriguez was scything his way through the Reds lineup.
And wasn’t that Stubbs working on his bunting before every home game on the last homestand. Yes, it was.
No bunt was attempted. And you can guess what happened, can’t you? Stubbs struck out on three pitches, taking a called third. Ryan Hanigan then lined one to deep, deep center, about 410 feet away for an out and Leake grounded out to second.
The closest the Reds came to scoring was on Leake’s first at-bat when he drilled a foul ball that would have been a home run had it been fair.
Third base coach Mark Berry was like a Native American scout, standing at his post shielding his eyes with his right hand, wondering where everybody was. Not a single Reds reached third base.
So the Reds won two of three in Houston and begin a three-game series in Milwaukee Monday night. After a three-game series at home next weekend against Atlanta, they are back on the road for three in Pittsburgh and three in Chicago.
As for Sunday? Jamie McMurray was worth watching in his No. 1 Chevrolet Impala after also winning this year’s Daytona 500.
BACK in the 1960s, I covered auto racing and covered five Dayton 500s, back in the days of Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Donnie Allison and Bobby Allison. Those guys raced in thin fire-retardant suits on top of t-shirts and helmets that were little more than football helmets.
Nowadays, NASCAR driverd look as if they are going to fly the space shuttle with their modern driver’s suits and space-age helmets. I rode around Charlotte Motor Speedway once with Rusty Wallace a few years ago and while he wasn’t close to race speed, he was flying low and close to the rail and for about 1 1/2 seconds I actually had my eyes open.
Sometimes you wonder if the Reds have their eyes open when they try to hit on days they get shut out. Twelve times? Geez.
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