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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 > 2011 > June > 11
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Who’s this Lincecum guy, Reds ask
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, chomping and chewing on every snack in sight because I’m out of cigars, which makes me as jittery as a mold of lemon Jell-O.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Fox broadcaster Eric Karros, former major-league first baseman with the Los Angeles Dodgers, worked with Thom Brennaman on Saturday’s national broadcast and said, “I had a chanced to play for Dusty Baker and he is as good as there is. He has kept this team together through some amazing injuries and fans should be happy because things are going to get better.”
Reds fans happy with Dusty? If they aren’t criticizing his lineup cards, they are criticizing his custom-made toothpicks.
Some will even find fault with Baker after the Reds savaged and ravanged the San Francisco Giants Saturday, 10-2.
WHEN THEY TALKED (me, too) about the current trip on which the Cincinnati Reds are on, all the doomsdayers mentioned how poorly the Reds play on the west coast and how they had to face the pitch-infested San Francisco Giants, defending World Series champions and leader of the NL West.
They remembered a three-game series last August when the Giants swept the Reds by scoring 38 runs on 53 hits.
As everybody says and everybody knows, however, timing is everything, time is of the essence and time flies when you are having fun.
The Reds couldn’t have picked a better time to pay a visit to one of the world’s greatest cities, even with the frigid weather. The timing is perfect for playing the Giants.
The Giants aren’t hitting and aren’t scoring. They’ve searched eBay, Angie’s List and even CarFax, searching for runs.
AND TWO-TIME Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum was coming off two straight poor performances.
So Johnny Cueto shut them out Thursday, 3-0. Travis Wood held them to one run over seven innings Friday, but they scraped two off the Reds bullpen and won, 3-2, with a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth.
ON SATURDAY IT was Mike Leake shutting down the Giants and it was Lincecum taking the punches as the Reds went Mike Tyson on him — four innings, seven runs, seven hits. Lincecum was unable to put two good pitches together.
Meanwhile, Leake was as smooth as Sea Breeze as the Reds beat the Giants for the second time in three days.
For the second straight start, Leake pitched eight innings and he shut out the Giants on four hits with one walk and eight strikeouts during his 113-pitch outing.
And tell us again why Leake (6-2) was sent back to the minors briefly this year?
The Giants scored their two runs in the ninth off relief pitcher Carlos Fisher when Pat Burrell hit a two-run homer, the only home run hit in the first three games of the series.
THE REDS have now had nearly a full week of outstanding starting pitching, which cures a lot of aches and pains over the instability of left field and the offensive wasteland that is shortstop. Yonder Alonso, Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart wait patiently in Louisville.
Pitching, though, cures a lot over what ails a team. It is why the Giants, despite a pathetic hitting team, is in first place in the NL West.
Lincecum went 1-2-3 in the first inning and it was uh-oh time. But Jay Bruce led the second with a single, stole second, took third on a wild pitch and scored on Ryan Hanigan’s single.
The Reds gave Leake the breathing room he needed in the third with two more runs, with Leake torching the rally himself with a leadoff double. Drew Stubbs walked and Joey Votto’s singled filled the bases.
One run scored on Bruce’s grounder to first base and another scored on a wild pitch — nothing pretty, nothing powerful, but two runs nonetheless and a 3-0 lead.
The Reds put it away and rid themselves on Lincecum in the fifth when they scored four runs on three hits, a two-run double by Brandon Phillips the big blow.l The Phillips hit knocked Lincecum out of the game and the Reds remain the only National League team Lincecum has never beaten, 0-3 in three starts.
Aren’t these west coast trips fun?
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TweetReds put the wood to themselves
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave while wondering how The Cathay House in Chinatown is staying open without my patronage and what are they doing with all the General Tsao’s chicken, egg noodles and won-ton soup they used to serve me?
Everybody expected a disaster movie from the Cincinnati Reds on this seven-game west coast trip and they sor of shocked everybody Thursday by shutting out the San Francisco Giants in Game One.
And there they were on Friday night, leading the Giants, 2-1, in the fifth inning in AT&T Park.
Could it be? Could they start Trip Terrible with a 2-and-0 record?
Uh, no. The Reds lost, 3-2, but how they achieved that defeat is an encyclopedia of how to leave more people stranded than the Minnow on Gilligan’s Island.
THE GIANTS TIED it in the fifth. Miguel Tejada, who could hit against the Reds while wearing a sleeping mask, came to bat with two outs and a runner on second. With first base open, how about an intentional walk?
Nope.
Travis Wood fell behind 2-and-0, then grooved a fastball and Tejada drilled it to left field to tie it, 2-2.
And that’s the way it stayed into the ninth inning. Wood pitched eight innings and gave up two runs, 10 hits, walked three and struck out four for his 109 pitches.
For his hard night’s work, Wood got nothing because the Reds’ bullpen doesn’t seem to have all its eggs in the basket these days.
JOSE ARREDONDO started the ninth by walking Andres Torres on four pitches. Emmanuel Burris bunted Torres to second and this time the Reds wisely walked Tejado intentionally.
Bill Bray came in to face rookie left-hander Brandon Crawford and struck him out on three pitches for the second out.
Logan Ondrusek replaced Bray and walked Cody Ross on five pitches to fill the bases. Nate Schierholtz ended the game abruptly by pumping Ondrusek’s second pitch into left field for a walk-off single.
The Giants won this one, 3-2. Incredibly, 18 of the 29 games in AT&T this year have been decided by one run. And with their Friday win, the Giants are 18-9 in one-run games this year.
WHEN IT COMES to execution on this night, the Reds were perfect — they executed themselves every way possible.
—They had two on with one out in the second, but Paul Janish bounced into a double play.
—The Reds had two on with two outs in the third, but Jay Bruce flied to center.
—A bad inning surfaced in the fourth. The Reds did score a run, but it was like kissing your mother. They had two on with nobody out and scored only one run. Scott Rolen led the inning with a triple, Chris Heisey walked and Ryan Hanigan singled to right to score Rolen. But Janish struck out, Wood bunted the runners to second and third, but Drew Stubbs struck out.
—Think that was bad? If it didn’t get worse, than Jeremiah isn’t a bull frog. The Reds did score a run, but it was like kissing your grandmother. They had the bases loaded with no outs and scored one run. Rolen struck out, a run scored on Heisey’s weak ground out to first base and Hanigan grounded out.
GET THE PICTURE? Get the pattern? The Reds had enough chances to choke a sword swallower and did nothing.
The eighth inning was astounding. San Francisco relief pitcher Sergio Romo struck out the side and his first 10 pitches were strikes (counting foul balls). He threw 13 pitches, 12 for strikes.
The ninth inning was a Message in a Bottle, the message being, “The Reds aren’t going to win this one.”
It was 2-2 and pinch-hitter Fred Lewis led the inning with an infield hit against Giants closer Brian Wilson.
That called for Stubbs to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Oh, my. For those who constantly chirp and harp and hoot that Stubbs needs to bunt more, well, if they saw his feeble effort on this occasion they’d be saying, “Please, don’t ever try to bunt.” His two attempts were butt ugly and then he struck out.
And, of course, Brandon Phillips then grounded into an inning-ending double play — and, as it turned out, the game-ending double play when the Giants scored in the bottom of the ninth.
Put this one in a satchel and drop it off the Golden Gate Bridge with a concrete block on it.
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