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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 > 17
Friday, June 17, 2011
Two bad pitches and Reds lose to Jays
CINCINNATI — Fresh from a smash-bang west coast trip where they won five of seven and injected themselves right back into the National League Central skirmish, the Cincinnati Reds on Friday began a string of 15 straight interleague games.
It didn’t start with an on-key note. Despite an exciting inside the park home run by Drew Stubbs and a decent start by Mike Leake, the Reds fell to the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2.
And there is an interesting facet to those 15 games — they are against Toronto, the New York Yankees, Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Cleveland, in that order, three games each.
What is interesting is that the first 12 games are against four teams that train in Florida, meaning the Reds have not seen them at any point this year, except on the tube.
With that in mind, manager Dusty Baker said he hasn’t thought about the advantage the Reds will have in the first six games, all at home, where the designated hitter won’t be used.
“The hard part about dealing with these teams is we never get to see our opponents,” said Baker. “We didn’t even get to see ‘em in spring training. So we’ve done a lot of scouting and watching games on TV. And it’s very, very important what we get from our advance scout and what he gets from his friends to help us not to find out about somebody through trial and error.”
Here’s a hint — don’t give Jose Bautista (21 homers, 44 RBI) or Adam Lind (14 homers, 42 RBI) anything good to hit.
The Reds paid a heavy price Friday when they pitched to Bautista in the seventh with a runner on second and no outs while leading, 1-0.
Bautista doubled to left to tie it, then Lind crushed a 420-foot home run onto the grassy knoll beyond the center field wall for a two-run game-winning home run (make that 15 homers, 44 RBI).
THE PROBLEM is that Bautista and and Lind bat back-to- back, just like Joey Votto and Jay Bruce, and Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, and Matt Holliday, Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman.
“When you have a multi-homer situation, that makes it tough,” said Baker. “It is sort of pick your poision. You hold your breath whoever you are pitching to.”
That fateful inning started on a controversial note. Corey Patterson, the player Reds’ fans loved to hate when he was here, led off the seventh inning.
He squared around to bunt and pitcher Mike Leake hit him with a pitch, but it appeared Patterson left his bat across the plate in a bunt attempt, making no effort to pull it back.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” said Baker. “But the umpire (Jerry Meals) wouldn’t ask for help. That was the whole ball game right there, that quick three runs. If you went to the bathroom, you missed the whole game.”
Leake, who lamented only two pitches — the double to Bautista and the home run to Lind — said he didn’t mind hitting Patterson with the pitch, “Because it’s better than a walk. And I think he drew his bat back and didn’t try to bunt. But he isn’t a guy you want to put on base.”
Patterson stole second to put himself in position to score on Bautista’s double.
ON THE 5-2 trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Reds starting pitchers were 5-0 with a 1.63 ERA and three times didn’t allow an earned run. Over the previous 10 games they were 7-1 with a 1.91 ERA.
“That’s what we’ve been waiting on,” said Baker. “That’s the key to this game. The better your starting pitchers are, they better chance you have to win. You saw that stretch we went through — hoping to never return again — when it was tough to get our pitches through four or five innings. We just want them to get deep in games.”
And Leake was good Friday - for six scoreless innings. All three runs off him came in the seventh and three of the five hits he gave up came in the seventh. Leake made it 10 games out of the last 11 that a Reds starter pitched into the seventh inning, but there was little offensive support on this night.
HOMER BAILEY’S rehab start Thursday for Class AAA Louisville goes down as most forgettable in his diary.
In 4 1/3 innings against Toledo, he gave up three runs and 11 hits, with no walks and two strikeouts.
TORONTO BROADCASTER and former major-leaguer Buck Martinez stopped into Baker’s office before Friday’s game and Baker said, “Hey, homey. How are you? That’s my homey right there. How many home runs did you hit against us in that doubleheader, five or six? Damn you.”
Baker and Martinez are homeys because they both grew up in Sacramento. When Martinez was asked about the home runs, he smiled broadly.
“We both played American Legion ball and we had an All-Star series, North Sacramento against South Sacramento. He played for North Sacramento and they were from the inner city and thought they were pretty bad dudes and would tear us up,” said Martinez.
“We kicked their tails and I had a few home runs in the two games,” he said.
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