Wood Remembers That Starting Pitchers are not Supposed to Record First Inning Outs Prior to Giving Up Runs, Yankers 5-3

Arroyo's start sandwiched in between two relatively poor starts from Volquez and Wood seems to be pointing back toward early times, as opposed to the string of very fine starts (the starting staff showed off a 7-2 record with an ERA a shade over 2.00 during the 11 starts preceding Volquez's). But, it wasn't Wood's turn to start. Cueto had to skip a day due to a sore neck. And we all know that a stiff neck can only be caused by two things. So, Wood went out there, with the full amount of rest, and was pretty poor to start the game. The Yankees scored 4 and Ivan Nova, who I didn't even know was a person before the game, looked pretty sharp. Wood settled in and eventually went 7 with just the 4 allowed but with the current state of the offense, that was not nearly enough.

Once the bats did finally come to life, they were down 5-1 in the 9th. They added on a couple of runs but Rivera struck out the stellar Edgar Renteria to end the game. The 5th Yankee run was the result of a Arredondo walk, dropped throw on a steal attempt by Janish-Yanish (on a great throw from Hanigan) and then a wild pitch. Rick Sutcliffe was up in arms. Aaron Boone probably uttered some cliches and the Yankees got a free run. But that's the way it goes some times, though, Janish's glove has been going like that with a little more regularity so far this year. The Cozart calls are really going to pick up if he loses his ability to glove it in the middle. He, Cozart, is swinging a nice bat in Louisville. I can't attest to his defense, so I'll label it as average. Not too bad, not too good.

Cueto makes his start tonight against Brian Gordon, who sounds like a made up name, tonight. We'll see how the offense works against generic white right-handed pitcher. The pattern has been that the Reds don't hit new people very well. Sounds like there may be some holes in the advance scout department. Jocketty maybe should look into cutting back that per diem. However, I am pretty confident the Reds will buck that trend tonight and light up Gordon.