Impressive may not be the right word, how about the phrase, borderline unwatchable. After looking pretty good for 5, reflected by the 6-2 Reds lead on the scoreboard, Arroyo gave up a two-run bomb to Blake DeWitt in the bottom of the 6th to cut the lead in half. The bottom of the 7th was a mess. Ondrusek continued to pitch Dusty on the idea that he is overworked and needs a few days off by giving up two hits and hitting Reed Johnson in his 1/3 of an inning. Bray got an out but Masset is currently on the Ondrusek schedule. He, Masset, gave up a ground rule double to Marlon Byrd and then brought in the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. Masset, along with Bray and Ondrusek, has thrown a lot of innings this year. But that's part of the Dusty plan to build arm strength. These guys will be better off in the long run or, in need of some replacement ligaments in their shoulders and elbows. The weak aren't rewarded.
Fortunately for the Reds, Marlon Byrd is very clumsy. He fell down, like someone put a banana peel in center field, trying to catch Votto popup. The miscue, if you can call it that, it's really an error on his spikes, put Votto at 2nd. He was later driven in by Frazier, pictured for the first time on the Reds Rocket above. Frazier was, in turn, knocked in by Hanigan. There you have it, Reds win 8-7. Chapman and Coco were both pretty dynamite.
In addition to some poor play, Saturday (which I said I wasn't going to mention) also was notable for the injury to B. Phill. He's got a bum ankle which prevents him from accelerating his car up to 140 mph with his mom in the passenger seat. It also will prevent him from playing in a couple of games. For the already banged-up lineup, that doesn't help. Janish gets the start at 2nd today, yesterday it was Old Man Cairo. Speaking of injuries, Heisey's sore thorax brought a Dave Sappelt to the line-up. He had a nice last season between a few levels and was raking at AAA before injuring some part of his body. That's not to say he's been bad upon return, just not hitting .340. Anyway, he finally got his call, which is nice to see. He had a hit yesterday and made a nice catch in left. So, now you have two kids in left, Alonso and Sappelt. Alonso, though appearing to have no idea what to do with his glove out there, has been swinging a nice bat. He hit his first career bomb on Saturday (which, again, I said I wasn't going to discuss).
So, the long nightmare trip to Houston and Chicago is finally over. Those teams sure are talented and well-coached. They get to face another team in the same mold, the Colorado Rockies who have resigned themselves to being a little better next year. However, this is about the time they get unbelievably hot every year. That can probably wait until after the get out of town. Not much else from this end. Reds! Reds! Reds!
No comments:
Post a Comment