April 26, 2007
The Rubber Match
By
Amanda
Posted at 11:24 am
Gotta make this quick, 'cuz I'm at work and about to go on a dept lunch.
C. Trent gives us the line-up:
Reds
Ryan Freel CF
Brandon Phillips 2B
Jeff Conine 1B
Ken Griffey Jr. RF
Alex Gonzalez SS
Juan Castro 3B
David Ross C
Norris Hopper LF
Kyle Lohse P
Hopper, eh? Interesting. And former Red Randy Keisler is going for the Cards. Last time I saw him, he was in a different Lou--Louisville.
Great, just what the Reds need to see, another lefthanded pitcher who has never pitched against the Reds before. I smell a stinker coming. But I’d love to be wrong about that.
A few current Reds players have seen Keisler while playing for other teams or while Keisler was pitching elsewhere besides in Cinci and the Lou. The bad news: Conine is 0-for-1 with a walk. Freel is 0-for-2 with 2 strikeouts. Hatteberg is 0-for-1 with a walk. Gonzalez is 1-for-5 with a walk and a K. The good news: A-Gon’s lone hit against Randy was a home run.
Narron’s stacked the lineup against the lefty – seven righthanded hitters and Ken Griffey – but will that be enough to overcome The Alex Madrid Factor? Guess we’ll find out over the next few hours. FWIW, Keisler’s career splits against righthanded hitters aren’t glaringly bad. In fact both lefty and righty hitters have hit the same against him, .283, although though lefties actually have a higher OPS and slugging percentage against him.
In the only other NL Central action scheduled for today, the Pirates will try to bring out the brooms at home against the Astros, which would be their first sweep of consecutive series against Houston since 1979.
Finally – this may come as a shock, you may want to sit down – Same Ol’ Cubbies have announced that Mark Prior had surgery Tuesday and is through for the year.
RHM, here’s hoping the department lunch puts your boss in a festive mood, causing him/her to take the rest of the day off.
😎
Lineup for the Cardinals courtesy of the Associated Press:
Aaron Miles, ss
Chris Duncan, lf
Albert Pujols, 1b
Scott Rolen, 3b
Jim Edmonds, cf
Scott Spezio, rf
Adam Kennedy, 2b
Gary Bennett, c
Randy Keisler, p
Duncan and Griffey are late scratches.
The Reds in the first: Freel fouls out to the catcher. Gonzalez triples. Phillips doubles, scoring Ginzalez, but is out trying to stretch his double into a triple. Conine grounds out to third. Reds 1, Cardinals coming to bat.
Hi, bellyscratcher, welcome aboard.
yep, the posted lineups for both teams are now wrong. 🙁
REDS:
Freel cf
Gonzalez, ss
Phillips, 3b
Conine, 1b
Hamilton, rf
Castro, 3b
Ross, c
Hopper, lf
Lohse, p
CARDINALS:
Miles, ss
Schumaker, lf
Pujols, 1b
Rolen, 3b
Edmonds, cf
Spezio, rf
Kennedy, 2b
Bennett, c
Keisler, p
For the Cardinals in the first: Miles 5-3, Schumaker fouls out to left, Pujols doubles, Rolen looks at strike three. Reds lead, 1-0, after one.
Make it 2-0.
Maybe that means Ross is finally gonna lose the slump.
bellyscratcher, I was reading last night’s game thread earlier…I don’t know that the Reds have a designated emergency pitcher, I think Dave Concepcion was the last non-pitcher to pitch in a game for the Reds…but Hamilton might be the guy if they were going to do that. He almost got drafted as a pitcher before Tampa Bay decided to draft him as an OF instead, and he reportedly threw a pitch or two in spring training just clowning around, and hit 92 on the radar gun without having even warmed up first.
1-2-3 inning for Lohse in the second and it stays 2-0, Reds.
Holy crap! I can’t believe Ross hit a home run! I would love for him to break out of his slump because it’s obvious that Narron has no intention of ever playing Valentin. Silly manager.
Home run Phillips! 4-0 Reds!
With two out, Gonzalez singles, Phillips parks one. 4-0 Reds.
Hi Zeldink, welcome aboard.
Yeah, I’m fast becoming a non-fan of Jerry Narron as a manager. Yesterday he bunts in the first inning. Geez.
Perhaps the Madrid Factor doesn’t come into play when the new pitcher was formerly on their own team!
Hi, guys. Lunch was very good. I’m not usually that crazy about Indian food, but this was tasty.
The meeting immediately after lunch wasn’t as good. The project is sort of all over the place. I had to schedule a follow-up meeting at 3 just to get up to speed.
Hi, RHM!
Well, at least lunch was good, even if it wasn’t a harbinger of better things to come for the rest of the workday.
wow, Hamilton guns down Schumaker at the plate!
Cardinals get one back in the third on Schumaker’s RBI double, and The Unstoppable Redlegs lead, 4-1, after three innings.
And Hamilton then leads off the 4th with a grounds-rule double to right.
Griffey was scratched due to soreness in his chest, according to the AP. They don’t have anything here on Duncan though.
Castro bunts Hamilton over to third, and that’s all for Keisler.
I wonder whether it was that rolling catch last night. I wonder, if no ball came anywhere near right field for the entire game, would Griffey be out the next day from leg stiffness?
Brad Thompson relieves, strikes out Ross swinging.
Leg stiffness, or we’d read that he was seen sleeping in the clubhouse before the game, and they’d blame it on his diverticulitis.
Hopper fouls out, and Hamilton’s leadoff double is wasted. But the Reds still lead it, 4-1.
Bottom of 4th: Rolen 6-3. Edmonds flies to center, thus officially falling below the Mendoza Line. Spezio 4-3. Another 1-2-3 inning for Lohse.
Aw, I don’t mean to imply that Jr.’s faking. I’m just saying he’s delicate. Like a beautiful rose or fine lace. 🙂
Astros 1, Pirates 0 after five innings.
Boy, Lohse really crushed that ball. :rolleyes:
Did he? What happened? My company is cracking down on bandwidth usage, so I can’t even keep up the GameDay.
RHM, I seem to remember you, smartelf, and myself discussing this during a spring training game – Only so many healthy innings in him, save them for when they really count and all that. This is what we wanted to see, saving Griffey for the clutch games in September and (hopefully) October. 😉
The play-by-play shows it as “Lohse grounded out to catcher.”
I was being a smartass.
1-2-3 inning for Thompson, and now Lohse has given up three straight hits and a run to open the bottom half of the inning. It’s now 4-2.
Four straight hits.
Bases loaded, nobody out.
Pirates got two in the sixth and they lead the Astros, 2-1.
Five straight hits. When Narron SHOULD be changing pitchers, he isn’t.
Dagnabbit!
Pujols with an RBI double-play grounder. Tie ballgame. 😥
Rolen walks. Edmonds flies to left. After 5, we’re tied at 4.
Yay! Tied! Proxy’s at the game in his company’s box seats. I am at work – but about to go to lunch.
Thanks for the info about the emergency pitcher, K. Our announcers talking about Hamilton combined with a particularly laser-like throw from Rolen last night is what got us thinking.
Top of the sixth: Russ Springer pitching for St. Louis. Phillips nearly puts the Reds back in the lead, but it’s a fly out to deep center. Conine flies to right, Hamilton grounds out to first.
Boo manager not knowing when to change pitchers. 😥
Hooray beer! 😉 (If only I could have it at work)
bellyscratcher, my pleasure.
Hope you have an enjoyable lunch.
Spezio leads off the Cardinals’ sixth with a double.
And Kennedy follows with another double – it’s 5-4, Cardinals.
Where is Captain Hook when you need him?
OK, off to my meeting. Hopefully I’ll return with a clear picture of what’s going on in about 30 minutes and a clear picture of what the Reds regaining the lead looks like.
RHM you could have beer at work if you wanted to.
Of course, you might not make as much money working as a barmaid as you make on your current job.
:laugh:
Then again, with tips, who knows…..
Bennett bunts fould on the third strike, don’t see that very often, he’s out.
Preston Wilson will bat for Springer.
OK, have a good meeting (which, according to the KC2HMZ Workplace Dictionary, means a SHORT one).
Wilson looks at strike three, Miles flies to right, and the sixth inning ends with the Cardinals on top by a 5-4 margin.
Our old buddy Ryan Franklin will open the seventh on the mound for the Cardinals. Here’s hoping the Reds fare as well against Franklin as they did against the other ex-Red who’s pitched against them today.
Nope. Castro flies to center. Valentin bats for Ross and flies to left. Dunn bats for Hopper and grounds to short. 1-2-3 inning for Franklin against his former teammates.
So…Valentin stays in the game as the catcher, of course, Dunn stays in as the left fielder, and Jon Coutlangus is now pitching for the Reds.
Another comment on emergency pitcher thing…usually guys don’t go from pitcher to position player once they’ve started playing pro ball. The one exception I know if is Rick Ankiel in the Cardinals’ organization, who was quite a pitcher until he got Steve Blass Disease and is now trying to make it as an OF.
Usually, though, they go the other way, like Coutlangus who was an OF originally before converting to pitcher.
The reds also have another guy, Rick Asadoorian, who’s down in Sarasota right now trying to become the next Coutlangus. Former Reds’ first round pick as an OF who never hit.
Coutlangus gives up a leadoff single to Schumaker and in comes Coffey as Narron will apparently now proceed with his usual burning through the bullpen in one inning. :angry:
Coffey gets Pujols to hit into a fielder’s choice, then walks Rolen and gives up an infield single to Edmonds to load the bases for Spezio.
Spezio singles, scoring Pujols. 6-4, Cardinals. But Kennedy hits into a 6-4-3 DP, limiting the damage to that.
Maybe Narron’s learing the hard way. At least he didn’t bring in Stanton to pitch to Spezio.
Per the AP: Duncan was scratched due to a head injury. I hope it’s nothing more serious than maybe he bumped his head on the bat rack or something and he’ll be okay tomorrow.
Reds Eighth: Ryan Franklin out there for the Reds to have another shot at him. Hatteberg bats for Coffey and flies to center. Freel walks, steals second, and goes to third as Gonzalez grounds out to the pitcher. Phillips goes down hacking. Still 6-4, Cardinals.
Thunder here in Buffalo, if I disappear it’s because my ISP went down. happens a lot when there’s lightning storms here.
Changes for the Reds to start the bottom of the eighth: Weathers pitching. Castro moves to second base and Encarnacion is in at third. I wonder if something during that last at-bat caused Narron to pull Phillips.
And the brooms are out in Pittsburgh. Final score: Pirates 5, Astros 3.
I missed this – before Phillips’ K, Franklin uncorked a wild pitch, and Freel scored. So, it’s 6-5.
Stupid AP feed didn’t report that until after the inning ended, then they changed it. Sorry, folks.
Is today Sunday? What gives?
OK, Bennett goes down swinging.
The Good news- Duncan apparently not seriously hurt, he bats for Franklin.
The Bad News: Duncan doubles to center, takes third as Weathers uncorks a wild pitch. Scores on Miles’ sac fly. It’s now 7-5. Darn it! I said I wanted Duncan to be okay tomorrow, not today!
Schumaker grounds out to first and the inning is over. Cardinals will take a two-run lead to the ninth.