Boxscore

The march to .500 continues!

Apparently, all the Cincinnati Reds’ offense really needed was a weekend trip to the friendly confines of Chicago. Now, they’re ready to take on awesome pitchers like Matt Cain and make them beg for mercy. Or at least run up their pitch count and send them running from the mound.

The Reds got the scoring started against the San Francisco Giants in the very first inning. Drew Stubbs doubled and Brandon Phillips drove him in with a two-run home run.

After that, it was a pitcher’s duel, with Mat Latos showing off the skills that enticed the Reds to trade for him. And this time he even made it through the 5th inning! His final stats: 7 innings, 4 hits, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, and 0 runs. Latos unlocked the code in terms of how to prevent getting a loss with this previously AWOL offense: don’t allow any runs. You may not get a win doing that, but you surely won’t get a loss.

But getting his elusive first win was no problem for Latos and the Reds tonight. In the 7th inning, Ryan Ludwick knocked Giants starter Matt Cain out of the game with a solo homer. The Giants bullpen came in and failed to find the strike zone. With the bases loaded, Brandon Phillips walked. Next, Jay Bruce hit a beautiful line-drive down the right field line to score a couple. And old-man Scott Rolen hit a double to drive in a couple of his own.

The 7th saw the Reds send 10 batters to the plate and score 6 runs. And that was pretty much the end. The Giants did score a couple in the 9th, but that was somewhat due to an old-fashioned bean-ball battle. Votto had been hit during the 7th, and Sam LeCure threw at Pablo Sandoval in the 9th. Both teams were then warned not to do it again, but there really is no better time to proteect your slugger than in the bottom of the 9th with 1 out and ahead by 9 runs.

All in all, it was a great game, for me as a fan and probably even more for the Reds players. The offensive explosion felt long overdue.

Game 2 of the series against the Giants is tonight at 7:10pm. Bronson Arroyo will start against Barry Zito.

Boxscore

The Reds finally won their second series of the young 2012 season today when they picked on someone smaller than them in the Chicago Cubs.

Johnny Cueto took the mound and provided 6.1 innings of five hit, two run (one earned) performance. He struck out seven and walked two. From there, Logan Ondrusek took over to walk a guy and strike a guy out before handing the ball over to Aroldis Chapman. Chapman finished out the seventh and also pitched through the eighth, giving up no hits and no runs, walking two and striking out one. Finally, our rarely seen closer, Sean Marshall gave up one earned run on one hit in the ninth, which was OK because the lead was two. He also struck out two.

Drew Stubbs, Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, and Scott Rolen provided the RBI today. Stubbs’ 1-for-4 day with a walk continues a modest hot streak that makes it much more pleasant to watch his at-bats. Votto went 2-for-3 with two walks, bringing his league-leading total number of walks to 17. Dude’s rocking a .444 OBP.

The win brings the Reds’ record to 7-9. Which isn’t that great, but on the other side, the loss brings the Cubs’ record to 4-12, so there’s some perspective for you. Tomorrow they take the day off before heading home to open a series with the Giants on Tuesday at 7:10. Mat Latos will take on the dreaded TBA.

Boxscore

The Cincinnati Reds are marching slowly back towards the land of the winning record. And they improved their record to 6-8 yesterday with the club’s 10,000th franchise victory.

The Reds are the 6th professional team to reach the 10,000 mark. Their opponents, the Chicago Cubs, had done it a while ago, as had the San Francisco Giants, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Atlanta Braves.

As big of a number as that is, it doesn’t really affect the 2012 season, one which has seen the Reds struggle offensively to start the season. That wasn’t the case on a windy day at Wrigley Field.

The Reds batted around in the first inning and dropped a nice, big 4-spot on the board. Homer Bailey contributed a quality start. The defense behind Bailey was uncharacteristically shaky, but Bailey kept his cool, going 7 innings and allowing 1 earned run (3 unearned) on 5 hits, no walks, and 2 strikeouts. It was a nice outing for Homer. After he left, the bullpen kept the Cubs scoreless, thanks to Aroldis Chapman–who should be starting–and Jose Arredondo.

The scoring had contributions from almost everyone. Joey Votto, Chris Heisey, Willie Harris, Drew Stubbs, Homer Bailey, and Todd Frazier all knocked in runs. Stubbs drove in 3 as he extended his hitting streak to 6 games.

The game against the Cubs made the Reds seem a completely different team than how they appeared against the Marlins, Nationals, and Cardinals. I knew the Reds had played only good teams so far, but it’s a little disconcerting to see that they couldn’t hang with good teams very well. Hopefully, beating up on teams worse than them will get the Reds the confidence they need the next time some good teams come around.

Boxscore

Well, that was frustrating, as evidenced by my phone-post after a few beers yesterday.

Homer Bailey had a good start, allowing 3 runs over 7 innings. He allowed 7 hits and 4 walks, but minimized the damage. Of course, in a series where the Cincinnati Reds lost a game where the pitching allowed 1 run over the course of 9 innings, everyone knew there was no chance of the Reds retaking the lead.

The positives? As mentioned, Homer Bailey. This is an important year for him with this club. He’s young, but it feels like he’s not because he’s been around forever. He’s improved every year in the majors, but at a slow pace. After watching him in his two starts this year, I’m encouraged. Aside from one bad inning in each start, he’s been more calm. If he can remove that one bad inning and stay healthy, this could be his break-out year.

That’s the main positive. There is one other one: the Reds took an early lead. I’m not sure, but I believe that’s the first time this year they’ve been the first team to score. Of course, it took Miguel Cairo injuring his hamstring to achieve and trading players for runs probably isn’t the wisest way to spend your players. But it was an early lead.

The negatives? The offense. The team is in an offensive slump like none other to start this season. And I’m concerned that manager Dusty Baker isn’t being the help he could be. Not with quotes like this.

“We’re going to hit our way out of this slump, not walk out of it.”

Ugh. Why limit any of your weapons at this point. The offense is horrible. Let’s not hamstring them any further by emphasizing hitting over walking.

The Reds will try not to be swept by the Nationals today when they send out Mike Leake. The Nationals will send out…you know, what? It probably doesn’t matter.

Boxscore

The Cincinnati Reds had their second afternoon game in a row today, and like yesterday, it was a one-run game. Unfortunately, this time it went against the Reds, who fell to 3-4.

Mat Latos made his second start for Cincinnati and again had trouble in the 5th. This time, he made it through 5 innings and gave up only 2 runs. However, his pitch count was almost at 100, so he was done early. He had better command, but threw a lot of pitches to a lot of batters. Despite getting many batters to 2 strikes, he had a hard time putting them away.

The Reds’ bullpen was already short-staffed, thanks to Johnny Cueto’s short outing previously, and both Logan Ondrusek and Aroldis Chapman were deemed unavailable. Sam LeCure and Jose Arredondo threw 2 scoreless innings apiece, which gave the offense time to finally wake up.

I know it’s only been a week into the season, but the inconsistent offense is starting to remind me of last year. This time, they didn’t score until the bottom of the 9th, blowing Brad Lidge’s save chance thanks to a 2-run single from Ryan Ludwick.

That sent the game to extra innings. Instead of sending out good relief pitchers like Bill Bray or Sean Marshall, Dusty Baker sent out Alfredo Simon. Simon was a last-minute pick-up who has done nothing good with the team so far this year. He continued to unimpress today.

Simon hit the first batter he faced, and everyone knew bad things were in store. The next batter hit a foul pop-up that Scott Rolen caught.The next batter followed with a hit. Then Xavier Nady grounded out, but managed to advance both runners.

With runners on second and third and 2 outs, Simon threw a wild pitch that allowed the batter he’d hit with a pitch to score. Just the latest in the line of horrible outings from Simon.

Still, there’s plenty of ineptitude to go around this game. Much of that is with the offense. I mean, Simon was the only pitcher who didn’t do well. The others allowed just 2 runs during the 9 innings. And if you can’t win when your pitching staff allows only 2 runs, your offense has to be the one to take the blame.

The Reds break their string of day games tomorrow when Bronson Arroyo takes the mound at 7:05pm EDT.