Boxscore

Stephen Strasburg brought the heat in his start against the Cincinnati Reds last night, but couldn’t finish the 6th and didn’t even have a quality start. Still, he picked up his 5th win, thanks to Bronson Arroyo also being unable to get out of the 6th.

Strasburg struck out 7 in 5 2/3 innings and allowed 3 runs in his start. Arroyo struck out only 1 in his 5 2/3 innings and allowed a whopping 7 runs. It was Arroyo’s worst start in a while.

For the offense, the Reds missed several opportunities to tie the game or take the lead late in the game. The best was in the 8th when Cincinnati loaded the bases with no outs, but only managed to score 1 run on a ground-out by Joey Votto.

The bullpen was again a strong-suit for the Reds, with Bronson Arroyo’s bad showing giving the Nationals more than they needed for the win.

The loss puts the Reds 1.5 games behind of the streaking Cardinals. The Reds have been solid since the Break, with a .667 winning percentage. If they can keep that up the rest of the year, they’ll end up with 97 victories. Of course, at the Cardinals current pace, they’ll end the season with 121 wins.

Boxscore

On a night when the Cardinals had already lost (not by bullpen-implosion for once), the Cincinnati Reds battled, but came up just short to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Johnny Cueto had another great start, allowing 1 earned run on 7 innings pitched. Unfortunately, the offense that so often scores in great big bunches for him was a little less loud tonight.

Newly minted All Star Joey Votto got things off right with a solo shot in the first, but the Phillies quickly tied it. They would take the lead in the 3rd, and then again in the 8th.

In the 9th, the Reds went to work against the broken Brad Lidge. Votto led off with a single. He reached third on a double play ball by Jay Bruce. Then Dusty Baker sent Miguel Cairo up to pinch hit. At this point, I was doubting that the Reds late-inning magic would be able to strike again. I was wrong.

Cairo doubled to left field, and Votto walked home to score the tying run.

The Phillies were held scoreless in the bottom of the 9th, so off to extras we went. Logan Ondrusek pitched a scoreless 10th, and then it was Jordan Smith’s turn. After getting through the heart of the lineup in the 11th, he started the 12th against the bottom of the order.

Smith got the first batter on a ground-out to Scott Rolen. But the second batter, Brian Schneider, homered on the second pitch he saw. That ended the Reds road, extra-inning games streak and prevented the team from going up 4 games on St. Louis.

The good news is this, though. The Reds will still be in first-place at the All Star break. They’re playing even with last year’s National League Champs, and they show no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Boxscore

The Cincinnati Reds made it take longer than it should have, but eventually, they defeated the Chicago Cubs yesterday.

Travis Wood made his first professional start and pitched great. It helped, of course, that he was going against the Cubs, who have been terrible all year. Dusty Baker did make a questionable decision in leaving Wood in the game to start the 8th. Up to that point, though, Wood had breezed through 7 innings of shutout ball with a very low pitch count. Unfortunately, Wood was tired and walked the only 2 batters he faced.

The small, 2-run lead off of RBIs from Scott Rolen and Jonny Gomes, vanished quickly once reliever Nick Masset entered. Both inherited runners scored. Masset did shut down the Cubs for the rest of the inning, but he’s still got a ways to go to become the Masset we saw last year.

The bullpen was great from then on, with Jordan Smith getting the eventual win, and Francisco Cordero getting an almost uneventful save.

The Reds offense barely managed to retake the lead. They had opportunities in the 9th and the 10th, yet managed only 1 run, and that was thanks to Jay Bruce breaking up a double play and allowing the go-ahead run to score. 16 hits in a game is great; stranding 13 and scoring only 3 is not so great. Still, the team managed another win from their final at-bat. This team definitely has some confidence. Plus, they are in first place by 1.5 games thanks to a Cardinals loss. And that’s something that hasn’t happened this late in a season in a very long time.

Boxscore

Forget about the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. The danger of particles creating a micro-black holes large enough to destroy the galaxy is nothing compared to the danger of B-Phil and J-Roll on the same field at the same time. What would happen should these two middle-infielding celestial bodies collide? The gravity well of awesomeness might consume the Milky Way in three-tenths of a second (or the amount it takes to flip a double-play ball, whichever is shorter).

Or worse, we might be sent back in time to the Dave Miley era. Argh! Someone moved Adam Dunn’s armchair!

On this night, though, we escaped the galactic destruction and just saw the B-Phil side of the equation win out. Probably it was the universe evening out his recent arrest somehow. 72 in a 35? Hasn’t he seen the commercial where the lady stops just in time to avoid hitting the dumb girl who runs out into the road in front of her, only to be rear-ended herself? Talk about a Pay It Forward ending.

Johnny Cueto was kickin’ it, giving up one earned run on six hits and two walks through eight innings. Bill Bray was somewhat less awesome, giving up a two-run homer in his single inning of work. Lucky for him, the 18 ERA he earned in his first appearance in the majors this season wasn’t so much of a problem, what with the offense coming through with the seven runs and all.

Orlando “Lando” Cabrera, Joey “Vote” Votto, Ramon “Filling in” Hernandez, and Chris “Why must the outfield be so full” Heisey each contributed an RBI to that total, with Scott “Keep this inning” Rolen came through with the other three.

He also smacked his 300th career home run tonight, with him family in attendance and everything. Boy, that was easy. I remember when Ken Griffey, Jr. used to approach those big round numbers and it would take a damn month for him to actually hit it.

Tomorrow the Reds send Mike Leake out against Joe Blanton at 7:10 p.m.

On an unrelated note:
The other day, MLB sent me an email inviting me to return to the All-Star voting page. Of course, I had long since voted 25 times, but when I went back, I was able to cast 25 more votes. I took a glance at the rules, but it wasn’t clear to me whether you could vote 25 times per day, but why not go and try it for yourself?

Boxscore

When the Cincinnati Reds were at the halfway point of their Interleague West Coast trip, things weren’t looking good. They’d just been swept at the hands of the Seattle Mariners, one of the worst teams in the league. They moved to Oakland, feeling down, with visions of previous years of West Coast collapses dancing in their heads.

And then Cincinnati showed something that us Reds fans aren’t really used to: resilience. Behind solid pitching and a re-awoken offense, they finished the sweep of Oakland today. It reminds me of another sweep 20 years ago.

The Reds took the early lead in the very first frame. With 2 outs, Joey Votto walked. A single by Brandon Phillips and a hit-by-pitch by Jonny Gomes later, and Jay Bruce stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. Bruce came through, singling to right and driving in 2, and the Reds never lost the lead.

Johnny Cueto started and shutout the A’s over his 7 innings of work. He allowed 7 hits and 2 walks, but managed to get out of his jams unscathed. He was more pitch-efficient, too, throwing only 102 pitches. All that was good enough for his 7th win and it got his ERA below 4 for the first time in a while.

Francisco Cordero came on in the 9th for his 19th save. And this time, he did it drama-free. I guess the third time was the charm.

For now, the West Coast crisis has been averted. The Reds return home feeling much more positive about themselves, having managed to go .500 during the long trip from home and return just 1 game back of the Cardinals.