Loading ...
Let’s recap tonight’s titanic struggle….
FINAL
Stupid Cubs 3
Cincinnati 7
W: B. Arroyo (9-7)
L: T. Wood (4-9)
BOX SCORE
POSITIVES
–The Reds beat the Cubs. That’s always a positive. Boy, the Cubs stink.
–Lots of contributors tonight. Three homers. Six extra-base hits altogether. That’s how you get it done.
–Special recognition to Todd Frazier. 2 for 4 with a home run. I just don’t know how you can sit him at all when Votto comes back. He’s much too good.
–Also have to give a nod to Ryan Ludwick. How he figured it out again at 34 is beyond me, but he certainly has. Love having him in the lineup every night.
–Jose Arredondo got out of a sticky situation for Arroyo.
NEGATIVES
–The Reds did not draw a single walk tonight. This is the primary offensive weakness of this team.
–Aroldis Chapman didn’t strike anybody out. Boo! Hiss!
NOT-SO-RANDOM THOUGHTS
–The Reds are 25 over .500 for the third time this year. They haven’t touched 26 yet. Tomorrow, perhaps?
–I don’t normally get involved in lineup-shenanigan discussions, but go look at the batting order, 1-8 and tell me if it doesn’t make total sense to flip that around. It would certainly make more sense than what Dusty does every night. That would be Hanigan, Rolen, Frazier, Bruce, Ludwick. Phillips, Stubbs, Cozart, for the record.
–Jay Bruce is pretty clearly on one of his hot streaks right now. That’s nice. I keep hoping that one day he’ll get on a hot streak and just never stop. He’s so good when he’s on that it’s hard not to be dissatisfied with the highly decent numbers he puts up over the season.
–The double header tomorrow should be interesting. I’ll probably miss it as other celebrations will be taking place at Casa de Linden, but I’ll be checking periodically to see how it goes.
–Right now, the Pirates and Cards are playing each other. That can only be good for the Reds. Pittsburgh is up 2-1 as a type. This. If that holds, they’d stay six back while the Cards would fall to eight back. This race is getting awfully close to over.
Source: FanGraphs
Chapman ended his streak of consecutive appearances getting a save by entering with a 4 run lead? NO strikeouts by The Missile? None? Yikes. A perfect 1-2-3 inning was a bad night for Chapman.
Nice job by Arroyo, it’s probably tough to face the same team (even the Cubs) two turns in a row, especially when you don’t rely on overpowering pitches.
Any Reds fans still opposed to the Marshall for Travis Wood trade? Probably not anymore, not after tonight.
Broxton made a nice play, showing off his good reflexes.
Hanigan and Phillips couldn’t reach base but Cozart and Stubbs both did? Yikes.
Pirates win 2-1
I gotta disagree with the lineup suggestion. Cozart is on fire currently batting in the 1 spot, and having Bruce lower in the batting order feels…i dont know…safe? Ludwick, Bruce, Frazier has felt like a murderers row this week. Hanigan batting 2nd makes a lot of sense though.
not to toot my own horn but i totally called the back, to (hit back), to back homers tonight. (toot, toot)
“Also have to give a nod to Ryan Ludwick. How he figured it out again at 34 is beyond me…”
It happened quite a bit in the roid rage era, but it does occasionally happen in others. Check out ex-Tiger/Giant/Brave Darrell Evans’ career stats for an example of one.
I think Ryan Ludwick has to love not playing in that cave in San Diego.
Did you see D Stubbs misplay that ball twice in the first inning? First, he started back, then he dropped the ball trying to make a snap catch.
The 4th inning tonight was a statement by the Reds. That said how do the Cubs leave Wood out there to be shellacked like he was, particularly if they are supposedly so high on making a reclamation project of him.
If Hanigan doesn’t roll over that DP ball for Wood on a favorable count, the Reds might still be batting. After the DP I can see letting Wood face Arroyo but once the line up rolled over (and in the fashion it did with Arroyo nearly homering), Wood has to be pulled before Cozart bats.
Maybe the Cubs were thinking ahead to the double header and bullpen depth; but it seemed down right brutal to me.
Missed the game cause of Friday Nite football…(btw – is there anything better than the atmosphere at a Fri. night high school football game?)….Anyways, was surprised to see that Broxton and Chapman pitched with a 4 run lead…especially with a 13 games in 12 day stretch coming up…
…and was glad to see the Pirates beat the Cardinals…The Pirates don’t worry me coming down the stretch as much as the Cards…
Jason, you obviously are not yet a true believer. The Reds are 25 games over .500…again, and they play a double header today. My math has that as 27 over .500 by the end of the day today and ready to bury the Birds and Bucos!!!
I saw the Luddy HR and the Frazier HR, but I missed the plunking of Bruce in between. Was there intent (not necessarily malicious but maybe frustration or a message) behind the plunking of Bruce or did Wood just have one get away? The Reds seemed to be going through the motions lately and that one pitch did seem to wake everyone up and get them refocused.
If my calculations are correct (and we all know that the old guy’s arithmetic ain’t so good), Votto will fall out of qualifier status today. That will leave three of the Reds’ best hitters as unqualifying.
Question of the day: NL DCS is 5 games… How would you set the rotation? Cueto, Latos, Arroyo, Leake, Bailey or would you switch things up? If facing a game 5 would you bring Cueto back?
How would I set it? Cueto, Latos, whoever is hottest of the other 3. How will Dusty set it? Cueto, Arroyo, Latos, who knows after that.
Agreed. I wouldn’t do all 5. I would go 3; I could understand 4. But, then, that means Baker needs to make a decision. Oh oh.
I’m with zblakey. No need to lose any sleep over it. The post-season rotation WILL be Cueto-Arroyo-Latos. Regardless of how hot or cold anyone is, that’s what it’s going to be. Dusty made that decision the moment we traded for Latos and there’s no reason to think he’ll change his mind now.
He hit Bruce on purpose, 0% chance it was accidental. Ludwick homered, Bruce got plunked and Wood stared him down the whole trip to first base. After that it was game on and the Reds absolutely torched Wood, capped by Bruce’s revenge shot in the next inning.
And honestly, as much as I don’t think Arroyo really has any business starting a playoff game, that might be a pretty great rotation for this club. odds are bot Cueto and Latos can go deep into their games. You only need Arroyo to go 4-5 innings and then you get to actually employ the incredibly deep bullpen you have – one that will be even better for having Leake and Bailey in it. Give each of them an inning. Give Simon an inning. THen you hand it over to the big boys.
I don’t listen to WLW ever so I rarely get to hear Jeff Brantley broadcast. I’m pretty ok with that – I’m not a big fan of his whole Aw Shucks cowboy act. But him and Brantley had this straight up Laurel and Hardy routine down last night about Bruce getting hit that had me literally falling out of my chair laughing. They did it at least 3 times.
“We said it once…”
“IThey shouldn’ta hit Jay Bruce.”
“We said it again…”
“They shouldn’ta hit Jay Bruce.”
“And it looks like in the end…”
“I really don’t think they should’a hit Jay Bruce.”
Completely off topic but I was wondering over my morning java, has anyone ever won an MVP and ROY in the same year?
All I could see, according to MLB awards, was Suzuki and Fred Lynn.
I think Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 won roy & Cy Young.
MVP ?
@steveschoen: Yeah, thanks Steve. Fred Lynn is who I was trying to remember. Somewhere back in the deep recesses of my whatever, I remembered another simply magical year by a young rookie. I just couldn’t recall the when or who.