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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > August > 02
Saturday, August 2, 2008
As ugly as ugly can be
Any of the Cincinnati Reds who did anything interesting before Saturday’s game - like Aaron Harang going to The Spy Museum - well, they should have stayed there and not come to Nationals Park Saturday night.
It was awful and ugly and, well, embarrassing.
I mean, there is a reason Washington pitcher Jason Bergmann lugged an 1-8 record to the mound in Nationals Park to face the Cincinnati Reds Saturday night.
And the Reds exposed him - five runs in the second inning. When they chased him off the mound after six, they owned a four-run lead.
From the time Reds scored five in the second until the end the scored one more run and two more hits (both by Corey Patterson) and the bullpen suffered a nuclear meltdown during a 10-6 defeat.
It was the Reds’ eighth loss in nine games and second straight to the Nationals, losers of nine straight before the Reds rolled into town.
The Reds made three errors and two helped account for four runs and a Gary Majewski wild pitch permitted another to score.
“Every day, we’re making errors, and making them at the wrong time,” said manager Dusty Baker.
The turning-point error was made by second baseman Brandon Phillips in the seventh, a potential inning-ending double play that instead bounced off his writer, permitting the tying run to score and and two more scored after that.
“A double play ball and we thought we were out of the inning,” said Baker. “Brandon is usually as sure-handed as heck. There is none better than Brandon. It shocked us all. That opened the gates. Boy, that was a terrible game, an ugly game we played.”
Some of Phillips’ teammates probably weren’t as shocked as Baker, because before Friday’s first game Phillips warned his teammates that the infield was soft and fast.
“Elijah Dukes hit the ball hard and it just ate me up,” said Phillips. “It hit the grass and skipped on me off my wrist. I told everybody before Friday’s game, ‘Guys, you’re going to make errors on this field. You have to read the ball good off the bat because the field is bouncy and fast.’
“Things happen,” Phillips added. “You can’t catch ‘em all and you learn from your mistakes.”
For baseball purists, the early going was abysmal. For the Reds, the late going was abysmal.
The Nationals put five of their first six batters on base in the first inning against Josh Fogg and he was fortunate to give up only two runs. After Austin Kearns and Jesus Flores poked run-scoring singles with one out, Fogg coaxed an inning-ending double play out of Alberto Gonzalez.
The Reds didn’t mess around in the second after Bergmann walked Edwin Encarnacion.
Before the carnage ended, Joey Votto had a three-run double and Jay Bruce had a two-run homer to give the Reds a 5-2 lead.
Two bunts netted the Reds a run in the sixth. Patterson bunted hard to Bergmann, but second baseman Emilio Bonifacio was late covering first and Bergmann’s throw ended up in right field and Patterson ended up at third.
With Patterson running on the pitch, a suicide squeeze, Paul Bako dropped a run-scoring bunt to make it 6-2.
After that, it was as if the Nationals were playing the game by themselves.
Things tensed in the sixth after a one-out double by Gonzalez. Bill Bray, who hadn’t pitched in the previous five games, replaced Fogg and after he retired one batter he gave up a pinch-hit home run to Ronnie Belliard, cutting the lead to 6-4.
Mike Lincoln hadn’t given up a run in 19 innings when he replaced Bray in the seventh, but when the fog lifted four runs had been charged to his name and the Reds trailed, 8-6.
“Lincoln has been pitching great and the balls got through,” said Baker. “He made a real good pitch on Austin Kearns but he got it through the infield. That could have been a double play. Any one of several could have been a double play, but they found the holes.”
Some strange things happened, including the rare error by Phillips. After his error made it 6-6, Washington pinch-hitter Pete Orr, who had 18 major-league RBIs in his 398 major-league at-bats, poked a two-run single to left for an 8-6 Nationals lead.
“This is the big leagues and no matter who it is you just can’t let ‘em back in the door,” said Baker.
Lastings Milledge homered off Gary Majewski to start the eighth. Austin Kearns ripped his third hit and it skipped past Bruce in right for an error and Kearns landed on third, scoring on Majewski’s wild pitch to make it 10-6 on the scoreboard and a 10 on the ugly meter.
“We’re probably last in defense in the league right now,” said Baker. “That goes with being in last place in the standings. That just puts too much pressure on your pitchers.”
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TweetGriffey thanks Reds fans
Two days after his trade to the Chicago White Sox, Ken Griffey Jr. sent a message back to Cincinnati through his Cincinnati-based agent, Brian Goldberg.
The message was all-encompassing in expressing his appreciation for his nine years with the Reds. And he also apologized for his actions and words expressed last Saturday toward broadcaster Jeff Brantley after he homered and made a throat-cutting gesture toward the broadcast booth.
The message:
“I would like to thank the Cincinnati Reds organization for allowing me to fulfill a lifelong dream of playing for my hometown team. I will always value the lasting friendships I have with the Lindner, Castellini and Williams families.
“While my nine seasons there were filled with personal highlights — like hitting my 400th, 500th and 600th home runs in a Reds uniform — and the negatives of having to fight through too many injuries, my biggest regret is that we were not able to win a world championship while I was there.
“I also would like to thank my many teammates, managers, coaches and Reds employees for their help and support and to acknowledge the many friendly relationships I had with most of the members of the local media. I will miss the banter.
“Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank Reds fans for their support. I really do understand that the overwhelming majority of fans wanted so badly for me to succeed. Additionally, I would like to sincerely apologize to those fans offended by my wrongful actions last Saturday night. It was an overreaction on my part to what I felt was a series of public inaccurate and unfair remarks about me.”
“I wish nothing but success for the Reds both on and off the field.”
Sincerely, Ken Griffey Jr.
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TweetAnother accidental tourist
After watching the Cincinnati Reds implode in front of baseball’s worst team, the Washington Nationals, Friday night, I went to Shelley’s Back Room.
It isn’t somebody’s den or a tawdry, bawdy bar, it is a cigar bar, the only public place in Washington where you can smoke. T’was fun, even the $11 Gloria Cubana that usually costs $5.50.
And with Nadine on the trip, I had to do my husbandly tourist duties Saturday morning-afternoon. She has a pedometer, so I know I walked more than six miles.
We walked from the Mayflower-Renaissance Hotel to the Lincoln Memorial, plus 58 steps up to where Honest Abe is seated. We walked to the Vietnam War Memorial. We walked to the Korean War Memorial. We walked the length of the Reflecting Pool to the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument.
Then we cabbed it to the Newseum, where I bougth two t-shirts on which is written, “Trust Me, I’m a Reporter,” and, “Not Tonight, Darling, I’m on Deadline.” The players particularly like to snicker at the first one.
The day’s only real problem was dodging the goose poop on the sidewalks.
I was particularly impressed with the Korean War Memorial, which has a field of statues of combat soldiers, poised for battle in their ponchos with rifles in their arms and ghoslty war stares on their faces. Gives you the shudders.
The huge World War II Memorial is extremely impressive and we caught a glimpse of Bob Dole, wearing a black suit in the oppressive heat, posing for pictures.
Great lunch, too, at the Elephant & Castle restaurant. Probably had one of the best burgers ever.
Ran into Dusty Baker in front of the hotel and introduced him to Nadine and my 26-year-old nuclear engineer step-son, Chad. Said Baker to Chad, “Big boy. Can you pitch?” Well, he did pitch some at Chaminade-Julienne High School and he couldn’t do any worse than poor Homer Bailey has done in his last two starts.
Then it was subway time to the ballpark: red line two stops, transfer to the green line, fourth stop, Navy Yard, and a four-block walk to the new Nationals ballpark.
Nice park. Sort of like Great American Ball park. Nice, in an OK sort of way, but nothing special, nothing spectacular, nothing memorable.
Baker had the lineup ready at 2:30. Jerry Hairston Jr. was not in it - he was limping badly in the outfield Friday chasing fly balls. Corey Patterson was in center field, but at least he wasn’t batting leadoff.
Jeff Keppinger was batting leadoff, followed by Joey Votto, Jay Bruce (third again), Brandon Phillips, Adam Dunn, Edwin Encarnacion, Patterson, Paul Bako and Josh Fogg.
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