A FEW MO' THINGS, 7/16/12
I took this picture from my seat in the #RedsTweetup section last night. Yes, someone made a large fly-swatter and there is a random gorilla head on the left. Still, I think this helps capture the atmosphere as we headed to the ninth inning....
Maybe, just maybe, this team is different....
Maybe they're different because of the starting pitching. Do you even remember the last time a Reds starter had a truly horrible outing? Do you remember the time before then? It might not be saying that much that this could be the best Reds staff in more than a decade and a half, but this could be the best Reds staff in more than a decade and a half.
Latos, Leake, and Bailey, all of whom have taking their turns as "whipping boy du jour" this season combined to throw 19 innings this weekend against one of the best offenses in the game...and gave up a total of six runs. Reds starters have been good for the better part of the past month, but what they've done for weeks shouldn't obscure what they did this weekend.
Mat Latos' outing on Friday might've been short, but the way he battled out of trouble and minimized the damage in the third inning on Friday night seemed to set a tone for the series. Mike Leake worked with little margin for error and did more than enough to earn a win on Saturday. And Homer Bailey, if he hadn't already, earned his big league pitching stripes in the eighth inning last night.
Two on, no out, tie ballgame, and Homer Bailey, Homer Freaking Bailey - facing three legit hitters - doesn't allow a runner past third. All these years, as long as you've followed this team, how often has a starter, much less any pitcher, gotten out of that jam?
Maybe this year is different.
Maybe it's different because who the Reds won without. The Reds just swept the Cardinals without Johnny Cueto throwing a pitch. They won without Joey Votto even denting the boxscore on Friday and Saturday. They won a ballgame without a long ball last night. They won without their leadoff hitter getting a hit the entire weekend.
Maybe the winning without is what makes these guys different.
Maybe they're different because they avert crises. Three weeks ago, the sight of Aroldis Chapman jogging in from the bullpen inspired an uneasiness only found on first dates. These three days, he's looked as dominant as ever, culminating his weekend by making the Cardinals look sillier than Yadier Molina's neck tattoo.
Chapman pitched three innings this weekend. He faced ten batters. He struck out eight.
The Missile is back.
The Chapman troubles didn't snowball, and even in the midst of his worst performances, there never seemed to be a sense of panic by either the team or the pitcher. Is he infallible? No. Will he blow a save again? Bet on it. But how often this last decade and a half have you felt the way you do when the Missile is protecting a lead?
Maybe this year is different.
Maybe they're different because of Scott Rolen. Few of us want Scott even playing, some have wondered if he'll just hang it up, and his manager is clearly tired of talking about him. There's a younger replacement, one who's been consistently productive while also saving lives and strolling to the bat accompanied by a drastically better soundtrack. (If the 1992 Summer Olympics has the US v. Angola in basketball, Frazier and Rolen have Sinatra v. Coldplay in at-bat music) But in the midst of what's been a rough season, Scott Rolen still has moments in him....he was great with the glove all weekend, contributed with two hits on Saturday, and last night had what might've been his biggest tangible contribution as a Red.
There was something about that at-bat last night. Scott Rolen is obviously not the player he once was. His days as a Red, and maybe as a Major Leaguer, are probably in the double digits. People groan at his very presence in the lineup. And yet still, with two out and the bases loaded in the eighth inning a game that felt bigger than it probably was, you felt okay with him at the plate. The moment wasn't going to be too big, he wouldn't be afraid to fail, and he wouldn't try to do too much. There are hitters I'd rather seeing at the plate in that situation, but even at this stage of his career, there are still plenty of hitters I'd rather not see in that situation than Scott Rolen.
A guy on the downside, and whom most of us would prefer to see less of still had enough in the tank to produce one of the season's seminal moments.
That's different.
Maybe this year is too.
Maybe it's different because when Bruce makes his catch against the wall on Friday, you can feel the game turning. Maybe it's different because when Ludwick comes to the plate in the tenth on Saturday, you blurt out to a kitchen full of guys that "the former Cardinal is going deep." And maybe it's different because when it was supposed to feel like Yadier F'n Molina just did it again, it didn't really feel like he'd done that much.
Those feelings are different.
Maybe this season is too.
And maybe it's different because of what this weekend wasn't about. Reds v. Cardinals stirs a lot of passion, brings out a lot of bad feelings, and at times the actually baseball being played fades to the background as we, and often the Reds, focus on something surrounding it. That didn't happen this weekend. The potential back stories (which Fox by the way, couldn't play up enough on Saturday) involving All Star snubs, and all the residual bad feelings from the past few years gave way to three really intense, really well-played baseball games. And the Reds won all of them.
Maybe I'm reaching, but there's something to that, something you could sense in the build-up to the series. Dusty make (appropriately so) a stink about the All Star team, but his players quickly let it go. His players said all the right things leading up to Friday's opener. And if there was ever more going on than just three key games against a division foe, the Reds never let it affect the task at hand. They simply played. And they simply won.
That, more than anything, might be the biggest and most important difference of all.
-The second #Retested of the season was made even better by the game's result. Thank you to @LisaBraun and @Jamieblog for putting them together. And thanks to those who introduced themselves to me. Join us for the next one, which will be announced soon.
-Be as patriotic or as unpatriotic as you want, but at least when a PA announcer asks you to rise and remove your hats for the playing of God Bless America, rise and remove your hat for the playing of God Bless America.
Last night, as Dave Berti's sang during the seventh inning stretch, there was a dude right behind him in the first tow who remained seated while continuing a conversation on his cell phone. That's sad and disrespectful. It's also a shame that no one near him did anything about it.
Did anyone at the ball yard get a screen cap of this guy?
-Also, while we're talking fan behavior, and I am by no means the person with the final say on what's appropriate behavior at the ballpark, but can we have a serious conversation about the wave.
The wave is like The Tonight Show. I have never heard someone say to me "I like watching Jay Leno," yet he consistently kicks the crap out of vastly superior talk show hosts in the ratings.
I have never heard someone talk about the wave, why they like it, and their enthusiasm for it. As a matter of fact, every person I've ever talked about the wave with has openly detested it.
Yet the wave endures. Eighth inning last night. Tie ballgame. Packed house. Doing the wave.
Why?
Look, I know we're to the point where the wave is not going away. It's unfortunately a part of our culture and there are simply too many attention-starved people who think that everyone came to the park to watch them start the 28 billionth wave in history. But can we at least pick our moments?
I propose new rules: No waves when one team is within slam range (aka: down by four or less), no waves when elite hitters are batting, no attempts to restart a broken wave when fans stopping waving to cheer something on the field, no waves when something of potential historical significance is happening (Bronson Arroyo's no-hitter against Milwaukee was broken up a few weeks ago, I believe, because fans were doing the wave in the eighth inning), no getting angry at anti-wave holdovers like me who refuse to participate, if a wave-starter is not getting the response he wants after three attempts, he must sit down immediately, and if someone ever asks you what the best part of attending a game was, and you respond by saying "we did the wave," you must never be allowed in again.
Can this work? Can we reach this compromise?
As a side note, with the wave behind us and the real possibility of a sweep in front of us, the atmosphere in the ninth inning was incredible last night...as good as it's been at GABP. If we could just bottle that and use it every time someone decides to start a wave, our city would have the best baseball experience in the country.
-Here's as good a case as anyone can make to bring the 2015 All Star Game to Cincinnati. There's a Facebook page too. I predict this is gonna get done.
-Here's a great look at how good Ryan Ludwick has been recently, and what it might mean.
-Oh, and here's Billy Hamilton's inside-the-park home run from yesterday....
-Apparently a prerequisite to winning is allowing your players to take home unlimited amounts of Gatorade. Had no idea.
-Sometimes really smart people end up sounding really, really, stupid.
-Bill Walton is returning to ESPN. This makes me happy.
-It's probably illegal to even describe what I would do if I was at this concert.
-Your programming notes for the week: One radio show, on Thursday. Perhaps a chat. And maybe I'll take you out for coffee if you ask. Completely random, because I spend too much time watching old sports videos on YouTube.....Wanna watch the Freezer Bowl in its entirety, complete with really bad 1982 commercials starring a future murderer? Of course you do.
Please tell me you watched all three hours and 45 minutes.
