(Photo courtesy of The AP)

If Game One belonged to everybody, Bronson Arroyo owned Game Two.

No baseball team wins a game with one guy doing all the work - unless it's the Pirates - and last night the Reds were no exception.  Everyone contributed, the hitting becoming more contagious than a Kardashian returning from NBA All-Star Weekend, a Red placed right where he could catch every hard-hit ball, and the manager's pregame and pre-postseason decisions paying off.

The offense has indeed flipped on the switch after such a slow September, with 14 runs in two games.  And they've have come from both the long ball and the little hit.  Ryan Ludwick's second-inning homer started the scoring, which ended only after the Reds added eight more runs, going 5 for 11 with runners in scoring position. In between, Brandon Phillips continued to terrorize San Fran pitchers, Hanigan added two-hits and three-RBIs, and Joey Votto strung together a three-hit "shut the f**k up TBS, I'm still one of the best hitters in this sport," night. 

Every Reds starter had a hit.  Seven scored runs.  Six drove at least one in.  It was an excellent night for the offense, in a park and a pitcher that together were supposed to be impossible to beat.

But weeks, months, or even years from now, when we look back at Game Two of the 2012 NLDS between the Reds and Giants, we'll remember last night as The Bronson Arroyo Game.

Bronson has pitched in 234 games as a Red.  He's won 91 of them.  Some of them have been memorable, at times for their brilliance and others for their brevity.  Some have come in seasons where the Reds were very good.  Others came when the Reds were more miserable than a car full of divorced women.

Rarely though, has Bronson been as good as he was last night.  And in his nearly seven full seasons in Cincinnati, no performance has been as important.

His selection to pitch game two hacked some people off, and the argument against Arroyo starting last night had some validity considering the Homer Bailey home/road splits I've already grown tired of hearing and talking about.  But so did the arguments for Bronson getting the ball in game two.

Up 1-0, you've got a guy who's stuff is ideal against a team that might be trying to do too much.

Down 0-1, he's got the mental makeup to handle the pressure of avoiding and 0-2 hole.

The guy gives up home runs.  You wouldn't know it by watching this series, but AT&T Park is friendly to pitchers who give up gopher balls.

We talked about those things for what seemed like months.  We argued either for or against them.  Know what we didn't point out during the discussion?

That Bronson Arroyo is pretty freaking good.

He's no longer the staff ace, and he'll never be confused for the guy with the best stuff, or hardest velocity in the rotation, but more than anyone on this team, in fact more than just about anyone in baseball, the dude knows how to pitch.

I know that's an overused statement, but it's true, and it was never a more accurate statement than last night.

Simply put, Bronson Arroyo put on a pitching clinic against the Giants.  He changed speeds, he hit corners, he threw first-pitch strikes, he kept hitters off balance, and did all the other things that Chris Welsh gets aroused talking about on TV.  Bronson Arroyo, who often wins while being unspectacular, was spectacular against the Giants.

Watching him pitch against that lineup last night was like watching last week's Presidential Debate (That's right, I'm going there.  Send your nasty emails here.).  Know how about 20 minutes in, the President had this "I'm supposed to beat this guy, but I'm not really sure how to do it, and nothing I try seems to work. My only hope is that he royally screws up," look?

I saw that last night from the San Francisco Giants. 

Mitt Romney never screwed it up.  Neither did Bronson Arroyo.

In one of the most meaningful starts of his career, Bronson came up with one of his finest performances. On a night where the Reds shined as a unit, their longest-tenured pitcher did what he so often doesn't do.

He stood out.

That's what made Arroyo's gem so much sweeter.  Not only did it do the obvious - send the team home up 2-0 while putting San Fran's season in life-support - but maybe it gave us a chance to appreciate a guy who's contributions to the Reds have long been very under-appreciated.

I asked this a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating: If you asked 500 Reds fans at random to name their favorite player, how many would mention Bronson Arroyo?  If you stood in the pro shop and watched people buy t-shirts and jerseys, how many would you see walking about with #61 threads?  If you asked any fan what Reds player they would most want to make sure they perform in person, how many would say that they just had to see Bronson pitch?

Very few, even fewer, and none.

I don't think any of that will change after last night, but maybe his seven-inning, one-hit gem last night will now get us talking about what he's meant to this team for a while.  You know the numbers - 13 wins, 212 innings and zero missed starts since he and his cornrows arrived from Boston in 2006 - maybe now we won't take them for granted nearly as much.  Bronson Arroyo has been a big part of the Reds for a long time.

Never though, has he been as big as he was last night.