Game 82: The Sky is Falling

Latos Terrific in Return to PETCO. Marshall and Ondrusek...Not So Much.

Reds      1   6   0  (44-38)
Padres   2   9   0  (34-50)

By Ryan Bramwell
(Sigh).  What can you say?  We lost.  Again.  Latos tossed seven great innings of baseball and his team let him down.  You know he badly wanted to show up his former team too.  Edinson Volquez pitched a good one too, unfortunately for us.  I cannot tell you how much I wanted to see him get eaten alive by the Reds hitters.  Cincinnati did a great job in the first few frames by really making Volquez work his pitches.  He was around 60 pitches after two plus innings.  The Reds actually seemed to come into the game with a strategy of waiting Volquez out and driving up the pitch count.  Somehow he managed to lasted seven innings.  He through 127 pitches in all, 79 for strikes.  He also racked up 10 strikeouts and three walks.  Compare this to Latos's 109 pitches (72 for strikes), 8 strikeouts and 2 walks.  Former Reds future talents also gave the Cincy club a beating.  Yasmani Grandal had his first career double while Yonder Alonso reached base four times by singling, doubling, and walking twice.  It was Logan Forsythe, however, who really put the hurtin' on the Redlegs.  Sean Marshall came on in relief to start the bottom of the eighth and promptly gave up a homer to left field off the bat of Forsythe, just his second of the season.  On the Reds side, only Chris Heisey truly came to play.  He doubled and tripled, and drove in the only Reds run of the game.  Phillips had two hits as well but they ruined by bad baserunning blunders that cost Cincinnati as least one run.  His second baserunning mishap came in the top of the ninth after hitting a single to lead off the inning.  With Jay Bruce batting, Phillips was caught leaning and picked off at first base.  That was followed up by back-to-back strikeouts by Bruce and Frazier.  Logan Ondrusek was called upon to keep the game tied in the bottom of the ninth.  But the tall right hander was quickly in a hole after Grandal led off the inning with a double to right.  Ondrusek then intentionally walked Alonso.  Cameron Maybin came up in a bunt situation with runners on first and second and nobody out.  He put down the bunt and it bounced off the grass high enough in the air to allow Maybin and the other runners to all reach safely.  Bases loaded, nobody out.  Sam LeCure was then called upon to complete an unthinkable task in recording three outs without giving up a run.  But Everth Cabrera hit the first pitch he saw into left field for a walk-off single.  Game over.


The yearly west coast road trip never ceases to disappoint us Reds fans.  But we are a better team than before, right?  I mean, we took two games out of four in San Francisco, and they have a masterful rotation.  We brought our bats to Los Angeles for the opening game of the series and scored 8, count 'em, eight runs.  And since then we have scored only one run in each game after. All of which resulted in losses.  All of which had great overall pitching performances from the Reds squad.  But pitching is only one-third of the battle in a game of baseball.  Fielding and batting must also be better than that of your opponent.  Remember that 9th inning against the Giants where Jay Bruce dropped a fly ball in right field that allowed for a walk-off win?  Well, the Reds are typically a top-notch defensive club, but they're human and will still make a mistake or two.  Unfortunately, with the way we are hitting the ball (or the lack their of, I should say) it doesn't matter how good our defense is or how solid our rotation has been.  And that is something guaranteed to take the wind out of the sails of our pitching staff.  The offense needs to show up to win every night.  They need that fire to play like they are always a run behind.  They need to get on base more, bat better when runners do get in scoring position, have longer at bats by being patient at the plate.  We need more guys to pay attention to how Joey Votto and Ryan Hanigan approach an at-bat.  Speaking of Hanigan, he should be moved up in the lineup.  I believe he should bat before Votto in the two slot.  Outside of Vottomatic, nobody gets on base at a higer rate than Hanigan.  He is patient, sees a lot of pitches, and drives the ball low and up the middle of the field.  Superhero Todd Frazier is third on the team in OBP, yet he has been seriously underused since the return of the aging Scott Rolen.  I will post a poll or two regarding these facts to see what other Reds fans are thinking.