Time for a recap of last night’s titanic struggle….
FINAL (12 innings)
Cincinnati 4
Washington 2
WP: Masset (4-0)
LP: Villone (3-1)
S: W******* (1)
BOX SCORE
POSITIVES
–Smilin’ side of the scoreboard. Yeah, it’s the Natinals, but still….
–I bet you’ve heard this one before: crappy Reds offense wastes a brilliant performance by Aaron Harang. I really feel sorry for Harang. What’s it going to take for the Reds to give this guy some run support?
Last night, Harang went 7.2 innings, gave up five hits and no runs. His ERA is down to 3.74. Great outing by the big guy.
–Jonny Gomes put Cincinnati ahead with a pinch-hit RBI double in the 12th inning. Gotta love Jonny.
–Are we seeing the signs of Jay Bruce coming out of his horrific slump? We’ve been fooled before, but his swing looked much better last night. He hit his 15th homer, and added a double that he ripped into the left field corner. Keep your fingers crossed.
–Who is this Masset fellow? Two more shutout innings, three strikeouts, no walks, and his ERA is now 0.78.
NEGATIVES
–TOS*
–Francisco Cordero blew his first save since July 21 of last year.
–Wow, Willy Taveras is bad. And he looks about ten times worse than Chris Dickerson in center field. Remember Dickerson?
–No, really, this offense is just terrible. I’m very happy that the Reds are taking care of business against the Nationals, but if Joey Votto and Edwin Encarnacion don’t get back soon, I’m going to pull out my hair.
ETC.
–Crazy game. The umpires stopped the game after the bottom of the ninth started. Two hours and ten minutes later, play resumed and CoCo promptly blew the save.
–Where would the Reds be without the great pitching we’ve seen? I shudder to think.
–A lot of people are criticizing Dusty Baker for sending CoCo back out to the mound after the long rain delay to continue the bottom of the ninth. It’s something you don’t see often, but I’m not ready to say it was a terrible idea; I don’t know how Cordero felt at that point. Dusty did address the criticism, though:
“He said he felt great,” Baker said. “That’s similar to your closer throwing both ends of a doubleheader. He didn’t throw that much.”
–Strange late afternoon/early evening start today. Reds will be going for the sweep.
*This Offense Stinks.