Titanic Struggle Recap: Take That, WLBs!

Let’s recap today’s titanic struggle…

Final
Cincinnati 6
St. Louis 1
WP: Wood (5-2)
LP: Wainwright (17-10)
Box Score 

POSITIVES:
– After an error in the first inning by Aaron Miles, Jonny Gomes had a huge 2-out double that gave the Reds a 3-0 lead after the top of the first inning.  After the starts the Reds have had against the Cardinals in the last 4 games, it was nice to see the Reds take an early lead on St. Louis.

– Joey Votto went 2-5 with a double, RBI, and a run scored.  The double was about a foot shy of being a homerun.  Of course, it should have been caught had Matt Holliday not done his best impression of Jonny Gomes in left field.  Votto joined Gomes as the only two Reds players with two hits.

– Sporting a new hair cut, Travis Wood was outstanding.  Wood went 7 innings, allowed 5 hits and walked 2.  The only run to score in the game came in the first inning and was unearned.  Of course it was Wood’s bad throw on a pick-off attempt that allowed the runner to advance to 3rd base in the first place and eventually score.  Nonetheless, Wood looked great on the mound today.  He also had 2 sac bunts and hit his first career homerun at the plate. 

– Aroldis Chapman pitched a scoreless 8th inning.  He did allow his first base runner of his MLB career when he walked a batter on 4 straight pitches.  That allowed Albert Pujols to come up with a runner on.  Chapman then got Pujols to ground into a double play to end the inning.  Chapman threw 15 pitches in the game and 10 of those reached at least 100 mph.

– Coco pitched a scoreless 9th inning.  He did allow a base hit, but he was throwing strikes and the Reds were up 5.  Cordero has been real good of late.  I really like our bullpen heading down the stretch and into the playoffs.

– Brandon “Boo” Phillips had an RBI base hit.  That hit seemed to quiet the Cardinals fans a little.  That and the Reds being up all game seemed to tame the fans today.

– Yonder Alonso got his first career major league hit with a flared double to left field.  The ball ricocheted off of Matt Holliday’s leg and into the seats.

– Every Reds position player had a base hit today and we scored 5 runs off of Adam Wainwright.

NEGATIVES
 – One bad pick-off throw by Wood and a bad base running decision by Phillips is about all I can think of.  Those are just nitpicking negatives.  We beat the Cardinals!  That’s all that matters!

NOT-SO-RANDOM THOUGHTS
– Orlando Cabrera returned to the lineup today.  I did not know whether that should be a positive or a negative.  So I decided to put it here!

– There was some discussion at the start of today’s telecast about the Reds outfielders batting 6th, 7th, and 8th in the batting order.  This begs the question: How much longer will the Reds go with just 3 outfielders? 

– Most of us felt the Reds needed to take at least one in this series.  That means even with a loss in tomorrow’s finale, we are still up 7 in the division.  But hey, let’s win tomorrow against Carpenter and just finish them off.  Whaddya Say!?

– The Reds magic number is now at 21.  A win tomorrow gets us into the teens!