Let’s recap tonight’s titanic struggle….
FINAL – 11 innings
Los Angeles 11
Cincinnati 8
WP: J. Guerra (1-0)
LP: C. Fisher (0-3)
BOX SCORE
POSITIVES
-Johnny Cueto turned in the kind of start I have been waiting to see from one of our starting pitchers. Cueto went 7 innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 1 walk while striking out 3. What makes me like the start even more is the fact that he went 7 innings and only threw 88 pitches! Too bad the Reds bullpen could not hang onto the lead for Johnny.
–Joey Votto went 2-4 with a homerun, single, walk, a run scored, and 3 RBI. His 3-run homer off of Kershaw in the 6th inning appeared to put the Reds up for good.
–Drew Stubbs, Brandon Phillips, and Ramon Hernandez had 2 hits each. They combined to score 4 runs. Chris Heisey entered in the 7th inning as a pinch hitter. He drove in 2 runs with a base hit and ended the game 2-3 with 2 RBI.
NEGATIVES:
-Today’s Nick Masset was the April version. Masset allowed 3 runs on 3 hits in the 8th inning while only retiring 1 out. Masset has been great of late. Today wasn’t one of those great days.
-Billy Bray and Logan Ondrusek were not able to clean up Masset’s mess. Bray walked the only batter he faced. That batter would later score when Ondrusek served up a game tying grand slam to Matt Kemp in the 8th inning.
-Jonny Gomes went 0-3 and struck out twice. His batting average is now down to .186. Scott Rolen added an 0-5 day at the plate.
-Carlos Fisher looked bad in the 11th inning. After allowing 2 runs, Fisher air-mailed the shortstop on what should have been an inning ending double play. Two batters later, Fisher walked the pitcher who was making his first at-bat of the season. When the dust settled on Fisher in the 11th, he had allowed 4 runs on 4 hits and a walk in just .2 innings pitched.
NOT-SO-RANDOM THOUGHTS:
-For 5 innings, the Reds batters looked helpless at the plate. Clayton Kershaw faced 15 batters in the first 5 innings, allowing only 1 base runner when Joey Votto singled. Kershaw promptly erased Votto on a pick-off at firstbase. But after that 5th inning, the Reds bats woke up and scored at will on Kershaw.
-Games like this one just eat at you. The Reds looked comfortably ahead, leading 7-2 going to the top of the 8th. But 5 Dodgers runs later, the game was tied. Then the wheels fell off in the 11th and a Reds win turned into a Reds loss.
-At just after 6:15 pm ET, Chad sent me a text asking if I could write today’s Titanic Struggle. I agreed. He then replied that today’s should be a fun one to write. Perhaps we can blame Chad for the loss. And no, this was not fun to write!
-The Reds will try to win the rubber match tomorrow and win another home series. Hopefully Reds fans can pack the stadium again on Sunday like they did today.