Let’s recap today’s titanic struggle….
FINAL
Cincinnati 6
Chicago (N) 5
W: M. Leake (2-1)
L: C. Villanueva (1-2)
S: J.J. Hoover (1)
BOX SCORE
POSITIVES
–The Reds scored six runs today. Something which I’m sure greatly relieved all of us.
–J.J. Hoover!
–The Slumping Joey Vottoâ„¢ continued his struggles by reaching base in four of his five plate appearances.
–Shin-Soo Choo and Xavier Paul were also on base three times each.
–Mike Leake did not quite get through six innings, but he still had a very solid start. 5.2 innings, with 2 runs is not bad at all.
–The defense had a couple of very nice double plays that might not have seemed extremely significant at the time, but made a huge difference given how the night finished.
NEGATIVES
–Aroldis Chapman was not good tonight. I mean, that’s going to happen sometimes. Reds won anyway. Get ’em next time big guy.
NOT-SO-RANDOM THOUGHTS
–I would have said this if Chapman had pitched well and I’ll go ahead and say it since he pitched poorly: Chapman, four-run lead, waste of talent. Dead horse, beaten.
–If the Reds can manage a sweep of the Cubs, this will have been a .500 road trip. That’s not bad.
–This game feels really dramatic, but on any other day, this is a very standard and relaxing win. Chapman isn’t going to melt down like that very often, and it’s nice that the Reds have someone the quality of J.J. Hoover to come in on the rare occasion Chapman can’t get it done.