San Francisco entered this series at rainy Great Kamino Ball Park sporting the second-worst offense in the major leagues and the #25 ranked pitching staff by ERA. They’d stumbled to a 11-18 record, buried at the bottom of the National League standings.
Tonight, the Giants looked every pathetic bit like the worst team in the league. The Reds jumped on Giants starter Matt Cain for 10 hits and 6 walks in the first 3.1 innings while amassing a 9-1 lead.
With the win, the Reds record is now above .500 at 15-14. With a Brewers loss, the Reds will be in 2nd place in the NL Central, just 1 game behind the 1st place Cubs.
Unless the Reds don’t show up tomorrow night, Johnny Cueto is all that stands between the Reds and a sweep.
But no, even a three-game sweep this weekend wouldn’t begin to erase the memory.
Cincinnati Reds 13 • San Francisco Giants 3 || MLB || FG || Statcast
Thanks to the offensive production, Bronson Arroyo got the win, throwing a season high 95 pitches. He made it through 5.1 innings allowing only 2 earned runs. But even the Giants poor lineup managed hard-hit ball after hard-hit ball against the Reds right-hander. Arroyo struck out 4 and walked 1.
There were plenty of offensive stars. Billy Hamilton reached base five times with three hits and two walks. Zack Cozart had two hits and a walk. Joey Votto walked four times. Adam Duvall had two hits. Eugenio Suarez had three hits and a walk, as did Scott Schebler. Jose Peraza had three hits. Devin the Destroyer had two walks.
All by itself, this game has raised the Reds' team on-base percentage from .316 to .328
— Zach Buchanan (@ZachENQ) May 6, 2017
All that on-basing led to this:
Cain hadn't allowed as many as nine earned runs since 4/7/13 vs. St. Louis. #Giants #Reds
— Jeff Wallner (@JeffWallner) May 6, 2017
This seems good:
#Reds Joey Votto is batting .372/.463/.656 over his last 100 games played. He has reached safely 201 times with 76 runs scored and 80 RBI.
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) May 6, 2017
Austin Brice, who was born in Hong Kong, made his first appearance for the Reds, pitching the 8th and 9th inning. Brice came from the Marlins as part of the Dan Straily trade. LOL that the Reds got even more than future multiple Cy Young winner Luis Castillo for Straily. Any value the Reds derive for Brice is gravy. Delicious, exquisite gravy. Brice struck out three Giants in his two innings of work.
Drew Stubbs entered the game for the Giants in the 7th inning. I always liked Stubbs. He played a great CF, had a strong arm and offered a nice combination of power and speed. Stubbs hit 22 homers and stole 30 bases in the Reds breakthrough 2010 NL Central Championship season. Fans rightly remember Jay Bruce’s dramatic Clinchmas home run, but Stubbs made a tremendous play in the 3rd inning of that game, robbing the Astros of a 2-run homer.
Stubbs also had a great catch in the top of the 9th potentially robbing another home run.
Several years ago it looked Reds OF would be Heisey, Stubbs & Bruce for long.
My good friend’s all time favorite Red is still Drew Stubbs and I love it
I wonder if the Reds fans will chant “Cueto” ????
The Giants staff walked 12 of our guys last night which to me was almost unbelieveable.After the first inning when Cain threw 24 pitches to 8 batters my thoughts were you don’t have to throw strikes to us just throw it close.I was wrong wrong wrong.Granted nobody the Giants threw out there outside of maybe Strickland is going to blow you away the Reds took pitch after pitch then hammered the strikes.They scored 13 runs and had 16 hits but the patience they showed at the plate was fantastic.Peraza smoking that triple was a thing of beauty.That kind of power was what he showed last year and it had been missing all year.Great job.
28 Reds batters got on base and only 22 made outs, how often does this happen where a team has over .500 obp for the game?
Brice looked great. He obviously adhered to the recently issued mantra of coming up and throwing strikes. If Luis Castillo is as good as advertised it begs the question how/why we kicked the Marlins’ butt so in that trade. Seems like the Marlin GM should’ve been fired over this bad a trade.
The Marlins trade for Straily seems to have been a short-term attempt to fill the tragic loss of Jose Fernandez.
And is Straily that much better than Arroyo at this point, I would think Bronson would not have got an opportunity if that trade not been made.
Dan Straily currently leads the NL in batting average against. I don’t think the Marlins think they got screwed in that trade. I like the Reds side of it, but it’s not as lopsided as all that, at least so far.
Drew Stubbs was one of my favorites too….although he just couldn’t make enough contact to be a good obp guy! I believe his splits vs lefties were ok….prob should’ve always been a platoon/def sub/pinch-runner type! One of my fav games ever was when he hit 3 HRs in Wrigley in a game where Joey got tossed in the 1st inning. I think we hit 7 altogether. Corky Miller even hit a ball out on Waveland:) Lost that recording when I left Directv….used to watch it all the time!
The question is whether the team will start to appreciate the importance of being selective, taking walks when they’re offered, and not always swinging for the fence. The one at-bat that really drove me nuts was Duvall swinging at what would have been ball one after Cain had just issued three consecutive walks. I get the “he’s going to want to throw a strike” theory, but he obviously intended to throw strikes to Hamilton and Cozart, and just couldn’t do it. I’m not optimistic, but hoping everyone (especially the guy who swung at ball one with the bases loaded) took note of the fact that patience pays off.
Bronson said he felt really good so if he can get that fastball to 89-90 MPH then he will win a few more games.However it turns out he is still taking starts away from guys that may be part of the future.That’s not a good thing.
Bronson has won a couple of blowout games, and everyone is complaining. What’s wrong with pitching to contact so long as the other team never gets close to making it a real game? Right now with Bailey, Disco and Finnegan hurt and Reed and Romano not really ready for the rotation I have no problem with Arroyo in the Reds rotation. Add to that he is mentoring the young pitchers. Is he part of the Reds long term plans? No. Clearly. But is he a reasonable part of their current plans? I for one think so. Now about that Feldman guy…