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Message #: 30491
The Reds, who should be way out in front in the N.L. Central (but aren't) visit the Giants, who should be strongly competing for first place in the N.L. West (but aren't). Who would "win" this battle of underachievers....? Game 1: With the Blue Jays having been liberated from the yoke of lucklessness they've had to wear for the past 15 seasons, HAL can now focus all of the rotten dice rolls and split cards on the Reds. And he didn't waste one bit of time doing exactly that. SFN starter Bill Swift has had considerable difficulty following up his Cy Young 1993 season, but all he needed to turn his year around was for the Reds to come to town. Swift won this week's O.O.S. (Overachieving Opposition Starter) award in a big way -- a 6-hit shutout with no extra-base hits and just 1 walk. Seconds after a weak-glove SFN infielder came up with a fantastic play to squelch a Cincy rally (which consisted of a walk and a sac bunt), a perfectly timed blown x-play by a CIN infielder kept the inning alive so that Matt Williams could roll in his gopher column (of course he didn't miss) and Jose Canseco followed with a split card chance at another gopher (of course he didn't miss). Those 4 undeserved 2-out runs comprised the entire day's scoring for both teams. Cincy batters had 9 split card chances for the day (including x-plays) and got the adverse result all 9 times. ============================================================================ Game 2: The Reds trotted out an all-righty lineup against undefeated SFN starter Frank Viola, and though he was hit fairly hard we gave him every opportunity to get off the hook (11 LOB, 7 RLISP with 2 outs, zero 2-out RBI). Winless CIN starter John Roper found Barry Bonds' gopher column with a man on in the bottom of the first (of course he didn't miss) and it was 2-0 Giants three batters into the contest. Though Viola purportedly has difficulty with RHB, you wouldn't have known it as he merely took a no-hitter into the 4th inning. But once the entire lineup had seen the soft-tossing lefty, they made the appropriate adjustments and began teeing off. After retiring 10 in a row without a hit following a leadoff walk in the first, Viola watched as Reggie Sanders singled and then Kevin Mitchell rolled his loaded home run column. Of course he missed, but he did get one of our better split cards (16) and tripled Sanders home. The game was tied at 2 shortly thereafter when Viola uncorked a wild pitch that plated Mitchell. Three more hits in the inning added one more run, and with 2 on in the CIN 4th Mitchell rolled his homer column again -- and didn't miss!!! Viola exited with the score 7-2, at which point the Reds shifted into full LOB mode. The Giants tightened the score when one of three botched x-plays by Sanders on this day cut our lead to 7-4. With 2 outs in that same inning, Roper helped load the bases for San Fran via some wildness and up stepped Bonds with the bases loaded, representing the go-ahead run. He didn't roll his gopher column against reliever Chuck McElroy but still found one full of hits and walks. Bonds found a hit -- but it had a $ next to it and disaster was averted for the moment. Sanders' 3rd howler of the day put a RISP for the Giants with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th but Jeff Brantley nailed down the victory. Final score: 7-4. Roper finally got into the win column in '94 after 4 decent starts with zilch to show for it (0-2 record in those 4; 8 ER in 24 IP) which were followed by 2 rotten ones (another 2 losses; 13 ER in 9.2 IP). ============================================================================ Game 3: The Giants took an early 2-0 lead again, this time against underachieving Jose Rijo, while SFN batting practice starter Salomon Torres was setting the highly talented Cincy offense on its collective ears. Like Viola, Torres also took a no-hitter -- in fact a perfect game -- into the 4th. But also like Viola, that's when the batters finally woke up. With 2 outs, Torres began missing the strike zone or the hitters stopped swinging at balls, and Morris and Sanders reached on free passes. Barry Larkin then delivered a real rarity: a 2-out hit on a good split card. The home run made it 3-2 Reds and we extended it to 6-2 in the 5th. But the Giants were not dead yet. With 2 outs in the SFN half of the 5th Mark Carreon was hit by a pitch and Bonds followed with you-know-what to make the score 6-4. In 1993 Bonds notched *11* gophers against the Reds, with no more than 6 against any other squad, and this season he's picking up right where he left off. Andre Dawson's solo pinch-homer put us back up by 3 but it took just one batter in the SFN 6th to gopher their deficit back down to 2. A timely Cincy error with light-hitting Harold Reynolds at bat set the stage for yet another of those patented 2-out hits that our opponents are so good at, and now the score was 7-6 and Rijo was gone. Todd Jones saved the day with 3.1 innings of almost perfect relief, Eric Anthony's first home run as a Red put 3 runs on the board -- and he just missed a split card Grand Slam that would have put 4 more there -- but we turned 5 baserunners into 2 more runs in the 8th and turned a nailbiter into a 12-6 win. Reliever Mark Dewey was the victim of Cincy's late rallies. Alan |
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