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Message #: 30967
The Reds continue to stumble, bumble and fumble (literally) into the postseason, as HAL continues victimizing the Cincy defense to an unprecedented degree. You'd think from the results that the Reds must have nothing but 4e88's at every position, but even our e0's can't make a play. The massive defensive sabotage combined with HAL's typical "magic" on the split cards to enable the Cardinals to put up a major fight this week, but sadly for the hometown fans the #2-ranked talent in the majors finally overcame the #24-ranked luck, with the Cards simply bystanders to that eternal struggle.... Game 1: Cincy ace Kevin Gross vs. ultra-hittable Omar Olivares for St. Louis sounded like a big-time mismatch -- but it wasn't, even though Gross had one of his best starts ever. The contest was only moments old when Felix "not-a-4e88" Jose in right field turned a routine x-play into a 4-base unearned "home run" and a 1-0 deficit, while the CIN batters were doing absolutely nothing against the guy with the 7 ERA. Jose may have batted .000 in the field but he had the good sense to bat 1.000 at the plate, going 4 for 4 and putting the Reds on the board at last with a 2-run homer in the 4th. But the offense quickly returned to hibernation following that wallop. Jose's turn came around again leading off the 7th and he doubled, then a few batters later pitcher Gross followed with his 3rd home run of 1994, a 3-run blast, to make the score 5-1. But the Cards weren't about to fold yet: in the bottom of the 8th, Cincinnati's third and fourth errors of the contest combined with an "RBI" balk to cut the lead to 5-3, but that's how it ended. Gross (15-5) scattered 7 hits, walked just 1 and fanned 11, and allowed zero earned runs while lowering his ERA to 2.64 and hitting a home run. The Reds as a team achieved a perfect 0% on x-plays for the day and added a throwing error on a SB attempt to boot. ====================================================================== Game 2: St. Louis got a lot of baserunners today, 14 to be exact (3 via more sabotage defense), but LOBbed 12 of them. The Reds got even more baserunners, racked up an enormous advantage in total bases (26-15) and pulled away late for an 8-2 win. SLN starter Bob Tewksbury was hammered for 12 hits and 7 runs in 6.1 innings, though the Reds more or less went into cruise mode after scoring 3 times on 5 hits in the top of the first. Hal Morris led off the game with a home run, and an even more surprising event came on SLN's first batter of the game -- the Reds successfully converted an x-play! The Cards' first "earned" run of the series came in the 3rd when J.T. Snow tapped an x-grounder to the mound. Erik Hanson is an e0 so of course it had to be a single. The next batter hit a routine liner to Eric '2' Davis in center field, who misplayed it into a double. A 4-run 7th put us on top by the count of 8-1, so the 2-base error and yet another unearned run we donated in the 8th wasn't terribly meaningful, just irritating. ====================================================================== Game 3: Another day, another turning of the screws against the Reds' D: 4 more errors and 3 more undeserved runs provided the precise losing margin. Final score: 4-1. All of the scoring, deserved or otherwise, took place in the first three frames. Cincy's talented fielders performing their Keystone Cops act being somewhat old news by now, the real story of the day was SLN batting practice loser Mike Moore having the best start of his life and gaining some revenge against his tormenters from southwest Ohio. As is typical, Cincy batters got the adverse result on each and every one of 8 split card chances, and that helped Moore to an astonishing 3-hitter. He walked 4 and struck out 6 befuddled CIN batters along the way. In 1994 up to this week, Moore had been 0-4 in 4 appearances vs. the Reds with an ugly stat line featuring 11 innings, 25 hits, 29 runs (28 earned) and a mind-blowing ERA of 22.91. So it can be conceded that he was due to turn it around, but he couldn't have done it without a lot of timely sabotage. Among all that sabotage which was directed at the road squad in this series (with 1's and 2's falling all over themselves), SLN's Kevin McReynolds, a 5 (yes, 5) in center field calmly made a spectacular catch of a routine fly ball to terminate what might have become a Reds rally late in today's debacle. ====================================================================== Game 4: The Reds only blew 2 of 5 x-plays today (one of them being the old "e0 on the mound therefore it's a single" thing again), but another ultra-hittable SLN starter with an ERA around 7 held the #2 offense in the league down most of the way, and it required a 9th inning rally for the Reds to eke out a 6-4 win. St. Louis got only 5 hits today but they had 3 BPHR chances in this not-exactly-a-bandbox stadium -- and they naturally went 3 for 3 against Luckless Jose Rijo. The Reds had one BPHR chance and obtained the expected result, squat. We did manage 3 runs against Allen Watson but still trailed 4-3 after 8 innings. The Reds loaded the bases with 1 out in the 9th, and Rijo the albatross was lifted for pinch hitter Gerald Young, who cleared the sacks with a double! Todd Jones required just 7 pitches in the bottom of the 9th to nail down his 19th save. Kevin Mitchell homered (non-BPHR variety) and doubled to account for whatever runs that Young didn't provide. Alan |
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