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Message #: 32280
Although we were able to field the usual starting lineup featuring the most talented offense in the N.L., the Reds still played like a team whose trip to the postseason will be as brief as possible. The defense was every bit as screwed as the offense in this series, but the pitching managed to muddle through somehow and permit only 6 earned runs in 4 games.... Game 1: What do Cincy's excellent fielders -- 1e6 in RF, e1 behind the plate, 1e14 at SS and 2e4 at 1B -- have in common? The first 4 x plays in this game were hit to them, and HAL had them blow each and every one of them. Perhaps we need more 4's in the field instead. Meanwhile at the plate, facing lefthanded batting practice tosser Allen Watson who should have been annihilated, the offense produced just as much sabotage as the defense. Unfortunate CIN starter Brian Williams left on the short end of a 3-1 score after 6 innings and wound up being assigned his 7th loss of the season. Taking a short respite from our 11 LOB, a sac fly in the 7th narrowed the Cardinals lead to 3-2, but a pair of 2-out split card RBI hits in favor of the home team made it a 5-2 final. The Reds had a pair of 1-5 BPHR chances, drew a 6 and a 7 for warning-track flyouts. ===================================================================================================== Game 2: SLN scrap heap scrub pickup Russ Springer had been dismembered in his previous appearances this year including once by the Reds (8 IP, 11 runs), but he apparently learned well from that experience and was Cy Young reincarnated against the powerful Cincy lineup today; he merely shut out the Reds on 2 hits and 0 walks through 6.2 innings. Then in the 7th with 2 outs and nobody on base, Jeff Branson drew a walk and Benito Santiago finally solved the Springer riddle by finding the automatic HR on his card that had been there all day (along with about 100 other hit chances) just waiting to be discovered. The Reds added a pair of runs in the 9th off the St. Louis bullpen. Springer's astounding performance notwithstanding, the scrubs who really stole the show in this contest were the 2 Cincy pitchers who were acquired in a baffling deal with the White Sox much earlier in the season: Jason Bere matched Springer zero for zero on the scoreboard, and Brian Keyser got his first save by contributing 3 scoreless relief innings as he combined with Bere on a 6-hit shutout. Final score: 4-0. ===================================================================================================== Game 3: If the Reds offense struggled that massively against lousy starting pitchers, what chance did it have against a decent hurler such as Mark Leiter? Not much at all, as it turned out. Leiter stifled the Cincy attack by pitching a 3-hitter through 7 innings and some guy named Mathews followed up with his first save in the Cardinals 2-0 win. Kevin Jarvis pitched an outstanding game for the Reds and got only a capital L to show for it. The only run Jarvis permitted in 7 innings was a very low percentage split card gopher, the kind the Cincy hitters missed all series long. Yet another Barry Larkin error tacked on an undeserved run off reliever Andres Berumen. ===================================================================================================== Game 4: Another pickup from the salvage yard, Bud Black, was thrashed soundly by the Cincy batters but very little of that battering showed up on the scoreboard except in the rapidly-increasing LOB column. John Smiley had only a 3-0 lead in the 3rd, was gophered by Ron Gant to cut the margin to 3-1, and the Reds defense provided its daily unearned howler in the 5th (a 4-baser by Thomas Howard in LF) to make it 3-2. Dave Burba replaced Smiley at that point and survived Bret 2e5 Boone's 81st botched x-play of the year to maintain the narrow lead. Relievers Donne Wall and Andres Berumen likewise followed with scoreless outings and preserved what became a 6-2 win when a rally of singles and sac flies chased Black from the hill in the 6th. Berumen got the win, his 7th (!) and -- for a member of the Cincy Arson Squad whose season began with such comical ineptitude -- he finished up with a 3.68 ERA, Berumen's "low-water" mark of the campaign, to go along with a personal 5 game winning streak. Alan |
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