Rus Livingood
July 20, 2013 – Pirates @ Reds – 7:10pm – LIVE at Great American Ballpark
Reds Record (54 – 42)
Home Record (31 – 16)
Pirates Record (56 – 38)
Away Record (24 – 20)
Starters: Burnett (4 – 6) vs. Latos (8 – 3)
The Setting: My dad and I are going on our first father/son road trip to watch the Reds by ourselves. We have gone to games before with other people, but not as adults and not by ourselves. We’ve been looking forward to this for the last several weeks since we picked a date and bought the tickets. This column is going to be different than my previous entries, as I am going to provide a lot more detail to the goings on around us throughout the trip. This should be a very long column, so reader beware.
The Game/Road Trip and Analysis:
•The trip didn’t start off very well. I was frustrated that I could not get our car seat to install properly in my parents’ 2003 Envoy via the LATCH system. It just came up short of having enough slack to allow the second hook to snap in. I was wanting to take my Chevy Cruze, as it gets 39 – 42mpg on road trips such as these, and is ultra easy to find a parking spot for. My wife told me that we could go ahead in the Cruze, and she would vacuum the dog hair out of our Jeep so she could put the car seat in it. Folks, never get a dog with a shedding problem if you ever planning on taking it to the vet in your vehicle. So we get about 15 minutes into our trip, and my wife calls. She was having trouble reaching the plug for the Shop-Vac that I plugged in for her before I left, so she decided to just pull on the cord real hard. It flew out and hit her on the eyebrow, opening a gash. We turned around and hit the mid-80s as we raced back. Even though my mom was there, I figured they would need help to get the car seat installed because someone would have to watch the baby and someone would have to tend to their bleeding. When we got back, I saw that my wife had installed the seat by herself and the gash wasn’t as bad as she had made me believe on the phone. She was going to a child’s birthday party later, and that child’s mother just happened to be a doctor friend of ours. I told her to just have her see if it needed a stitch or if we could just close the wound. With that, we were off for the second time!
•We had a great trip up the AA Highway, telling stories, talking about life, and enjoying a guy’s day out. We stopped for a cooler tote bag and some sunscreen, waters and peanuts, because I had forgotten the cooler bag at home with all of the frustration surrounding the car seat installation. We parked at Newport on the Levee across from Cincinnati in Kentucky. Parking is only $3 there, and that is where we planned to eat anyway. Remember the tidbit about finding easy places to park in the Cruze? Well, it is a compact car, and there just happens to be a lot of designated parking for those in the Newport parking garage. We pulled right into a spot and walked up the steps to the Levee, a dining and entertainment complex right on the river. My dad is a seafood buff, and we wanted try out Mitchell’s Fish Market. We grabbed some raw oysters as an appetizer, and I had a Lobster Roll BLT while he had the Shang Hai Seafood Sampler. We thought both were great and we helped wash down the meal with a Breckenridge Lucky U IPA.
•From there, all we had to do was walk over to the bridge, go up five flights of stairs (or was it 38?), walk across the ½ mile bridge (or was it 14 miles?), and then walk over to the rear stadium entrance. When we got into the stadium, we were pleasantly surprised to find that our outfield seats were under the overhang of the upper deck, meaning there was no need for the sunscreen we bought, nor did we have to worry about the looming thunderstorm and rain. We caught the tail end of batting practice for the Pirates and saw a guy nearly get tattooed by a home run ball as he was not looking. He picked the ball up and celebrated with all of his friends when they came back, as if he had caught the ball. He almost caught it all right.
•I have never seen Mat Latos pitch in person, and I was thoroughly impressed with his pre-game throwing routine. As he progressed into long toss, I was telling my dad that pitchers will routinely get stretched out and improve their arm strength and speed by throwing around 200 feet or more. What Latos did was above and beyond that, though. He kept going back further and further as he threw to Corky Miller. By the end of his long toss session, Latos was standing behind the foul line where the rolled up infield tarp stays on the first base line. He was throwing from there to the left-centerfield gap where Corky was on the warning track. On multiple throws, Latos would send it over Corky’s outstretched glove and hit the wall. He nearly threw it in the stands from the stands on the other side of the field. That was just amazing!
•Starling Marte tried a bunt to start the game, but Jack Hannahan made a nice barehanded grab and throw for the out. Latos gave up a walk to Jose Tabata, and then a single to Andrew McCutcheon. Latos then struck out Pedro Alavarez and got Russell Martin to line out to centerfield to escape the jam.
•When Shin-Soo Choo came up to bat to lead off the bottom of the first, the umpire called a delay due to the lightning and the impending storm. The wind was blowing so bad there were 10 – 12 foot tall walls of dirt/clay moving from the outfield wall toward home plate down the rightfield line. The Reds have Kroger K’s in the upper deck to track strikeouts, and one of those was flying around the stadium, zipping wildly through the air and changing directions as the circular winds changed. Peanut shells and popcorn was flying up through the stands. It was a wild storm brewing. The grounds crew acted quickly and was rolling out the tarp. As they went to put it in place, the wind had gotten under the tarp and it was flailing upwards from the middle. Several crew members were dragged through the infield dirt by the tarp, and then the pipe that the tarp is rolled up on was blown toward them by the wind and it rolled over a couple of people. Apparently, that thing doesn’t weigh as much as it appears. When the rain came, it came hard. My dad and I were fine just sitting in our seats with a roof over our heads, drinking water and eating peanuts. The rain delay would last for about an hour and a half by the time they got back around to Choo’s at bat.
•When the game resumed, the Reds came out swinging! They sent nine batters to the plate:
1. Choo doubled to the gap in left.
2. Chris Heisey bunted Choo over to third, and A.J. Burnett hesitated while looking to see if he could get Choo, allowing Heisey to beat the throw at first.
3. Joey Votto grounded hard to second base and the ball went under the glove of the fielder, allowing Choo to score (1 – 0) and Heisey to advance to third.
4. Brandon Phillips singled to right field scoring Heisey (2 – 0) and sending Votto to second. Still no outs.
5. Jay Bruce struck out swinging.
6. Jack Hannahan was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
7. Zack Cozart flew out to the warning track in centerfield, scoring Votto (3 – 0) and allowing Phillips to go to third.
8. Devin Mesoraco blooped a ball toward the line in right, good enough for a double that scored Phillips (4 – 0) and move Hannahan to third.
9. Latos struck out swinging.
•Garret Jones homered to lead off the second inning for the Pirates, bringing the score to 4 – 1. With one out, Clint Barmes struck out swinging, but reached base as it was a wild pitch. Burnett hit a sacrifice bunt to move him to second, and then Marte drew a two out walk. Tabata grounded to Cozart at short, but the throw to first was errant, allowing Barmes to score and put Marte on third. Latos struck out mcCutcheon to end the inning. The Pirates did nothing that inning after the home run, but scored a run due to the Reds giving them extra chances.
•The Pirates gave Latos trouble in the third as well. With two outs, Latos walked Jones. Jody Mercer then blasted a ball to right-centerfield, and the ball bounced intot he stands for a ground rule double. It was a blessing for the Reds, as Jones had to stay put at third, and he had nearly crossed the plate when the ball went into the stands. Latos would walk Barmes intentionally to get to Burnett, who he struck out. Latos was laboring early in the game.
•Burnett settled down after the rough first inning and was dealing. He struck out the side in the bottom of the third, getting Phillips, Bruce, and Hannahan to all go down swinging. It was the fourth straight strikeout for Burnett.
•The Pirates inched back closer to the Reds on a solo homer by McCutcheon in the fourth. The ball was one section to my left, about five to seven rows deep in the left-centerfield gap. The score was now 4 – 3.
•Cozart doubled to lead off the Reds’ half of the fourth, and moved to third on a Mesoraco groundout. The Reds had a runner on third with only one out, but were unable to score as Latos struck out and Choo grounded out to second.
•The Reds would also threaten in the fifth as well, as they got one out singles from Votto and Phillips. Bruce grounded out to put them both in scoring position with two outs, but Hannahan grounded out to strand two more Reds runner.
•Latos would leave after the fifth inning, having thrown 99 pitches and giving up tw earned runs on four hits and four walks. It was a rough start for him, but he did have a near two-hour layoff between pitches due to the rain delay and the huge first inning for the Reds offense. J.J. Hoover came in to relieve Latos, and racked up a couple of strikeouts in the sixth as part of a 1-2-3 inning. The other out in that inning was an amzing leaping catch by Cozart as he snared a liner from Barmes. Cozart reacted quickly and leaped high into the air to snag the hard shot, possibly saving extra bases if Choo would not have been able to cut it off.
•Cozart led off the bottom of the sixth for the Reds, and singled on a liner up the middle. After Mesoraco lined out to short, pinch-hitter Cesar Izturis singled to rightfield to put two runners on. Choo struck out for the second out of the inning, and Heisey walked to load the bases. Votto drew a walk to force in a run and make it 5 – 3 Reds. Phillips struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning.
•There was a very pivotal play in the seventh inning that cost the Pirates dearly. With one out, McCutcheon lined a ball over the head of Phillips at second and it rolled all the way to the gap, McCutcheon cane fly, and he was easily on his way to third. He got his toe caught in the dirt, though, and fell on his stomach while in a full sprint. On instinct, he hopped back up and went back toward second base. Had he proceeded to third, I think he would have made it safely. Instead, the Reds got him in a rundown and tagged him out for the second out of the inning. The Pirates would walk away with nothing to show for their seventh inning.
•They would pick up a run in the eighth, though, getting several runners on base with two outs. Alfredo Simon induced groundouts to Martin and Jones to start the inning, then gave up a single to Mercer. Travis Snider came on as a pinch-hitter, and doubled to the wall in left field. Mercer would come around to score, and the Pirates were within one run (5 – 4). It would get worrisome for the Reds from there. Pinch-hitter Gaby Sanchez walked, and Marte was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Logan Ondrusek was brought in to face Tabata, and he got him to ground out softly to second base to get out of a major jam.
•Aroldis Chapman was brought in for the save attempt. McCutcheon hit an infield single to Hannahan at third base to start the inning, and it would get wild from there. Chapman threw the ball away while trying to throw over to first to hold McCutcheon on, and he easily scampered over to second. Chapman began throwing some serious gas at this point. On a 102mph fastball, Alvarez grounded to short and Cozart let the ball bounce off his glove and couldn’t throw to first in time. There were runners on the corners and no outs. Things were not looking good. Chapman hit triple digits on three straight pitches to Martin, getting him to pop up to Phillips at second. The steady diest of hard fastballs continued from there as Chapman struck out pinch-hitter Michael McKenry and Mercer to end the game and earn his 23rd save of the season. The stadium was erupting with applause at every pitch, as Chapman was hitting 101 consistently. His final pitch of the game registered at 102. Unbelievable performance!
•I also must mention that our seats were good (not a bad seat in the house in my opinion), but the couple of rows in front of us had kids that were up and down with seemingly every batter. It got annoying. The fans behind us were not annoying, but I found their knowledge of the Reds. . .let’s say intriguing. One man told his buddy that Hannahan was a great hitter, but he performed much better for the Reds last year. He went on to talk about how he was our best hitter off the bench and came up with key pinch-hits all year long. He said he was a great pickup from Cleveland. The only problem with that? Hannahan came over in the offseason this year, so he didn’t have a single at bat for the Reds last year.
•The best was when Choo came to the plate in the bottom of the eighth. The man’s wife asked who was batting. He told her it was Votto. She yelled encouragement at “Joey” for the entire at bat, and then lamented to “Joey” that it was okay when he grounded out. She was then confused when the next batter came up, so she asked him, “Well who is that?” He told her it was Brandon Phillips (It was not). She asked him why he had white arms if that was Brandon Phillips (Because it was Chris Heisey). The man told her he must be wearing white compression sleeves for some reason (What about his face and neck?). After Heisey popped out, the man second-guessed himself that this white man was probably not Brandon Phillips. He proudly announced that he was wrong, and that was Zack Cozart (It was not!), because the previous batter was actually Jack Hannahan (It was not!). There were more instances than this throughout the game, but I found it quite humorous.
•The trip home was significant only for the fact that the road I needed to take from Newport was closed with no stated detour. I had to take the north ramp instead of the south ramp, which meant heading into Cincinnati. I drove out of my way to avoid the expected traffic from the game, but at least I knew the route I was taking. We went about 25 minutes out of our way, but we were not lost and we got home safe and sound. The entire trip was about 14 hours total, and I loved every minute of it.
What Worked: The Reds shot out of the gate with that four run first inning, and gave them enough room to fend off the comeback by the Pirates. The Reds came up with several key hits and had many good at bats to put the pressure on the Pirates pitchers. Ondrusek and Chapman really came through in tough situations to help nail this game down. For the Pirates, McCutcheon was a beast in this game.
What Didn’t Work: The defense nearly cost the Reds the game, giving up a run in the second inning and putting the Reds in a bad spot in the ninth. For the Pirates, McCutcheon stumbling on his surefire triple turned out to be very costly.
Where They Stand: The Reds are 55 – 42 and trail the Cardinals by 4.0 games and the Pirates by 2.0 games in the NL Central.
Overall Thoughts: I really enjoyed that experience. I liked spending time with dad watching that great pastime that fathers and sons have enjoyed together for decades. The fact that the Reds won and it ended on a high note made it that much better. I hope to make this an annual deal for us, or at least more often. This was a great, memorable day.
Up Next: The Reds hope to bring out the brooms and sweep the Pirates in the final game of the series tomorrow.
