Several things came to an end today.. Kenny Rogers’ streak of winning after a loss (although it wasn’t his fault). Our perfect record in extra inning games this year, Francisco Cordero’s streak of no blown saves, Hank Blalock’s streak of starting the games at third, Brad Fullmer’s not having played the field.. there were more, but I’ve forgotten them as I sit here to write this. Our pitching staff is all over the place at he moment, but tonight’s game didn’t seem that poorly pitched to me.
Kenny went 6 innings, and gave up 2 runs on 6 hits with 5 k’s. We used six other pitchers for a combined 4.1 innings pitched, and those guys gave up 3 runs on 8 hits – not terribly good. In fact, we would have lost the game sooner, if we didn’t have to magnificent plays to toss out Reds players at the plate. Barajas had a busy night back there behind the dish – and it looked good.
Alfonso Soriano had a huge 3 run jack, followed up by a solo shot from Herb Perry. But that was all our scoring – and it all came in the fourth. Looking at the starting pitcher and the bullpen situation for the Reds, I expected us to score 17 runs, but they shut us down pretty good overall, except for the fourth.
And the way we lost in the end was really frustrating. Doug Brocail was the last pitcher on the mound for us, but I didn’t think that loss was Brocail’s fault. He did what he was supposed to do. Get a ground ball. I think Showalter overmanaged that – the ball was hit to where Soriano was going, but EY as an extra infielder ran right in front of Soriano and booted it. I really don’t think tonight’s loss was Brocail’s fault.
Having said that – I don’t know why we’re even messing with him. He’s a reclamation project, and we don’t need reclamation projects at this point in the team’s history. Brocail will probably be the next pitcher to go when it’s time to bring someone else up after today’s move of Bierbrodt and Juan Dominguez.