Toronto, 26/6/2008

I had managed not to see that the Reds were playing in Toronto this summer, but given that I'm not too far down the road, plus I've been meaning to go to Toronto anyway, I jumped at the chance to take a quick trip over there this week.  We departed Thursday morning and wandered the city until I dumped my companions and went to the game.  Then we left yesterday afternoon, back to Montreal in time for the weekend.

As I made my way from the ticket pickup window to the gate, I ran across several guys in Reds jerseys, one of who was wondering aloud if his 14 K signs would be enough to record all of Edinson's strikeouts.  We joked about this.  Ha, ha.

I know nobody here needs to be reminded of this, but this was kind of a depressing game.

First off, Corey Patterson was starting.

But at least he wasn't the leadoff batter.  Cherry Hudson Junior took that honour:

Not that he did too much with it or anything.  Edinson didn't look horrible initially.  He was hitting 94 or 95 on the stadium gun.

He didn't seem to be locating his pitches so well, though.  He held it together in the first, then made one big mistake in the second to give up the two-run HR.  But the third started with Scutaro doing his best to dive into a pitch.  Dusty argued a bit, and then things didn't get much better.

Soon enough, there are quite a few men on base and a conference at the mound.  Things aren't looking good.

Somehow he only gave up three runs on a HBP, two walks and two singles.  So I guess that's something.  And at least the Reds got a run back on a Dunn double in the top of the fourth.  He advanced on a wild pitch and scored on a BP sac fly.  The Reds wouldn't score again, though.

This was not a great line.

But Volquez had a decent bottom of the fourth, getting a flyout and two groundouts.  Two groundouts and a strikeout for the Reds, and then all hell broke loose.  After a double, another double, a wild pitch, a groundout, then another double, Dusty finally bothered to come out to the mound.

I still can't believe it: no strikeouts.

By the later innings, I was starting to get bored.  But I did noticed that the Blue Jays scoreboard puts up a maple leaf by the name of Canadian hitters.  Like, say, Joey Votto:

The only Blue Jay from Canadia is Matt Stairs, apparently.

Oh, and note that Patterson wasn't actually playing in center field.

He was in centre field.  Ha, ha.  Oh, and he grounded out and struck out.

But at least there was the frequent sight of Dunn at second.  Here he is after his second double.  Also, for those who were wondering, a metre is 3.28 feet, to three significant figures. 

So sure, he didn't hit that HR I called for him, but two doubles aren't so shabby.  Note that he was booed lustily every time he came to bat.  He showed them, or something.

Okay, so the game sucked.   But there were surprisingly many Reds fans there, and at least I got to see the CN tower all lit up afterwards, right?