The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game
Billy Hamilton terrorized his way into a 3 for 4 evening at the plate, and while he was only credited with being caught stealing once and taking no bases against the will of the Giants, he havoc'd his way into making San Francisco's defenders play like the ball was a hot coal fresh out of the fire. Hamilton is now sporting an OBP of .302 (which just so happens to be higher than the .296 OBP sported by Brandon Phillips*), and his .658 OPS is higher than Jay Bruce's .653 mark.
Remember how awesome we thought Brayan Pena was through the first part of the season? NERTS is still as smiley as any Cincinnati Reds player in recent memory, but his .307 OBP is a bunted Billy single and a strikeout of his own away from being lower than the guy many called "overmatched" a single breath into the season.
Honorable Mentions are due to: Sam LeCure, who took the Giants for a Cornelius ride in his perfect inning of relief; Manny Parra, who looked good for the first time in a while in his clean inning; and Todd Frazier, for wanger honking his 11th dinger of the season.
*He better call me skinny if he sees this and gets pissy.
- The Reds put chalk on the scoreboard first in this one courtesy of Frazier's dinger in the Bottom of the 3rd. The Reds 3B looped a liner that banged off the foul pole in LF on a pitch that initially seemed to fool him, but Todd got just enough on it to clear the short porch. Phillips and Bruce then followed with back to back doubles, the latter scoring BP, and the Reds had themselves some business. Reds led, 2-0.
- Tony Cingrani mowed through the first 5 innings, but as he is wont to do, things unfortunately fell apart in a hurried mess in the Top of the 6th. With 2 out and nobody one, Mike Morse launched a solo dinger to shave the lead to one, Brandon Hicks singled, and some dude who came into the night 1 for 21 on the season promptly mashed a dinger that took the lead away, the wind out of the sails, and sent Cingrani to some dark spaghetti purgatory. Reds trailed, 3-2.
- The Reds offense proceeded to provide a big brown paper bag full of nothing for the rest of the game, and Sergio Romo worked a quick, perfect Bottom of the 9th to lock up the victory. Reds lose, 3-2.
Source: FanGraphs
- Frazier entered tonight's game hitting .304/.369/.630 with 8 dingers blasted in GABP. His lean-with-it rock-with-it from the 3rd inning will augment those. By the way, he's hit just .243/.328/.369 in away games in 2014 with just a pair of dingers to his name.
- Mat Latos pitched for the Louisville Bats in his third Triple-A rehab start tonight. He threw 67 pitches through 5 innings, struck out three, walked one, and allowed a pair of earned runs (and he hit a double), but he was removed from the game prematurely with what has initially been called a calf cramp. Or something. There's been no official word as to how this will impact his potential return to the Reds in five days.
- On a somber note, baseball lifer Don Zimmer passed away tonight at age 83. Zimmer spent significant time with the Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, among many others. Zimmer was born in Cincinnati in 1931, attended Western Hills High School, and was a member of the Reds for 63 games in 1962. If you were to ask anyone in baseball about Zimmer, you'd be had pressed to find someone who would have a negative thing to say about the man. By all accounts, he was exactly the kind of knowledgeable presence every team hopes they had. Rest in peace.
- Marty Brennaman dislikes watching Jay Bruce precisely as much as I dislike hearing Marty Brennaman. Those two weighted Hates Created (wHC+) are tied for the league lead, mere percentage points ahead of Cy Schourek's hate of Comic Sans and P-Doc's hate of everything that ever made any sense ever.
- Remember when Joey Votto walked all the time and caught shit for it? The Reds just struck out 12 times and walked just a-once. Man, I miss that MVP.
- The MLB draft starts tomorrow night at 7 PM EST, and we'll be covering it all afternoon and evening here at Red Draftporter. Turn on, tune in, and drop your pants.
- Wu Wednesday tunes.