Yep. There can’t be much more demoralizing than losing two straight games to the Washington Nationals, both in extra innings, after scoring 3 runs in a combined 23 innings of baseball. Arroyo? 7 scoreless and the lone RBI for the night. Votto? Reached base 5 times. Everyone else? Royally sucked.
Not totally true. Many parts of the bullpen did very well. Ondrusek, Chapman, and Simon all contributed to stretching out the long, excruciating innings, where the Reds decided not to hit. Even Bill Bray, who came in for a single batter in the 9th and allowed a home run to tie the game isn’t totally to blame. It was a playable ball to Ryan Ludwick which he couldn’t get up to.
The offense sans Votto though, was just terrible. Stubbs sombrero’d himself, and even though Harris and Ludwick each had a double, only Votto had more than one hit through 13 innings. Dusty’s management was a bit confusing as well – putting Heisey in for Bruce, and having Cozart pinch hit in a double switch, for Willie Harris. That’s ok, but then Dusty had Cozart try to bunt the runner over, and that’s not really one of Coz’s skills. If Willie Harris can’t bunt a guy over to third, I’m running out of possible reasons to justify him being on the roster. Of course, it’s certainly not Dusty’s fault that most of the roster is ice cold right now, but he’s really not helping much. I mean, a manager has only so many opportunities to make any impact on the outcome of a ballgame, and when they come around, you kinda hope that he’ll make positive ones.
It did almost seem like terrible Monkey’s Paw get-what-you-wished-for story for Reds fans. Plenty of people have been angered by Dusty going to Alfredo Simon in the 10th in last night’s unfortunate 10th inning debacle. And to be fair, this is Simon’s pitch chart from last night.
Yeah, not super inspiring there. But tonight, Simon was, well, scoreless, if not exactly fantastic. Marshall, on the other hand, couldn’t hit the strike zone, loaded the bases, and left the Reds with yet another extra innings loss. To be fair, Marshall needs more work – he’s pitched in only three games, total – April 5, April 10, and tonight, which means that’s a lot of days of rest for a reliever.
