Chris Heisey’s been doing a decent job of convincing me that last year’s power wasn’t a fluke since he was promoted-ish to starter. (Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr)
It’s always easy to overstate the importance of any one game in the season, so I guess that’s what I’ll do. Though the Reds still have a solid handle on the Central division, no team wants to be seen faltering in September, and that’s really what both the Reds and the Pirates have been doing for the last few days. Winning doesn’t earn us much credit, but losing looks even worse. Luckily, we won. Yay!
It wasnt super late, but it was a really, really long one.
The game didn’t start particularly well for our Redlegs. Mat Latos gave it a valiant effort, and in the end put up a quality start: 6 innings, 3 earned runs. He again had a little control problem, with four walks in the outing, but all the damage came in a 3-run fourth inning. The Reds were able to answer with one run in the bottom of the fourth on a Chris Heisey solo homer. It wasn’t until the seventh, though, that the Reds managed to tie the game, on a Navarro double.
But in two more innings, while the bullpen did an excellent job of holding the Pirates to the same score, the offense couldn’t manage the lead, and we went into extras. I know no one really actually gets excited about free baseball, but given how the last couple games have gone, I REALLY just wanted to win and have done with it.
Too dang bad, said the Reds. There was tons of crap in extras. Lots of letting runners on base and not letting them score, and lots of getting on base and then not scoring. Suffice to say, there were bullpen heroes and villains, and a whole lotta offensive futility. Finally, FINALLY, Ryan Ludwick played the hero by hitting a single with RISP in the bottom of the 14th.
This game was brought to us by expanded rosters, as ridiculous number of players took the field at some point tonight. By my quick count, over 50, altogether. So that’s one for the argument that the expanded rosters just hurt some teams come September.
