Cincinnati Reds Press Clippings June 12, 2012
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Cincinnati Reds Press Clippings June 12, 2012 CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Dusty Baker incurs kneejerk wrath of Reds fans Doc: Failure of relievers dooms skipper on Sunday night By Paul Daugherty | 6/11/2012 6:28 PM ET No players make a manager look dumb more quickly than ineffective relief pitchers. In the 7th inning Sunday night, Dusty Baker walked a hole to Middle Earth between his dugout perch and the pitcher’s mound. Arredondo and Marshall and Ondrusek, oh my. Then in the 8th, Baker summoned Aroldis Chapman for what Baker hoped would be a six-out save. A six-out save is so against the orthodoxy, it belongs in a confessional. If the moves worked, we’d all be saying how smart Baker was. Way to run a ballgame, Pick. As it was, Jose Arredondo, Sean Marshall and Logan Ondrusek didn’t do their jobs, and Chapman couldn’t have found the plate with Garmin catching. Baker’s IQ dropped with every pitching change. The Reds kicked away a game they should have won. Fans blame Baker. Knee, meet jerk. There are things the manager does, and doesn’t do, that make some of us say Huh? He bats Ryan Hanigan eighth, when Hanigan should be batting second. He tortures Brandon Phillips by insisting on hitting him fourth. If DatDude is a cleanup hitter, I’m Prince Fielder. For the love of Dude, lead him off and give Todd Frazier a whack at cleanup. Or Ryan Ludwick. Because right now, Phillips is like a Shakespearean actor in an Adam Sandler movie. And can we puh-leeze find someone who can hit with friends on second and/or third base? Baker says this is a skill that can be taught. When is the summer session? We pick on Sunday night because it arrived with an October feel and it contained more second-guess moments than even veteran armchair managers have a right to expect. All revolved around pitching. Baker went by The Book on every one of them. He didn’t mess up. His pitchers did. He removed Homer Bailey after 112 pitches, with two outs in the 7th inning, a 6-2 lead and a runner on first. Baker wanted Bailey to leave on a high; he didn’t want him to face Miguel Cabrera, Detroit’s best hitter, after 112 tosses. Baker summoned Arredondo, who gets paid, essentially, to get right-handed hitters out in the 7th or 8th inning. Solid move. With a four-run cushion, Arredondo walked Cabrera. Baker replaced him with lefty Sean Marshall, to face the left-handed hitting Fielder. Marshall gets paid, essentially, to get left-handed hitters out in the 7th or 8th inning. Solid move. Marshall gave up an RBI single to Fielder, for the second night in a row. Digging that mole trail from dugout to mound, Baker replaced Marshall with Ondrusek, who escaped the 7th. Solid move, but he started the 8th by allowing a walk and a hit. With the potential tying run at the plate, Baker brought in his antidote. Chapman has been the pitching definition of savior. Plus, he’d have Monday off. And, he was accustomed to working two innings as a set-up man. Also, he’d been essentially unhittable for two months. There was that. Solid move. Chapman might have been fazed by the big-ness of the evening. He was overly geeked. His arm was leaving his body behind. Or so it seemed. Part of Chapman’s allure is his mystery. Remind me to get back to my Rosetta Stone lessons. Chapman gets paid, essentially, to get right-handed and left-handed hitters out in the late innings. He gave up a single, then hit a batter who couldn’t have base-hit him with Moses’ staff. Then, a double down the line in left, a walk and a wild pitch. Chapman looked like last June. This might be Baker’s problem. It’s not his fault. Good thing the manager had banked tens of IQ points over the previous weeks, with the most effective bullpen in the league doing what it’s paid to do. If Tony La Russa had done all that maneuvering Sunday night, we’d have praised his brilliance, or at least forgiven it. Baker’s theme song – one of them, anyway – is a Van Morrison tune called Why Must I Always Explain. He doesn’t like explaining. But he did the right things Sunday night. I don’t blame Baker for Arredondo, Marshall, Ondrusek or Chapman, same as I don’t credit him for using those guys when they deliver. It was textbook managing. The players messed it up. Maybe that’s why relief pitching has become so scripted. Blame assessment is that much easier. But that’s a topic for another day. Panic about Chapman stops at clubhouse door By Tom Groeschen | 6/11/2012 3:35 PM ET Aroldis Chapman had been so untouchable for so long. That is why some Reds fans are fretting today, with Chapman suddnenly having been scored upon in two consecutive appearances. The panic stops at the Reds’ clubhouse door, with the team figuring the law of baseball averages finally has caught up to the hard-throwing Chapman. Chapman was the loser in Sunday night’s 7-6 defeat against Detroit, as he allowed two earned runs in one inning. After beginning the year with 24 appearances and no earned runs, Chapman is 0-2 with a 13.50 ERA over his last two outings (two innings, three earned runs). “Sometimes that happens, I don’t care how good you are,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “He spoiled us by being so good, and he’s going to return to being great real soon.” Chapman is now 4-2 on the year, and his ERA has risen from 0.00 to 0.87 over his past two outings. Before that, Chapman had allowed only one run (unearned) all year. “He’s human, you know?” said Devin Mesoraco, the Reds’ catcher Sunday night. “He’s not a robot out there just striking everybody out.” With America watching via ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, Chapman was throwing his usual share of 100- mph fastballs and had one strikeout, but he also was erratic. The Tigers’ decisive run scored on a wild pitch, and Chapman also issued a walk and hit a batter. Chapman was not the only guilty bullpen party, as Jose Arredondo, Sean Marshall and Logan Ondrusek all put at least one runner aboard. But, everything that Cuban left-hander Chapman does is amplified. With a national TV audience having seen Sunday’s meltdown, and with the Reds being off Monday, the 24/7 social media world had a full day to pick things apart. The Reds are tied for first place in the NL Central, but that is immaterial to some. From Twitter: “Quit saying the Reds bullpen is OK because it’s not.” “Blame that on Dusty taking Homer (Bailey) out too soon and the bullpen just totally choked.” In other news, there were reports that Tigers closer Jose Valverde might have been throwing a spitball Sunday. That failed to resonate among certain bullpen critics. Tweet: “Was Jose Valverde throwing spitalls last night? Who cares. He didn’t give up four runs in 8th.” Baker said he has not noticed anything different about Chapman’s mechanics in his last two outings. Chapman has been throwing mostly fastballs lately, and Baker recently said he saw no reason to change that. “Why, because he gave up a run?” Baker said. Sunday, Baker also cited some events that worked against Chapman in the eighth inning. That included Chapman nicking Matt Young with a pitch and Austin Jackson hitting a chalk-spraying double down the left field line. “It’s a game of inches,” Baker said. “It was certainly true in that situation.” After Sunday’s game, Chapman left the clubhouse before reporters arrived. “He’s going to go through good times, bad times just like everybody else,” Mesoraco said. “I think for him, the key is just getting ahead and throwing good quality strikes early and then going from there. From here on out, hopefully he just can get strike one.” Reds Killers: Detroit Tigers By dclark | 6/12/2012 12:45 AM ET We took each team the Reds face in 2012 and examined which players on that team’s roster have owned the Reds (Reds Killers) during their careers and which players don’t historically seem to do so hot against the Reds (anti-Reds Killers). Here are the rest. Now: the Tigers. (UPDATED: 6/12/12) REDS KILLERS Octavio Dotel: 2.93 ERA with 72 strikeouts in 55 1/3 innings and just 44 hits allowed (1.066 WHIP) Jose Valverde: 2.66 ERA with 23 strikeouts in 23 2/3 innings Miguel Cabrera: .343 (36-for-105) with .905 OPS ANTI-REDS KILLERS Rick Porcello: 7.20 ERA, 2.200 WHIP in 5 innings Drew Smyly: 9.00 ERA in 3 innings UP-AND-COMING (small sample size but showing signs of potentially being a Reds Killer) Joaquin Benoit: 5 strikeouts in 2 1/3 scoreless innings Max Scherzer: 1.50 ERA, 0.833 WHIP with 9 strikeouts in 6 innings Gerald Laird: .321 (9-for-28) with 5 runs scored Brennan Boesch: .556 (5-for-9) with 1 double, 1 homer NOTES • In his first-ever appearance against the Reds on June 9, Justin Verlander allowed two earned runs on six hits, walking three and striking out nine in a no-decision.