National League Division Series weekend round-up
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo is 35 years of age, doesn’t throw beyond 90 mph and before yesterday had never pitched more than six innings in a post-season encounter.
But against the Giants at AT&T Park last night, Arroyo changed one of those stats. He didn’t age of course, and the home team made sure of that with very little in the way of offensive production, and he didn’t throw harder than 90 – in fact he threw in the 70’s at certain points in the game – but he did throw seven innings of one-hit ball, that minor dot on the radar being a Brandon Belt single to centre in the fifth in what was a successful outing and one that led to a 2-0 Reds lead in this best-of-five NLDS.
Cincinnati now heads back to Great American Ballpark where they will look to finish off the NL West champion Giants, and so far it has been plain sailing for a team that didn’t win a game in the play-offs last season.
The Reds were thankful after winning game one, only because they would have been relieved to get that first one out of the way. For a team with so much promise, nothing would have been worse than falling short at the first hurdle again. Yesterday Arroyo’s dominance was helped by a batting lineup that scored nine runs, and when the Reds are in control it is easy to enjoy that leg-kick that emanates from the mound with such fluency and whip.
The Reds starter is from a different mould, especially when we have all been talking about the powerful and dominant performances of Justin Verlander, C.C. Sabathia and Stephen Strasburg throughout the year.
It’s a safe bet to go with the Reds now because they have three attempts at home to win just one game against a San Francisco team that haven’t come to the party yet. Interestingly, for game three Giants manager Bruce Bochy has gone with Ryan Vogelsong instead of Tim Lincecum, who despite a difficult year is a two-time Cy Young Award winner and was the ace of the staff during the 2010 championship year.
The Reds’ nine runs had no effect on Lincecum, who pitched two innings of scoreless relief yesterday, a fact that will come back to bite Bochy if his decision doesn’t pay off in game three.
On the other side of the National League round, Washington took game one against the Cardinals in St. Louis with a score of 3-2, winning it in the eighth thanks to a Tyler Moore RBI single.
The Nationals 69-year-old manager Davey Johnson is a man of old school virtues and unless he is obliged to do so, will not bunt or steal a base for risk of losing an out. Washington had only 50 sacrifice hits this season, the second fewest in the National League. But when the game was on the line in the eighth inning yesterday, Johnson did the unthinkable.
With men on first and third and nobody out, Johnson gave the sign to batter Danny Espinosa to lay down a bunt. His second baseman duly obliged and sent the man on first into scoring position. It wasn’t a squeeze play but now the tying and go-ahead runs were in scoring position.
Johnson then looked on to watch Kurt Suzuki strike out, and suddenly with two outs the Nationals hadn’t plated either runner. Johnson made yet another decision to bring in pinch-hitting righty Tyler Moore after Cardinals manager Mike Matheny had brought in lefty specialist Marc Rzepczynski.
The name is a mouthful but that made no difference to Moore who hit the fifth pitch he saw down the right field line to score two and help the Nationals to their first win in the post-season since 1933, thanks mostly to Johnson, who made his first bunt call since about the same year too.
