ST Game 3: Twins 1, Reds 14
By
Amanda
Posted at 10:57 pm
About this time the Reds are making me feel a mite stupid for wondering where the offense was going to come from this season. Sure, spring training doesn't matter, blah, blah, blah, but they won over the Twins 1-14.
Aaron Harang led the change and worked his two innings adequately, allowing one run on five hits. If Jeff Brantley is to be believed, he was pounding his fastball all afternoon.
Speaking of Jeff Brantley, I didn't like him. I'm sure he's a heckuva guy, but something about his style just rubbed me the wrong way. I found myself wanting to disagree with everything he said just out of spite. I'll try to keep that under control, but if you notice that I've started going off on rants just to be contrary to Brantley, feel free to call me on it, and I'll feel free to glare at you and go grumble in the corner for a while.
Bobby Livingston and Victor Santos each allowed a hit in their scoreless pair of innings apiece. Kerry Ligtenberg, apparently pronounced “LITE-en-berg” despite not having an H, didn't even yield a hit in his two innings. Brian “Love” Shackelford walked a batter in the scoreless eighth.
And if you thought it took a long time to run down the pitchers, the RBI are even more prodigious!
First, the home runs: Scott Hatteberg and Brandon Phillips each contributed one. Mark Bellhorn, David Ross, Chris Denorfia, Paul Janish, Jeff Keppinger, Dewayne Wise, and Joey Votto also knocked in runs. Beyond that, it's all a blur. You can read an inning-by-inning account on C. Trent's blog, where he also takes some time to admire a particular lady in the stands. It's like the male version of RHM!
The win brings the Reds' spring training record to 3-0. Tomorrow the Reds will go up against the Pirates in Bradenton at 1:05 p.m. I thought they said Homer Bailey would be taking the mound, but that might be later in the week.
I said it earlier, but yeah, Brantley is annoying me already.
It’s weird, because, yeah, it’s Spring Training, but their play is really helping the good feeling I have about this team.
Both Arroyo and Bailey are starting for the Reds today. There’s two games. The Reds and the Pirates agreed to play an extra one. Arroyo starts the “B” game at 10am, Bailey starts the “A” game at 1pm.
Narron joked that Arroyo, not known as a morning person, jumped at the chance to start, because he thought it was a 10pm start. 😀
I will unfortunately be at work this morning. I hope to catch at least the end of the second game.
Brantley doesn’t bother me, but I can see how he might rub you the wrong way. He is opinionated and sort of has a country accent, not that there’s anything wrong with that… but I certainly agreed with his points about Dunn. bases loaded and two straight fastballs called for a strike… Big Donkey doesn’t offer at either pitch and strikes out? WTF? Jacoby has a lot of work to do with the big guy. I also agree with Brantley that when you play your games at GABP you want guys that make consistent contact because any ball that is hit has a legitimate shot at extra bases. Look how contact guys Hatteberg and Randa faired at GABP — best years of their careers pretty much, although Hatteberg admittedly only played half a season, but his numbers were very good by his standards. Dunn just leaves an awful lot on the table. I understand he gets pitched around a lot so its easy to start taking pitches and draw your walk in those cases, but when a guy pipes you a fastball you have to be ready to pull the trigger when the bases are juiced. When you are caught looking like that it means you are thinking a lot and looking for specific pitches and like rantley exclaimed, what are you looking for a Breaking Ball in that situation? Terrible.
As for C Trent’s account of the game… it was funny to a point but then it just got a little bit creepy. It would help a lot if he gets a new picture on his blog. The one he has now it looks like he just crapped his pants. I mean this in a nice way. Before you start stalking women via your blog entries and making the world aware you are available at least have a nice pic up there… he admits the picture is terrible, so DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT SON, otherwise hold back on the flirtatious posts.
So as usual I got a lot of criticism for just about everyone, but all in all how can you be upset after yesterday’s ridiculous boxscore?
I wasn’t sure if Trent was a little bit drunk or just bored out of his gourd by the one-sided game. Not his usual style yesterday, that’s for sure.
Well, I got a reprieve today. Got to the office…to find the computer network down. And it being Sunday, the not-so-crack technical staff was nowhere to be found. The boss sent us home. I’ll be sorry when I get my paycheck, minus the OT pay, but right now, I’m not too broken up about it. 😉
Sadly, it looks like Gameday won’t be covering the early game. IIRC, former Yankee Shawn Chacon is starting for the Bucs. I’ve always been fond of Obi-Shawn, and I’d hoped to see (or at least hear) how he’s doing. (We called him Obi-Shawn because he had amazing luck with balls in play. For some reason, the fielders always seemed to come through for him. Jedi mind tricks!)
The country accent part doesn’t bother me; if I had a problem with that, I wouldn’t get along with half of my family. 😀