Okay, so they actually clinched the NL Central title last Tuesday, but I’m slow getting around to writing this up. This is a good feeling that we Reds fans haven’t had in a while. After 15 long years, we are back in the playoffs. They didn’t finish off the year quite as strongly as I had hoped (they should have had home field in this round), but Jay Bruce is on fire right now, and the (presumptive) NL MVP Joey Votto has come out of his mini-slump. I was kind of surprised that it was Cueto rather than Wood in the starting rotation for this round, but with Wood and Bailey both pitching well here at the end of the year, I don’t think any of the starters (except perhaps Arroyo) will have a really long leash. If the good versions of Volquez and Cueto show up, this series against the Phils could really be a pitching duel. As much as their rotation scares me, we are actually 3-1 against them (Halladay, Coles, and Oswalt). Plus, the Browns and Buckeyes both won this weekend, so I’m loving life right now.
Category: Reds
Flight Log 2010-06-29, etc.
Tuesday was a very busy day, but one of the results was a successfully completed flight review. My hour of ground was actually kind of fun. Harold had a couple of quizzes for me that I did pretty well on and we reviewed some of the FAR/AIM that I haven’t looked at recently. Then we went out for some air work. Temp was 22°C, altimeter 30.03, wind at the surface was reported as 070@06, but was closer to a 90° crosswind as we got going and about 100 feet up it was probably closer to 20 knots. We did the GPS27 approach and circle to land on runway 9, then actually ended up spending most of the hour on crosswind landings (which is not a bad way to spend an hour). One thing I discovered is that I’m much more comfortable landing (or taking off) with a crosswind from the right than I am with one from the left, so it was good practice with this one coming from the left. Ended up with exactly the required 1.0 on the Hobbs, so I’ve jumped through that hoop for the FAA and I’m good for another two years.
Tuesday was also Erin’s 22nd birthday and my parents had called the previous week to say they were bringing my nephew up to visit Cincinnati, so we all went to see the Reds play at Great American Ballpark. It was a pretty good game, but not the outcome I would have preferred. Joey Votto hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game, but then Arthur Rhodes had his first bad outing really of the season and gave up 3 runs without retiring a batter in the top of the 10th, so the Reds lost to the Phillies (I suppose my baby sister was probably happy about that). Oh, well. So, all-in-all, a mostly enjoyable day. We did the traditional birthday meal at a (new) Japanese steakhouse on Wednesday instead and that was also nice.
On Wednesday, I finally (after 6 years) got my online logbook working the way I had envisioned it from the beginning, so it now pulls from the database dynamically rather than just showing static pages that I had to manually update everytime I updated the database. Unfortunately, I haven’t configured the widget at the left here to do so yet, maybe next year.
Trip #2 to GABP
Prior to this year, I hadn’t seen the Reds play in person since sometime before they moved into Great American Ballpark. That changed when Sherry and I went to see them for Fleece Blanket day in April when we got to see Johnny Cueto pitch. For that game, we sat in the outfield just to the foul side of the left field foul pole. Last night, on a whim, Sherry and I decided to attend today’s day game, so we went online and I got tickets in section 424 (seat map can be found here), the lower part (6 rows) of the upper deck directly behind home plate. It was raining all the way down to Cincinnati. When we got in the stadium we went to the Home Plate Grill for lunch and to wait out part of what ended up being a 1:45 minute rain delay. The game was scheduled to begin at 1:15PM, first pitch was 3:00PM. The batting order was
- Jerry Hairston, Jr – SS
- Jay Bruce – CF
- Ken Griffey, Jr – RF
- Brandon Phillips – 2B
- Adam Dunn – LF
- Jeff Keppinger – 3B
- Joey Votto – 1B
- Paul Bako – C
- Bronson Arroyo – P
In the bottom of the first with one out, Bruce doubled, then Griffey followed with HR #604 which gave him 5,001 total bases for his career (the 18th player in major league history to achieve that). The picture below is Griffey touching the plate, Bruce is waiting for him, Phillips and Dunn are by the on-deck circle. In the outfield, you can see the smoke coming from the stacks and they have just changed the 603 to 604.
Arroyo went 6 innings, Weathers, Burton, and Cordero each threw an inning and the final was Reds 3, Nationals 0. By the way, I think Arroyo was robbed when they ruled his triple was an error by the left fielder. It sprinkled a few times during the game and it was overcast the entire time, but it didn’t start really raining again until just after the game ended. By the time we got home, we had some blue sky here (though ceilings were probably below 2000′ the entire time until we got to Pickerington).
Cincinnati Reds Winter Caravan 2008
Well, it is 9°F/-13°C outside and I just got back from treating myself to an early birthday present. I didn’t decide for sure until last night that I was going to go, but since I had never been to a Winter Caravan and they were right here (well, in Dublin up by my old apartment) the night before my birthday… Marty Brennaman, Wayne Krivsky, Brandon Phillips (he got the biggest applause when they finally walked in), Lee May, and Matt Maloney were present, Tom Browning joins this group tomorrow. They were 10 minutes late arriving and the whole thing didn’t start until about 19:30 (it was scheduled from 19:00-21:00). When they did the Q&A, the very first question for Krivsky was “When are you going to lock up Brandon to a long-term contract?” Which, of course, caused the crowd to go nuts. His answer was, “Soon, I hope.” The next biggest applause were when Marty introduced BP saying he “got screwed out of the Gold Glove.” The team hasn’t exactly decided how they will honor Joe Nuxhall this year beyond having his name on the jersey sleeve, but Junior had a great idea that I hope they will follow through on. It would be black jersey’s with the players names and Joe’s number for opening day, then auction them off on reds.com after the game with all the money going to Joe’s foundation. That would be pretty cool. Once the autograph session got started, I actually got a few minutes to talk to Marty because Krivsky was being interviewed by some TV guys. We talked about Joe and the Big Red Machine. I didn’t say much to Krivsky and I had to wait for Brandon to finish his TV interview and the line was long so I didn’t get to talk to him much either. It was kind of cool meeting Lee May, but he was gone before I started following the Reds. I talked to Maloney for a while since he was getting ignored at the end of the line. He’s looking forward to the opportunity to compete for a spot in the rotation next month. Only 23 days until pitchers and catchers have to report. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but I forgot my camera, so these were taken with my cell phone.
Marty
Brandon Phillips
Matt Maloney