Game 13: Pirates 9, Reds 1

The Reds concluded a disastrous weekend series Sunday, losing the finale 9-1 to the Pirates.

The loss earned the Pirates their first home sweep of the Reds in four years, and put the Reds back under the .500 mark on the year at 6-7. The story Sunday was similar to the first two games of the series: still, again and again the Reds squandered chances with men on base. Four times in the series Edwin Encarnacion made the final out in innings with the bases loaded. There is talk from John Fay that he may be headed to Louisville if he doesn’t right the ship soon. How much truth there is to that assertion, I’m not sure. It’s not clear whether Fay heard the news from somebody or if it’s guesswork.

Simply put, this team struggles against even mediocre lefties. First Paul Maholm and company shut them out Friday, and today Tom Gorzelanny went 6 1/3 and allowed a run. The Reds left nine men on base today bringing the series total to 32.

Let that number sink in for a minute. Thirty-two men left on base in three games. What a frustrating series this was. Today Dusty tried to generate some offense by playing his righthanded lineup, which consists of putting Keppinger at first, playing Castro at short, and Freel and Hopper both getting starts in the outfield. Dunn sat to try to clear his head before the Chicago series. My assertion from earlier that he looked like he was getting it together really looked silly the first two games of the series. He’s still scuffling.

The RLOB issue, though, eventually will probably clear itself up. The Reds have some good hitters and are capable of scoring, one bad weekend in Pittsburgh doesn’t change that. The issue of performance against lefthanded pitchers, though, is a problem of roster construction and constitution.

All the power bats in the lineup are lefties who can’t hit lefties, with the exception of Phillips. This is echoing what Marty Brenneman said on the broadcast, but he’s right: this offensive team had issues all season in 2007 with hitting lefties, so what made them think bringing back the same cast of characters would magically solve the problem? It’s true that you’re more likely to face righthanded pitching than lefthanded, but they need some righthanded power off the bench if this “righthanded lineup” is ever going to have a legitimate shot at winning a game. Marty seems to think Jolbert Cabrera will be the savior; anyone saying that is kidding themselves, but he is hitting in Louisville and has to bring more to the table than Juan Castro at this point, and he’s righthanded with a little pop.

The final score may give the impression this game was a blowout; it was close into the sixth. Johnny Cueto was again very good through five. The first run came on a second inning solo shot by Ryan Doumit. They added another in the third when Luis Rivas doubled, scoring Nate McLouth (who had a great series, by the way, he was an absolute pest the entire weekend). Norris Hopper horribly misjudged the ball and had he gotten the right break on it he may have caught it.

Cincinnati blew chances to score in the first (first and second, none out; first and third, one out) and the sixth (bases loaded, two out) before Pittsburgh blew it open against Cueto in the bottom of the sixth. A Ryan Doumit sac fly made it 3-0 plating McLouth then Xavier Nady crushed a curve breaking right into the hitting zone to make it 5-0. The Reds got their lone run in the top of the seventh on a Ryan Freel RBI single. They had two on with one out but neither pinch hitter Corey Patterson nor Ken Griffey Jr. could convert for more runs off new Bucs hurler Franquelis Osoria. Todd Coffey relieved and gave up four in the bottom of the seventh. It should have been none; Brandon Phillips dropped a certain double play ball allowing one run to score, and Jason Bay crushed a three-run homer to left to make it the 9-1 final margin.

The Reds came into the series having played really well against some very good teams in Arizona, the Phillies and the Brewers, but all that momentum feels like it was a very long time ago. It would be one thing if they had been scoring runs and losing, or just being shut down by ace-quality pitchers, but having chance after chance and just not being able to push runs across is just frustrating to watch. The Bucs are just a tough matchup for them with so many lefthanded pitchers. At this point, this is what the team is: they’re going to struggle against lefties.

Luckily in Chicago only one lefty is scheduled to face the Reds. Tuesday Ryan Dempster is scheduled to face Aaron Harang in the series opener. Josh Fogg is being pushed back to Wednesday to keep Harang on the same schedule and not giving him an extra days of rest. Wednesday Fogg will face Carlos Zambrano (how’s that for a mismatch) and the series finale Thursday pits Cubs lefty Ted Lilly against Edinson Volquez. Chicago seems to be a place where the Reds generally play pretty well, unlike Pittsburgh, so hopefully they can get things right, push across some runs and get back in the win column.

First pitch Tuesday is 8:05 Eastern, 5:05 here in paradise. Peace.