The Chiz Kid!

Oh man, oh man, oh man!! I was at the game tonight y'all! I saw all of those 19 runs! I cheered for all of those 13 hits! How lucky am I?!

I was supposed to be at batting practice today and got there in time but it was cancelled due to rain. Bullocks. The good news is that we get to come to a different game and will get free tix. We had nowhere to go but The Winking Lizard, where I drowned my sorrows in 1lb of ground beef. And a salad.

Back at the ballpark by 6 PM where we got to participate in "Photo Day." They have 2 players standing in for photographs with 400 of the first-come-first-serve fans. Our choices today were Tomlin and Cunningham. No offense to Aaron Cunningham but the obvious choice was Tomlin. He is not a tall man. That is to say, he is regular-sized but I guess maybe short for a pitcher. Maybe like 5'10" (stats say 6'1". No.) He was very very cordial. He shook my hand and I introduced myself. I think my friends did too. Then we moved along and paid $20 for a copy of the photo. I thought maybe it'd be free. We were told while in line that it was $5, actually. The young lady who told us this did say she was wrong, as she took my $20. We were slightly perturbed but since there were 4 of us, $5 each wasn't too bad. We're going to do it again.

I had brought along some baseball cards and pens for autographs, and went down to left field to try to get some, but nothing doing. It didn't help that the tarp was on the field until 15 mins before the game. I'll try next time.

By 7:05 the sun was out and the air was dry(er than it had been previously).  Being that we had some law firm's swanky seats, you betcha someone had dried them off for us. I got myself a Diet Doctor Pepper in a souvenir cup. They're doing a new thing now - $6 for one, $8 for one plus one refill, $10 for one plus two refills. That's a savings of $4 on one refill or $8 on two. Not bad! No way I could (should) finish two huge pops on a Monday night but the cups are good all season. So I'll be bringing my cup back for sure!

Derek Lowe was the starter. If you aren't familiar with his shit with Reds' manager Dusty Baker, here's some info. As far as I know there was no problem tonight. I do know nobody got hit by any pitches today even though the same two guys were pitching. They gave up 19 hits between them in just 5 innings so really they probably didn't want to put any guys on base on purpose. Anyway, Lowe wasn't at his best today. He gave up 7 earned runs in 5 innings. But since it was tied up when he left, it didn't seem that bad, yaknow?

We got treated to Smith in the 6th and 7th, who held them to just 1 run. He got 2 outs in the 7th, thanks to Kotchman's unassisted double play. Then he gave up a homer (Progressive Field is just a home run paradise lately) and Manny took him out after 1 2/3 innings for Pestano to come take care of the rest. Vinnie got out of it and then had a 1-2-3 8th, because he is in fact The Man.

VinneP52 - look who just sprinted in!

I feel so lucky cuz I got to see Pestano and Perez tonight. It's a treat to watch them pitch because of the huge energy they bring but also because when they come in you know it's over. Perez had a 2-run lead and you know he was going to give one up and he did. He started off strong but of course Brandon Phillips had to have the last word and he got on, then scored on a single from Bruce. But Perez took care of the next guy who struck out looking. Ballgame!

Crank it, Jerry!

So like I said we had 13 hits tonight and FINALLY we had a bunch of guys with a multi-hit game. Choo knocked the second pitch of the game from Latos out of the park, matching up Votto's homer in the first. He also got an RBI double, going 2 for 5 on the night.

Touch-em-all time for Choo!

Tonight was Asdrubal bobblehead night - they did include the compression sleeve but they left out the huge forearm tattoo - and I wore my custom-made Asdrubal t-shirt (they didn't make Asdrubal t-shirts in 2008!) but nothing brought him luck. He went 0 for 3 with a walk and a run. Oh well - we did really need that run today.

In the hole? Anything? No?

Kipnis was silenced today, which of course is weird. You don't expect the JK Kid to go hitless in a game with 10 runs and 13 hits for the good guys but there it is. He did turn 2 double plays, though!

Lopez was the DH again tonight. Better than nothing, I say. He was wearing a little thin until he got a hit in the 7th. Unfortunately he didn't get any runs or RBI.

Santana was looking more like himself today. He got a key 2 hits. Multi-hit Santana = win!! Those 2 hits turned in to 2 runs. You see how important it is to get on base, 'Los? I think he gets it.

Cousin Michael's back on to a 2-game hitting streak. He went 2 for 3 tonight, both hits being doubles. He had 1 RBI and scored 2 runs. Plus he looked good in the field...well, anyone looks good next to Damon...

Stretch it out Michael and Chiz. You've got a lot of left field to cover.

Johnny Damon...oh my God you guys, I almost cried. Seriously. He is so bad in the field. Just comically bad today. I felt bad for snubbing Cunningham in the Photo Day line because by the 3rd inning I was ready to vote for him for Mayor Of Left Field. Damon did get a hit, a RBI and a run but I am pretty sure he had a hand in about 7 Reds runs scoring. Please, can we be done with this Damon shit now?? Seeing him come to the plate is like seeing the goddamn pitcher come up. There's no room for that in Cleveland.

The other part of the bottom of the order was rockin' tonight, thank Og. Casey Kotchman not only had the aforementioned unassisted double play (easy peasy for the Kotch) but he also banged a 2-run homer in the 4th! I totally called it. It was 5-4 and there was 1 on for us and I was like "You know, he can hit homers. He had 14 in 2011. He needs 7 by the break, just 2 more." BANG! YES I DID!!! You're welcome!! He also got another RBI on a well-placed groundout. Because that's the kind of standup guy Casey Kotchman is!

The big news for the night was Lonnie Chisenhall who went 3 for 4 and was about 2 feet away from going for the cycle. He got the homer and the triple and a single, and in the 8th tried to get that double but didn't. Of course we gave him a standing ovation anyway! He ended up going 3 for 4 with 3 RBI and 2 runs. AWESOME!! This is the guy we went nuts for at his debut. Is he back?? Let's hope!

The beginning of Lonnie's big night!

There were just under 20,000 fans tonight, which I think was pretty good for a night that started with rain. Now, it seemed that about 10,000 of those fans were Cincy fans (indeed half of the fans by me were) but whatever. Money in "our" pockets either way. The guys next to us were trying to be rowdy but were ultimately nice. It didn't hurt that we won!

Some dickhead got thrown out for throwing something on the field in the 6th. I don't know what it was, but it came from waaaay up in the top of the upper deck. A cop went up there and people were quick to point the finger at whoever it was. Ha!

At one point a fan got smoked by a foul ball, and it turned out to be scary. It's scary when they call an usher down. Even scarier when an usher starts waving a yellow card and all the players go wide-eyed. Yikes...I just listened to it on the radio archive and they went off the air for a second while they tended to the fan - that was creepy! But not long after the second cop arrived but even before the EMTs arrived, fans around the injured fan started clapping to let us know she was all right. Whew.

Someone in front of us got hit by a ball when she reached out to catch it. It was an older lady. An older guy down her row slinked over to ask if she was all right, not before picking up the damn ball and quickly giving it to his wife to stow safely in her purse. Jesus, people! That was seriously uncool. The rowdy from Cincy (Kentucky) that was sitting next to us (his name was Lonnie, by the way) bought the lady a margarita. She never did get a ball.

Lots of crazy stuff in the game tonight for sure. All of it exciting and doubly so since we won!

Oh yeah and KSU won tonight too! They eliminated #1 Florida!!!! They're in the top 6 now and they'll be taking on South Carolina Wednesday at 8 PM. People at Progressive Field were pretty excited about this too!

I managed to get some stuff from the radio tonight, just for yous. Tim Belcher was in the booth and he had a lot to say about this game, being that both starting pitchers got smacked around. I didn't listen to 100% of the game but I got some good stuff. I've got to sleep!

Tomorrow is more Reds, Tomlin versus Leake. Pretty even...will our bats show up again?? That'd be fun. See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Serves him right that he gave up the game-tying run to Choo, because he started the game with an 80-mile-an-hour curveball."
- Tim Belcher

"He looks like someone stole his dinner or something. He is mad!"
- Jim Rosenhaus on Mat Latos's Media Guide photo

"Progressive Field doing its best Great American Ballpark impression."
- Jim Rosenhaus on the number of homers

"...they craft the memos about proper press box decorum. But Kent State got a huge strikeout with the bases loaded and only one out, and that's an addendum to cheering in the press box where you get a waiver."
- Jim Rosenhaus on upper management cheering in the press box

"Does this look like a tennis match or what?"
- Tim Belcher on the scoring

"Are you sure? It seems like the 15th!"
- Tim Belcher in the 5th

"Count me as one who doesn't like a good-old-fashioned-slugfest."
- Tim Belcher

"That's why you don't make plans for after the game. You never know what kind of game it's going to be."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"A wild one here at Progressive Field."
- Jim Rosenhaus in the 8th. My friend predicted this would be used to describe tonight's game.