Good Lord, save the Reds and the good people of Cincinnati from the Castellinis.
Welcome to Day 2 of the Tour of Despair. Four ballparks. Five days. Bad baseball. Lots of coffee.
All along Joe Nuxhall Way outside Great American Ball Park was dog crap: mushed, smeared, tracked dog crap. If that isn’t a metaphor for Cincinnati Reds baseball, I’m not sure what is.
Great American Ball Park is underrated. Despite what most of the interwebs tells you, Skyline Chili is good.
Reds baseball is bad. And when serial underachievers like the Philadelphia Phillies come to town, don’t expect a stellar pitchers’ duel in a band box of a stadium. Expect the worst, because that’s what we got. And the Reds won! Not that anyone really could walk away feeling good about what we saw.
Nick Lodolo looked like Eppa Rixey. Ranger Suarez looked like Steve Carlton. Lodolo has a super-high upside; in fact, Phillies hitters notwithstanding, Lodolo locked in early, working in and out of trouble and at a crisp pace until about midway through the Phillies lineup the second time around. When he started to think out there on the bump and call off Austin Romine, he started to struggle. The Phillies obliged him from then on by going 1-2-3 in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Lodolo looked better with men on base than he did with empty sacks. Go figure.
Suarez, who decidedly does not have the upside Lodolo possesses, was made to look far better than he actually is by a lineup that was missing Joey Votto, Mike Moustakas, Nick Senzel and Tyler Stephenson.
The Reds farted away scoring opportunities with men on first and second with two out in the second, a man on second (by way of fielder’s choice and balk) with two out in the third, a man on second with no out in the fifth and a man on with no out in the eighth…I thought I was watching the Brewers on acid.
Alas, Seranthony Dominguez did what the Phillies bullpen does and the Reds walked it off after Alexis Diaz continued to cosplay as his brother, which was the only thing that got a scant, generously-counted 13,000-plus fans energized.
Also, no deep drive to left Wednesday. It was disappointing to say the least.
Also, without comment:
It’s not what you think it is. It really should be what you think it should be.
Great American Ball Park is extremely underrated. The structure reminds me of Target Field, maximizing its downtown footprint by going up with the grandstands rather than out. The layout and concourses remind me of Petco, partially open air, but with clear, fantastic sightlines from 360* around the park. With a dangerous club and a devoted fanbase, GABP could be readily imagined as an intense place to visit with October stakes on the line.
Instead, we’re here in August with no stakes, a team built to tank, another tank handsomely paid to play little brother to the Mets and Braves.
Kids crashed around the Reds dugout, hoping for autographs that did not come. The pro shop was a ghost town with overpriced tchotchkes and plenty of Luis Castillo and Nick Castellanos shirseys on clearance (that aren’t going anywhere.) Joey Votto is done for the season. My friend and I were yelled at by stadium staff when we were walking around after the game and whisked out the outfield gates. Do you not want people to soak in what they can from the gameday experience?
Bad baseball, good hot dogs (the hot link I had was really, really good), solid farmer tan sunburn. I loved every moment of it.
And yes, the dog crap was still there on the sidewalk as we made our way back to the car.
#SelltheTeamBob.