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Clevelands
Lonnie Chisenhall hits an RBI-single off Cincinnati pitcher Sam LeCure
in the sixth inning in Cleveland Monday. a baseball game, Johnny Damon
scored on the hit and the Indians won 10-9, snapping a six game winning
streak the Reds had going.
Cincinnati Reds...
Reds
streak snapped at six
CLEVELAND -- Progressive Field could have been mistaken for the bandbox
feel of Great American Ball Park on Monday night. But no matter the
facility, leads proved too disposable for the Reds.
There
were three of them, all of them blown by starter Mat Latos in the early
innings, before the Indians emerged with a 10-9 victory and snapped the
Reds’ season-high-tying six-game win streak. Latos took some
responsibility for the outcome, but not all. He implied that Cleveland
engaged in some sign-stealing.
“I was a little up in the zone,” said Latos, who gave up
seven runs over four innings. “I thought I made some good pitches that
they spit on with a runner on second base. I suppose it was kind of
ironic. We changed up the signs, for the last hitter unfortunately. The
outcome changed when we changed up the signs today.”
Of the eight hits Latos allowed, seven went for extra
bases, including three home runs. He blew leads of 1-0, 3-1 and 5-4 in
his short outing. But it was a two-run Indians sixth inning off of
reliever Sam LeCure that snapped a 7-7 tie and gave Cleveland the lead
for good. When it was over, the two teams combined for 27 hits.
There were two outs in the top of the first inning against
Indians starter Derek Lowe when Joey Votto gave the Reds a 1-0 lead
with a homer that barely cleared the right-field wall. Latos promptly
surrendered a leadoff homer by Shin-Soo Choo in the Cleveland first.
“You could tell the way that game started that it would
end up 10-9,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “I was just hoping it was
in our favor. It was a big offensive night for both clubs.”
In his first game back from a five-week stay on the
disabled list, Scott Rolen’s RBI single to right field and catcher Ryan
Hanigan’s RBI single put Cincinnati ahead by a 3-1 score in the second
inning. The Indians responded with a three-run bottom of the second,
including a two-out, two-run homer to right field by the No. 9 hitter,
Lonnie Chisenhall.
Latos threw an 0-2 fastball that missed its spot and
drifted back over the plate. As Chisenhall circled the bases, Latos
took a long walk behind the mound nearly to second base to collect
himself. He was fuming as he walked off of the field and yelling into
his glove.
The Reds were up by a 5-4 score after the third, when Latos struggled again with two outs in the bottom of the fourth.
“You’re hoping he could get it together and go deeper in
the game and you don’t have to bring everybody from the bullpen,” Baker
said.
With a runner on second base, Casey Kotchman crushed a 1-0
pitch for a two-run homer to center field, and Chisenhall followed with
a triple to the right-field corner and scored on a Choo double to the
left-field wall for a 7-5 Indians lead.
“I’m going to go back and look at video,” Latos said. “A
couple of [times with] runners on second base, they put better swings
on the ball than they did most of the time without a runner on second
base. Choo hit that double, and then [Asdrubal] Cabrera was up. Me and
Hanigan changed the signs up. He called for a slider. We were going
with a certain call. That certain call we were going with beforehand
was a curveball. I threw a slider, and he was looking breaking ball and
was jammed on a slider.
“That, to me, shows me a little something. Other than
that, I was up in the zone. I made a couple of bad mistakes, and they
hit them.”
Latos and Lowe matched up in the two teams’ intense
meeting on Wednesday in Cincinnati -- a start Latos won in a strong
seven-inning performance, during which he buzzed Lowe with a fastball
on orders from Baker, which ignited a much-publicized verbal spat
between the Reds manager and Indians starter. It’s a feud that
allegedly dates back to Lowe’s final season with the Dodgers in 2008,
and one that was brushed aside in Monday’s opener.
Unaware of Latos’ comments afterward, Indians manager Manny Acta felt like his team took advantage of mistakes.
“He’s got good stuff. But today, every time he left a
fastball out over the plate, or a breaking ball, our guys put a good
swing on it,” Acta said.
Lowe also gave up seven runs, with 11 hits, over five
innings. It was a wacky play in the fifth that cost him his lead. After
Votto led off with a double, Brandon Phillips followed with a liner
down the left-field line. Johnny Damon gave chase but stumbled into the
wall as the ball rolled between his legs. It enabled Phillips to round
the bases and score with a headfirst slide just ahead of a throw to the
plate. Ruled an RBI double and an error on Damon, the miscue made it a
7-7 game.
“It would’ve been interesting if both managers left us in
there to have us both go nine innings to see what this game would’ve
turned out to be,” Lowe said.
The go-ahead run scored in the Indians’ sixth against
LeCure on Kotchman’s groundout to second base. Chisenhall’s RBI single
to center field made it a two-run game. A Michael Brantley sacrifice
fly in the seventh off of J.J. Hoover proved important as Jay Bruce
kept Cincinnati close with a solo homer in the seventh and a two-out
RBI single in the ninth against closer Chris Perez.
“Both teams were swinging the bat well,” said Phillips,
who was 3-for-5. “They just outhit us. I know there were a lot of
entertained fans seeing everybody hitting the ball well.”
Read this and other articles at the Cincinnati Reds
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