The Little Red Machine

If you grew up in the 70s and followed baseball (and let’s assume I did), then you remember the Big Red Machine. The Cincinnati Reds in a seven year span from 1970-1976, won five division titles and two world championships. They chewed up the competition and spit them out, averaging 98 wins per season over that span. Their roster was stacked with future hall-of-famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez. And everyone around them in the lineup received hall-of-fame consideration as well, including all-time hit leader and part time gambler Pete Rose, Ken Griffey Sr., George Foster, and Dave Concepcion. Their pitching wasn’t as dominant, but they did have the great Don Gullett. And they were led by one of the best of all time, manager Sparky Anderson.

Since the 70s, the Reds have been up and down, but mostly down. During the last several years however, things are starting to stir again. Walt Jocketty moved from the Cardinals front office to Cincinnati, and they are built around good young starting pitching. This year, the Little Red Machine has a rotation anchored around veterans Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang, but the young guns behind them are even better. Johnny Cueto and rookie Mike Leake have a combined record of 7-1 with an ERA of 3.27. And their best pitching prospect hasn’t even hit the big leagues yet. Phenom Aroldis Chapman has 48 strikeouts in 40 innings for Triple-A Louisville. He’s likely to crack the Reds rotation later this year.

The Reds are a trendy pick to make a run at the Cardinals this season in the NL Central, and so far, they have been up to the challenge. Going into their 2 game series this week in Atlanta, they had won 4 in a row, and 9 of their last 10. They had wrestled first place from the Cardinals. And they were leading the world in come-from-behind victories, having won 10 games in their final at-bat.

Then came the series against the Braves. The Reds stormed from behind, as usual, in Wednesday’s first game, to tie the score 4-4 in the top of the ninth inning. But they lost it in the bottom of the ninth when the Braves own Rookie-of-the-Year candidate Jason Heyward doubled in the winning run with two outs. But that didn’t deter the Reds in Thursday’s game from storming out to an 8-0 lead in the second inning. They took a comfortable 9-3 lead into the ninth inning against the Braves. But . . . you know where this is going right? As a Cardinals fan, I wouldn’t be writing about this if it didn’t have a happy ending. Yep, you guessed it. The Braves scored 7 runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, capped by a walk-off grand slam home run by Brooks Conrad (who??) to win the game 10-9.

That just breaks my heart to see the Reds lose two straight games in the bottom of the ninth. And it pains me even further to report that because of that mini losing streak, the Cardinals are back on top in the NL Central. Thank you Atlanta!

The Cardinals take on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim tonight. It’s Bob Gibson statue night at Busch Stadium, and I’ll be in the front row of the left field bleachers. Well, tonight’s gonna be a good night! Tonight’s gonna be a good, good ni-yiy-yite!