Bruce and Cueto lead Reds to series win over Pirates

For a long time before it happened, we had the premonition that the Reds would hang a loss on Jeff Karstens and that Jay Bruce would hit a home run off of him. It’s just one of those weird feelings you get every once in a blue moon. One of those feelings that if you’ve ever had it in being a longtime follower of sports, you know it’s going to happen and you have no doubts about it. It’s not a game where you feel like your team or a team is going to go out in win. You are absolutely sure of it in every way. If you’re honest with yourself and others it actually doesn’t happen too often in sports. We actually had the same feeling a few years ago when the Cincinnati Bengals (not our favorite NFL team) ended up beating the Kansas City Chiefs for the first time in what was looking like an unbeaten season for them. We could have bet our life on it.

We were correct in our feeling. Jay Bruce homered to right field to put the Reds out in front 1-0 and Johnny Cueto continued to pitch his way to the top. We thought Cueto would be an All-Star on this staff and he’s looking like that could be another correct prediction for us. He went 8 shutout innings, striking out 9 hitters.

Ramon Hernandez actually hit the ball on the nose all day long, doubling twice; and driving in 3 runners with his 2nd of the day that broke the game wide open. The Reds took 2 of 3 in the series to gain another road series victory.