It’s the Dawn of a New Era in Redsland Perhaps – and It’s Wasted by Aroldis Chapman

Jay Bruce hit about 900 feet worth of home runs on FOX Saturday Night.

Jay Bruce hit about 900 feet worth of home runs on FOX Saturday Night.

[Box Score]

Yeah, that’s kind of what this is reminiscent of. I should be watching 61* or Baseball by Ken Burns to celebrate this one. This should have been a celebration of the Reds biggest win of the season. This should have been the crowning post of the best week of baseball of Jay Bruce’s life.

Instead it’s going to be a little bit about Aroldis Chapman, and how he entered that bottom of the 9th in Arizona with hollow, empty eyes and no soul and plucked one from the win column and inserted it directly in the loss column for a Reds team that is fighting for a shot at the game’s Pantheon this season. And I’m listening to the drunks of Dayton and Kentucky call into 700 WLW declaring war on the bullpen and they’re 12 Budweisers deep on their porch and talking about bathing in Dusty Baker’s blood.

But lets talk about Jay Bruce’s game a little bit. I can’t believe what kind of run this guy is on. It’s truly something you don’t see in a lifetime watching baseball (Bruce’s last seven hits have all been home runs).

The first came off of Patrick Corbin, who is about as nasty right now as any lefty in the National league. It was the longest home run of Jay Bruce’s career, 473 feet. It was a Nintendo game shot. Let’s put it here for all to see.

Listen to the way the Arizona crowd bellows (don’t confuse it with a roar) when the shot caroms off the scoreboard in dead center.

That was the only scoring in the game for a while, and then Gerardo Parra snuck one out off Mike Leake to put the DBacks up 2-1 until the bottom of the 9th. I knew what was going to happen.

The second was what I feel like was a turning point in Bruce’s whole career. He knows when he hits this home run off Heath Bell in the top of the 9th that he’s better than the game right now. What he’s doing he probably fully doesn’t understand. It’s a kind of locked in that most guys don’t ever achieve even once in a career. As I’ve said many times before, there’s no book to get him out right now, and everything he hits is going to be out of the park.

He gets all of this one, and destroys Heath Bell in the process. It was as exciting of a Saturday night baseball moment as you can ask for. It got ‘Jay Bruce’ trending worldwide on twitter. Here’s the 460 foot shot:

But as the Reds did the last time Bruce came close to this hot, they squandered it. It was that magical May of 2011. He hit 12 home runs and was MLB Player of the Month that May. The Reds went 14-14 that month.

It was a moment I’ll never forget last night in Bruce’s career. But it should have been even sweeter. This is a run you don’t ever forget. Eight home runs in nine games, and he’s hit 10 since June 3rd. Jay Bruce was born to rake, we just never knew it was going to be to this extent.