Reds defeat Brewers in a near perfect night at the ballpark


Let me tell you a story about last night. On the way to the ballgame to my buddy I predicted two things. I said that we were going to see Jay Bruce hit his first home run while I’ve been present at a game, and that the Reds were going to win behind an effort by Micah Owings that would be decent enough to get the starter the win and keep him solidified in the rotation.

That picture above is Bruce right before he took Braden Loopen into the right field bullpen to give the Reds a 1-0 lead. This was a great night at the ballpark and it happened to be the 500th regular season game played at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. We also saw something that you don’t see very often, Willy Taveras hit a solo home run.

Got to see Ryan Braun play. The guy is a professional hitter who was luckily not on his game. He didn’t go hitless but he didn’t hurt the Reds with anything huge. Anytime you get into the ballpark and you get to see a guy from the opposing team that is truly worth paying money to watch him hit, it’s a plus. Ryan Braun is one of those guys.

We’ve always really liked Prince Fielder. He had a good ballgame. Fielder had 3 base hits, one of which was a double and 2 RBI. Once again, a guy who is worth paying good money to watch him play and one of the rising young superstars in all of baseball despite his slow start. He’s still right around .300 and hasn’t really gotten hot yet. Glad to see him leave town before he goes off completely. Still it was a nice 2 game series for Prince.

Here’s one of the better stories of the year so far early on for the Reds. Laynce Nix started the game in left field. Everything this guy has hit lately and thus far has been hard. He only had one hit show up in the box score, but he’s giving the Reds really good at bats. He’s already got 7 doubles, which he collected in this game. He also had two deep flyouts, one of which scored a run on a sac fly. This is a guy who should probably be given a chance to hold down the left field job every day with the way the Reds have struggled offensively.

Just a beautiful night as shown here in a shot of the Sun Deck/Moon Deck in right field. The temperature was comfortable and cool and it was a relaxing 9 innings in which the Reds never trailed. This was a game they needed with the Cardinals coming into town and getting embarrassed the night before. The Reds delivered on this night.

When we showed up at the ballpark our buddy was a little upset that Joey Votto was out of the lineup (as well as Brandon Phillips). Turns out after the game we found out both players had been hit with the flu bug. The Reds ran out their skeleton crew last night and somehow pulled off a victory (although we like Bruce in the 3-hole quite a bit). Anytime you can get a win when you run out a starting lineup like this it’s a major plus.

And here is video of Jay Bruce finishing up his home run trot on home run #8, the first he’s ever hit while we’ve been at the ballpark.