Bailey is back and Bruce is still here
By HAL McCOY The first pitch Homer Bailey threw in a major league game in a year-and-a-half Sunday afternoon in Petco Park was ripped into left field for a single by San Diego’s Travis Jankowski and all over Redsland there was a big, “Oh, oh.” Before the game ended, though, it was the San Diego […]
One pitch ruins a great night for the Reds
By HAL McCOY It is uncanny, almost surreal, that it happens time after time after time. Almost like clockwork. And it happened again Saturday night in San Diego’s Petco Park — and this one cost the Cincinnati Reds a crushing defeat. For the 20th time this season, a Reds relief pitcher came into a game […]
Reds success: ‘Pitching, Pitching, Pitching’
By HAL McCOY When Jim Bowden was general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he had a sign hanging on the wall behind his desk that read in large block letters, “Pitching, Pitching, Pitching.” Anybody who doesn’t believe the importance of pitching in baseball need only check what the Reds did before the All-Star break and […]
Straily, Bruce shut down reeling Giants
By HAL McCOY The marquee pitcher for the San Francisco-Cincinnati baseball game Wednesday afternoon in AT&T Park was Madison Bumgarner, the Giants practically peerless left hander. And he was as good as advertise — eight innings, one earned run. But not good enough. Cincinnati Reds starter Dan Staily was better in a genuine pitcher’s battle […]
Long balls don’t save Reed and the Reds
By HAL McCOY The Cincinnati Reds staged their own version of Home Run Derby Tuesday night in San Francisco’s AT&T Park — two by Adam Duvall, one by Joey Votto and one by Jay Bruce, his fifth home run in the last four games. It wasn’t enough. They lost by two runs, 9-7, to the […]
Bruce puts on power show for the Giants
By HAL McCOY The heaviest rumor involving Jay Bruce is that he is most coveted by the San Francisco Giants, a team scouring the baseball world for a power-hitting, left handed outfielder. If that’s true, then what happened in AT&T Park Monday night probably caused the Giants to offer the Golden Gate Bridge to the […]
Was Bruce’s home run his farewell swing?
By HAL McCOY Jay Bruce may have partaken of his last at bat in a Cincinnati Reds uniform in Great American Ball Park on a scorching Sunday afternoon against the Arizona Diamondbacks. If it was, Bruce left with an exclamation point — a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth off Diamondbacks closer […]
Sampson stands up during stand-in assignment
By HAL McCOY CINCINNATI — John Travolta is in Cincinnati filming a movie and spent Saturday night at Great American Ball Park. Was it a prelude to a remake of his movie ‘Saturday Night Fever?’ It was Saturday night and it was feverishly hot, but it wasn’t a memorable night for baseball. A movie in […]
Hamilton: Happy to be ‘The Leading Man’ again
By HAL McCOY CINCINNATI — Billy Hamilton walked down a hallway toward the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse Friday afternoon and checked the multi-colored lineup board hanging on the wall, as he always does. Then he stopped. Then he looked again. Then he did a double take. “I saw my name and I wondered, ‘Is this a […]