3.26 Night Reds vs. Twins

The Reds played a rare night game at Ed Smith Stadium on Thursday against the Ft. Myers-based Minnesota Twins. The Reds won 6-4. You are allowed to stand along the perimeter of the inside bowl of the stadium, one deep. I decided to watch most of the game from right behind home plate.

Twins Notes

The Twins' starting pitcher was Nick Blackburn, who pitched pretty well. He is not overpowering, but was spotting his pitches well against the Reds on Thursday. He gave up two earned runs and three hits in four innings.


The other pitcher of note for the Twins was shut-down closer Joe Nathan. He came on to pitch a 1-2-3 6th inning, with two strikeouts.



Reds Notes

Jerry Hairston Jr. is still showing signs of rust at the plate, although he has looked very smooth in the field at SS taking over for the injured Alex Gonzalez. He muscled a pitch into left field for a 2-run single in this game.

Chris Dickerson made another great play in the field, gunning down a runner at the plate that was trying to score on a base hit. The throw arrived on a line drive all the way to the catcher and beat the runner by a couple of steps. Wish I had a picture of it.

Willy Taveras struck out, walked (!) and had a single, but was caught stealing.

Micah Owings started as pitcher for the Reds and did not look sharp. He somehow managed to only give up one run despite surrendering six hits and five walks in four innings. He is a tremendous athlete, though. Not only is he a good hitter - doubling down the left field line in his only AB - but he is a very fast runner. He could pinch hit and pinch run for the Reds this year.


The Reds bullpen, with the exception of Closer Fancisco Cordero, was excellent again. Mike Lincoln, David Weathers, Pedro Viola and Josh Roenicke all finished their assignments without giving up a run.

Special mention ought to be made of Daniel Ray Herrera, a LHP who not only hasn't given up a run this spring, but he's only let one runner on base out of 22 that he has faced. He has 8 strikeouts in 7.1 innings.



Jay Bruce hitting.



Catcher Ramon Hernandez hit his first home run as a member of the Reds.



Jeff Keppinger, who's frustrations at the plate continued, hit three virtually identical ground balls between the shortstop and second base, one of which snuck through on 6-hops for a single.