MVPCS '05 - Game #1

It was a cool night on my Playstation at the Great American Ballpark, as Teebee gave me home field advantage to kick off our best-of-7 series between my Cincinnati Reds and his San Diego Padres. Going into the series, things aren't exactly looking great for the Reds, being as I think we've played 6 or 7 games this year and I've only been victorious in one of them - but we have been pretty close all along the way.

We're playing with Geekrosters sliders, Version W(as in "Whatever the hell version he's on"), Pro level, all zones fading and 9 inning games. To shine light on the rosters for clarification's sake, I still have Danny Graves as my CP and D'Ángelo Jiménez at 2B.

Game #1:

Starting Pitchers: Eric Milton, CIN vs. Jake Peavy, SD
Lineup Notes: Geoff Blum started at 3B for SD, Freel started at 2B for CIN

*It was apparent that the Padres were on to Eric Milton from the start. After a trouble-free 1st inning, the Padres came out and put up 2 runs in the 2nd and another 2 runs in the 3rd by putting on an absolute hitting display, thus hanging a huge deficit on a struggling Cincinnati offense. 1B Phil Nevin got things going for the Pads by belting a low and inside Milton fastball over the right field fence for a 2-run HR, and SS Khalil Greene duplicated his efforts in the 3rd by roping a high fastball over the left field wall.

Peavy was brilliant, keeping my offense off balance and getting mostly weakly hit balls for outs - hell, he didn't surrender a hit until the 5th inning. Finally in the 6th, pinch-hitter Jacob Cruz led off with a single before Ken Griffey Jr. was able to score him from 2nd on a line drive single to right. The bats were beginning to wake up, and in the bottom of the eighth 1B Sean Casey was able to turn on one of the 95 mph fastballs that had baffled Reds hitters all day for a 2-run HR to bring the score back to a respectable 4-3.

My pitchers managed to settle down after about the 4th inning, managing to hold the Padres to only 2 hits thru the middle innings. However in the top of the 9th Khalil Greene was able to get on base against RP Ryan Wagner and subsequently stole second, and then later scored on a single by Blum to put up a 2-run cushion for closer Trevor Hoffman to save. The Reds did put up 2 hits in the bottom of the 9th, however foolishly got SS Felipe Lopez thrown out trying to steal 2nd base on a designed hit & run. The possibility to tie it up with one swing of the bat was lingering in the air, however Hoffman got pinch-hitter Wily Mo Pena to pop up to end the game by reaching for his devastating change-up.

Batting:
CIN - Freel 2-4, R; Griffey 1-4, RBI; Casey 1-4, R, 2 RBI; Kearns 0-4; Randa 0-4; López 2-4; LaRue 2-4; Milton 0-1; Cruz 1-1, R; Jiménez 0-1; Pena 0-1

SD - Roberts 0-5; Loretta 1-5; Klesko 0-4; Giles 2-4, R; Nevin 2-4, 2 R, 2 RBI; Hernandez 1-4; Greene 3-4, 2 R, 2 RBI; Blum 1-3, RBI; Peavy 1-3; Nady 1-1; Sweeney 0-1

2B: CIN - none; SD - Giles, Nevin, Greene
HR: CIN - Casey (1); SD - Nevin (1), Greene (1)
RBI: CIN - Griffey (1), Casey (2); SD - Nevin (2), Greene (2), Blum (1)
SB: CIN - none; SD - Greene (1)
CS: CIN - Lopez; SD - none
E: CIN - none; SD - Greene

Pitching:
CIN - Milton (L, 0-1): 6 IP, 10 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 5 K, 1 HR; Mercker: 1 IP, 0 H/R; Wagner: 2 IP, 2 H, R, ER, 2 K, 1 HR

SD - Peavy (W, 1-0): 7.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 K, 1 HR; Otsuka: .2 IP, 0 H/R; Hoffman (S, 1): 1 IP, 2 H

San Diego leads series 1-0