News
Eight unearned runs lead to Astros' loss
Three errors contribute to rainy defeat at hands of Reds
By Alyson Footer / MLB.com
05/25/09 7:50 PM ET
CINCINNATI -- Eight runs. All unearned. And that was the story of the Houston Astros on Monday at Great American Ball Park.Wandy Rodriguez and Alberto Arias -- not to mention fantasy baseball players from coast to coast -- had to be mildly pleased that not a single run scored by the Reds was charged to anyone's earned run average. But that didn't change the fact that the Reds took advantage of every one of the Astros' three errors, and as a result, the home team won, 8-5 on a rainy Memorial Day afternoon in Cincinnati.
"Our defense was pretty much the culprit today," manager Cecil Cooper said. "We didn't catch the ball, didn't make plays. We had an opportunity to bail Wandy out and we didn't bail him out early, and then late didn't get a chance to bail [Arias] out and didn't do it there. You can't gift runs to other people and expect to win."
It all began in the first frame. Willy Taveras' ground ball toward short briefly popped out of Miguel Tejada's glove before he threw to first, and initially, Taveras was credited with a hit. A couple of innings and six runs later, the hit was changed to an error on Tejada. That would not be Tejada's last miscue that cost the team.
"The ball came up and I dropped it a little bit," Tejada said. "I bobbled it a little bit and it is my fault."
Following Taveras' overturned hit, almost every Reds hitter jumped into the fray to log five hits, a walk and five runs in the opening frame. That list included pitcher Aaron Harang, who drove in a run with a base hit to center.
Needless to say, the inning wasn't entirely Tejada's fault. Rodriguez, who entered the game with a 1.83 ERA over his first nine games, was clearly having his problems as well.
"Not sharp," Cooper said of his hurler. "Not crisp, and not sharp. I'm still trying to figure out why he didn't throw many breaking balls. You've got to use the pitches you have, and that's his money pitch, his curveball. And he didn't use it. That's kind of mysterious to me."
"I tried to throw my breaking ball, but I threw hangers a couple times. I didn't throw good ones," Rodriguez said. "So I went to the fastball and changeup after that, but I missed a lot. Bad day."
Rodriguez said he was not rattled by Tejada's inning-opening error.
"I'm thinking of making good pitches," he said. "I'm not thinking that someone made an error. I'm concentrating on the next guy and making a good pitch, getting a ground ball for an out."
The sixth unearned run arrived in the fourth inning, when Humberto Quintero's pickoff attempt to first base kicked off Jerry Hairston's foot and sailed into the photo booth near the Reds dugout. Hairston later jogged home on a base hit by Jonny Gomes.
Keeping up with the overall theme of Astros road trips this year, the game was a soggy one. It drizzled through batting practice and the skies opened prior to the fifth. Harang recorded outs on Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee, but after throwing ball one to Hunter Pence, Harang and his Reds club were forced off the field when home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor stopped the game.
After a two-hour, three-minute delay, play resumed, with Harang making an unconventional return to the mound to finish the fifth inning. Harang, who was behind Pence, 1-0, when play stopped, yielded a base hit to the right fielder before striking out Quintero.
Cooper said he'd never seen a starting pitcher return after such a long delay. The move surprised Astros hitters as well.
"I've never seen that," Quintero said. "We saw the pitcher warming up in the 'pen and that's the guy coming in, and when I saw him, I was surprised. I told Hunter, 'Hey Hunter, Harang's come back.' He said, 'That's fine.' I've never seen that before. For that long? No. Twenty minutes, 10 minutes, something like that? Yeah. But not for that long."
The Reds played add-on in their half of the fifth, scoring twice in an inning that could have easily been a scoreless outing for Arias. Instead, with runners on first and second and one out, Kazuo Matsui fielded a Taveras grounder and tossed to Tejada, who did not tag the base and then delayed his throw to first, allowing Taveras to reach safely.
"[Second base umpire Mike Estabrook] said I didn't touch the base," Tejada said. "One thing I never do is argue with the umpire for anything. I don't know. I might be wrong. I just made the error. That's a mental error.
"I know I don't want to make errors. I hope everything is over today, and tomorrow I will play a better game."
Hairston followed with a sacrifice fly, and Gomes walked with the bases loaded to give the Reds a five-run advantage. The Astros narrowed it to three after scoring two in the sixth, but they managed only two hits over the final three innings.
Alyson Footer is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
