Reds Take Cubs to the Wood Shed

The Reds' traded Travis Wood to the Chicago Cubs because they needed a left-handed relief pitcher to balance its bullpen.

Cincinnati had a surplus of starting pitchers and the Cubs desperately neede one.

Wood was packaged with Dave Sappelt and Ronald Torreyes to obtain Sean Marshall.

The Cubs made a good bargain.  Wood started the 2013 season with nine straight quality starts (6 innings less than three runs). The Cubs haven't had a starter begin the season that efficiently since Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown started the 1908 season with 11 quality starts.  The happened to be the last time the Cubs won a World Series.

The Reds countered with Homer Bailey who has pitched better than his 2-3 record.  Bailey dropped his ERA to 3.08 with six strong innings in which he allowed two runs to the Cubs.  He allowed five hits, three of them to consecutive batters in the third inning.  The Cubs scored twice in that frame.

Brandon Phillips walked and advanced to third on Jay Bruce's single in the fourth inning.  Todd Frazier cut the Cubs' lead in half with a sacrifice fly but Wood was in charge.

Then the ceiling collapsed on Wood.

Joey Votto walked on four pitches to start the sixth.  Phillips extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a single. Wood got Bruce to pop up in the infield.  Frazier delivered his second run of the game with a hard ground ball single to center, sending Phillips to third. Phillips and Derrick Robinson executed a squeeze play. Ryan Hanigan drove in Frazier with a double, ending Wood's streak of quality starts. Cesar Izturis hit for Bailey.  He singled over the head of Starlin Castro at shortstop to plate Hanigan.

"I'm not crazy about the play," Dusty Baker said.  "Too many things can go wrong.  The batter can pop it up or miss it.  We had a good bunter and base runner with a pitcher on the mound that was throwing strikes.  We wanted to get Homer that win.  He's pitched a lot better than his 3-3 record."

Robinson didn't get the best pitch to bunt.  It was up making it difficult to get the ball down.

"It was difficult to bunt but at least it was a fastball," Robinson said.  "That is part of my game.  I work on it (bunting) every day in the off season against the Iron Mike (pitching machine).  It was a four seamer.  A cut fastball or sinker is harder to bunt."
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Sam LeCure and Jonathan Broxton pitched scoreless innings.

"They are going to pick me up more often than not," Bailey said.  "I probably could have gone another inning.  The only rough time I had was in the third.  They put together a lot of good at bats."

The pitch count got in the way of Bailey as far as pitching another inning.  It wasn't so much the number of pitches but the circumstances.

"He had a lot of stressful pitches," Baker said.  "They were the difference between taking him out in the sixth inning instead of the eighth.  That one inning (3rd) he threw 37 pitches.  That's two innings worth."

Aroldis Chapman, "the Cuban Missile" came on to pitch the ninth.  Chapman allowed back-to-back home runs to blow a save in Bailey's last start in Philadelphia Sunday.

This time Chapman retired the Cubs in order, striking out two. The game ending strikeout of Scott Hairston was the Reds' 11th strikeout of the game sending fans for free LaRosa's pizza