Panic Over Reds Back to .500 With Ninth Inning Rally

It is darkest before the dawn.  Hours after Bob Castellini met with Dusty Baker about keeping heads up.  Baker is one of the most positive people you could ever meet and has been through many, many up times and down times.  Castellini is still in between a seasoned baseball man and a fan and tends to look at the short view like a fan.

"You wake up every day and you don't know if you're going to start a 10-game winning streak," Dusty Baker said before the game.  "Bad times seem permanent when you go through them but you know they are temporary."

The Reds entered its 30th game of the season with a 14-15 record.  It was the same record after 29 games last season and like last season the Reds evened their record but waited until the ninth inning to do it.

Young Aneury Rodriguez, making his first major league start, inexplicably, allowed one hit in five innings.

"Don't ask me how he did it," Baker said.  "I guess he was effectively wild.  Then we get to the ninth inning."

Brandon Lyon the Houston closer came on after the Reds Francisco Cordero, getting an inning in because he needs the work, pitched a scoreless top of the ninth.

Lyon walked the 0-for-3, Drew Stubbs.  Chris Heisey singled to right.  Joey Votto, 0-for-3 and in danger of having his on-base streak stopped at 29 games placed a ground ball single to right to score Stubbs.  Brandon Phillips the cleanup hitter squared for an unauthorized bunt.  He took two pitches.  He looked at Mark Berry the third base coach and got a fist pump that read, "hit the ball."

Phillips grounded a single to right and Heisey chugged home with the tying run.

"This game is hard to explain sometimes," Baker said.  "We have one hit and that came on a ball that Hunter Spence usually catches."  (Chris Valaika's triple to right in the third inning.)

"Hits come in bunches," Baker said.  "That's why you don't want to bunt.  When hits come they seem to all come at once."

Phillips was thinking of the team to his credit.

"I didn't want to hit into a double play," Phillips said.  "I thought I could bunt them over and let Jay (Bruce) do his thing.  They didn't want me to bunt.  Then I looked at Berry."

"I don't know what he was doing," Baker said of Phillips.  "I didn't give him the sign."

Bruce hit a ball off the handle of the bat and not hard but with firstbaseman Brett Wallace even with the bag at first the ball squibbed away from him and down the line for a game-winning double."

"Why couldn't we have done that about an hour ago?" Baker asked.

"It was like we were sleeping, then we woke up," Bruce said.  "We tend to do that.  Anytime they walk the leadoff guy, you know you have the opportunity to score some runs.  We have a knack for that.  When we're down we don't panic."

"The first few innings were terrible," Phillips said.

Travis Wood and the Reds bullpen pitched well enough to win with Cordero earning his second win this week.  He also benefited from the Reds comeback win on Saturday night when they scored three runs in the eighth and ninth against Florida.

"I was pleased with the way I pitched," Wood said of his six innings in which he allowed two runs in the third.
"I got behind some hitters and got the ball up that one inning."