But Arroyo has these streaks but can reel off eight or nine good starts in a row, like the one he put to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Fireworks Friday at Great American Ball Park.
Arroyo allowed just one run on five hits over six innings and Scott Rolen made him a winner with a two-out, two-run single with the bases loaded in the fifth inning. They were his first RBI since May 24, eight games ago.
"I still like to measure how things are going by things like average and RBI and runs scored," Rolen said. "RBIs and runs scored are big things for me and it's painful to go through a drought like that. I haven't done a postgame interview in awhile. I'm excited."
Arroyo knows what his teammate is talking about.
"May wasn't too kind to me," Arroyo said. "It's June hopefully, I'll get a few wins this month. Actually, I felt worse stuff wise tonight than I did the last couple of times. This game is funny. Sometimes, you have to be lucky. I threw some balls down the middle that they either popped up or hit into the ground. Sometimes you avoid the barrel of the bat. Sometimes you don't."
The Dodgers and Matt Kemp in particular gave Arroyo an hand.
Los Angeles had the bases loaded with no outs in the fourth inning and it looked like Arroyo was on the ropes. Andre Eithier and Matt Kemp opened the frame with singles and Arroyo hit Jay Gibbons with a two-strike pitch to load the bases. James Loney lifted a fly to deep left that Freddie Lewis garnered and threw to Paul Janish the cutoff man as Eithier trotted home with the game's first run. Kemp, thinking the throw was going through to second to keep the double play in order was caught in between second and third base. Janish ran him down. Arroyo got a force play from Dionner Navarro to complete the escape.
"I had a few innings that could have blown up in my face," Arroyo said. "I'll take the win anyway I can get it."
The Reds came back against Japan native Hiroki Kuroda, who was 3-0 in as many starts against the Reds, including two wins here last season.
Drew Stubbs, among the NL leaders in runs scored, lined the first of his two hits for the game into center field. He moved to second on a ground out by Miguel Cairo, who filled in for Brandon Phillips at secondbase. Kuroda walked reigning NL MVP Joey Votto and NL Player of the Month of May, Jay Bruce to face Rolen. Kuroda retired Rolen with two on and two outs in his last at bat. This time he drilled the game winning single to left field. Stubbs and Votto scored.
Logan Ondrusek, Nick Masset and Francisco Cordero, who earned his 11th save of the year and 301st of his lifetime, made the one run margin stand up for the last three innings.
"You don't see too many 2-1 games in this ballpark," said Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker.
He knows what Arroyo is capable of. He is well aware that the slender righthander is one of five pitchers in all of baseball to win 15 or more games in the last three seasons.
"Sometimes when you stop a bad streak, you start a new one. Hopefully, Bronson will go on a great streak like we've seen him do."
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| Baseball Voices |
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