Reds Sweep Cardinals-And The Cardinals Are Whining Again!

The Reds took all three games this weekend from the Cardinals and are now in first place in the National League Central by 1.5 games.

It was definitely a fun series, and a great series for Reds fans. I saw game two on Saturday, a 7-3 drubbing by the Reds.

Winning Duh #Reds http://yfrog.com/h7walmeajFOX19Eileen May 15, 2011 at 16:36

But the real fireworks, which continues to reinforce the fierceness of this rivalry, came in Sunday's game. In the top of the ninth, with the Reds leading 9-7 and one out, Reds pitcher Francisco Cordero hit Albert Pujols with a pitch.

Pujols took first base. The Cardinals had runners on first and second at that point. The next Cardinals' batter, Matt Holliday hit a sure double-play grounder to Reds' shortstop Paul Janish, who flipped to second baseman Brandon Phillips for the first out. But Albert Pujols slid hard into second, forcing a bad throw to first.

The Cardinals were left with runners at first and third, and two outs. Right fielder Lance Berkman came to bat. Cordero struck him out, giving the Reds the series sweep.

That's when the real fun started. Following the Berkman strikeout, someone yelled at Cordero from the Cardinals' dugout. Cordero reacted, yelling something pretty close to f**k you in Spanish back to the Cardinals. OK, I might be embellishing that part, but Cordero definitely had some choice words for the Cardinals.

Ultimately things calmed down. But in typical fashion, the Cardinals whined again after losing to the Reds. Reports are that someone (Cordero fingered Gerald Laird, but TV replays showed Cardinal pitching coach Dave Duncan) took umbrage to the fact that Cordero had hit Pujols with the pitch.

Why would Cordero purposely do that? Holliday and Berkman followed Pujols in the batting order. Hitting Pujols put the winning run at the plate with one out. Even Albert Pujols himself told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he didn't think it was intentional.

But the Cardinals are whiners, and they continue to show it. John Fay, the Reds' beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer (check out his twitter account johnfayman) covered the situation along with reactions very well in his blog. Check out these posts:
Reds win 9-7, teams trade barbs afterward

Game talk: Reds-Cardinals reactions

What others are saying about Reds’ sweep of Cards

Fallout from yesterday

More Gamesmanship From The Cardinals' Tony La Russa

Last night's (4/22/11) game between the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals was a complete debacle. The Reds lost 4-2, which was bad enough. But the real controversy was how the St. Louis Cardinals handled the storms that were rolling through the area and caused an over 2 hour delay of the game.

The game started on time. After Drew Stubbs drew a walk and one pitch was thrown to Brandon Phillips, the game was halted for 2 hours and 10 minutes due to very heavy rains.

Why was the game started? After the delay Dusty Baker chose not to pitch the scheduled starter, Edinson Volquez as he had already warmed up once. Matt Maloney ended up getting the start.

Tony La Russa, He Invented Baseball!

Listening to today's Reds broadcast on 700 WLW, Marty Brennaman, Reds Hall of Fame play-by-play man, reported that many people in the Reds camp are not happy, placing the responsibility firmly on Cardinals' Manager Tony La Russa, who may have withheld weather information from the umpires and the Reds. Marty also commented he had never seen anything like it in 38 years of covering baseball. This is all conjecture on Marty's part, but John Fay, beat writer for the Reds at the Cincinnati Enquirer is also suspicious. So is Dusty Baker.

My take? This is a typical Tony La Russa move. But what would you expect from the smartest man in baseball? He invented the game didn't he? He can also decide when and how to report the weather.

Here's La Russa's comments on the subject, vague as usual:

"The information that we had is the same information the Reds had," La Russa said on Saturday. "They said there was a window of 45 minutes to an hour, and C.J. [St. Louis traveling secretary C.J. Cherre] talked to two different people with the Reds and said, 'Look, they're not going to start their guy when we're only going to play a short amount of time.' There was a big enough window where you get ... You just don't want to burn the starter.

"Around 6:40, 6:45, they said, 'Look, we're going to start on time.' I said, 'Well, we're going to start Batista, and 'C.J. be sure and let them know that's what we're going to do.'"

Guilty as charged, your Honor!

Coverage on the Reds official website:

http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110423&content_id=18159306&vkey=news_cin&c_id=cin

John Fay's blog on Cincinnati.com on the subject:

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/reds/2011/04/23/rain-rain-story-wont-go-away/