Just go ahead and give him his Cy Young runner-up t-shirt and coffee mug already.
The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game
It's Johnny Cueto.
It's always Johnny Cueto.
The ace of the Cincinnati Reds tossed another gem today against the New York Mets, allowing just a single run in his 7 innings of work. Cueto struck out 8 Metropolitans while allowing just 6 hits, and generally held them in check despite not being quite as sharp as he is at his finest.
Honorable Mentions are due to: Todd Frazier, who whacked his 25th dinger of the season and reached base in 3 of his 4 trips to the batter's box today; Chris Heisey, who gave the Reds the lead for good with his 8th blast of the year; and Jumbo Diaz, who struck out both batters he faced in his 8th inning appearance today.
Key Plays
- Travis d'Arnaud continued to annoy both Reds' pitchers and anyone with a keyboard in charge of typing his name this afternoon, and his double to lead off the Top of the 2nd led to the first and only Mets run of the day. He moved to 3B a batter later on a groundout, and scored on a single immediately afterwards. Reds trailed, 1-0.
- Cueto settled in to a groove after that, however, and kept the Mets at bay while the Reds struggled to do much of anything against Dillon Gee. That ended in the Bottom of the 6th, however, as Frazier mashed a 1-out solo dinger over the wall in CF to tie things up. Heisey then matched Frazier's feat by blasting a pinch-hit solo dinger of his own over the wall in LF in the Bottom of the 7th. Reds led, 2-1.
- Aroldis Chapman was asked to get 4 outs for the save today, and he ran into a bit of an issue in the Top of the 9th. A single from Curtis Granderson started things, and Eric Young pinch-ran for him to further increase the threat. Young stole 2B, and Chapman walked Herrera to put a pair of runners on. The Mets then attempted a double steal, but Young was tagged by Kris Negron while popping up from his slide, and Young was eventually ruled out after the umpires overturned the initial safe call on review. That left Herrera at 2B with 2-outs, and he was then joined on the bases by Wilmer Flores after he, too, drew a walk from Chapman, but the Reds' closer finally got a K to end things and give Cueto his 17th victory of the season. Reds win, 2-1!
Source: FanGraphs
- Chapman's save today was his 30th of the season, a mark he's now reached in three consecutive seasons.
- As I mentioned in today's game thread, Joey Votto still has the most walks on the 2014 Reds with 47. Frazier's walk today was his 46th of the season.
- Jay Bruce was 0 for 4 with a pair of Ks today. He's now 5 for his last 35 with 15 Ks in that span.
- As the Enquirer's John Fay noted on twitter prior to the start of today's game, the Reds had been 6-3 in Cueto's starts since the All-Star break and just 9-28 in games started by anyone else. It's still baffling me that the Reds have lost 3 of Cueto's starts since the break, since he pitched to a 2.56 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and 9.1 K/9 over those 9 starts while averaging a hair over 7 innings per start. Incredible.
- Tunes.