Great American Ball Park, with its new Joey Votto clock, was manicured to the specifications of Augusta National Golf Club.
The intoxicating smell of cooked ballpark hot dogs wafted through the air on a glorious 81-degree photo-snapping day.
Marlana VanHoose sang a perfectly-pitched National Anthem as four helicopters staged a flyover with an impressive American flag covering most of the field.
Then the Cincinnati Reds took the field and it was not so impressive. In fact, it was a weak effort during a 3-0 Opening Day loss to the Boston Red Sox in front of 43,897 mostly depressed fans.
It probably shouldn’t have been a stunning shock that the Reds were shut out on an Opening Day for the fifth time.
They were facing one of baseball’s best pitchers. Garrett Crochet was 18-5 with a 2.89 earned run average last season, led the American League in strikeouts and was second in the Cy Young voting
But only four hits? And three came off the bat of rookie first baseman Sal Stewart.
Crochet, though, was matched by Reds starter Andrew Abbott, the first lefthander to start Opening Day in 27 years.
And oddly, it was the same scenario. In 1998 Mike Remlinger started for the Reds after scheduled starter Dave Burba was traded to Cleveland for Sean Casey the night before the game.
Abbott was a stand-in for Hunter Greene, now on the 60-day injured list after shoulder surgery.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Abbott matched Crochet with zeros, six innings for each, but Abbott had to wade through seven hits, four of them infield hits. He escaped harm more often than magician/mentalist David Blaine.
So it was 0-0 after six when manager Tito Francona decided to play with two new toys, relief pitchers Pierce Johnson and Brock Burke.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Johnson started the seventh and Boston pinch-hitter Marcelo Mayer said hello with a double to left center that T.J. Friedl just missed.
The Red Sox then used old-school baseball to score a run. Catcher Carlos Narvaez bunted Mayer to third and he scored on nine hitter Ceddanne Rafaela’s single.
It stayed 1-0 until the ninth when Burke made his Reds debut. Mayer led with a single. Burke retired the next two, then the ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System) did a dirty deed to the Reds.
On a 3-and-2 count on Roman Anthony, umpire Dan Iassogna called strike three to end the inning. But Anthony challenged and ABS revealed the pitch was a ball, low by about 1 3/4 inches.
So it was ball four that put Mayer on second and Trevor Story singled to make it 2-0. Burke was replaced by Connor Phillips and he was touched for a Jason Durbin run-scoring single.
The 3-0 margin made it extremely easy for Aroldis Chapman, who began his career with the Reds throwing 105 miles an hour fastballs.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Strangely, he has made stops with the New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, the Yankees again, Kansas City, Texas, Pittsbugh and now Boston.
At 38, he still ticks the clock at 100 and he ended Thursday’s game with three straight fly balls.
The ABS machine bit the Reds earlier, too, the first challenge of the game.
In was the fifth inning and Eugenio Suarez, ‘The Savior’ was at the plate. On a 2-and-2 pitch, Iassogna called a pitch ball three. Catcher Narvaez challenged and ABS revealed it was strike three.
It was not a fun Opening Day for Suarez. He came to bat in the sixth against Crochet with the bases loaded and one out. He struck out.
He came to bat in the eighth when Boston led, 1-0. Stewart was on second base after his second double of the game. Suarez struck out.
Stewart also was on second base with his first double in the second but Suarez flied out.
Before the game, before he struck out three times and stranded five runners, Suarez told reporters, “I’m already ready, ready.”
Maybe Saturday during the second game of the three-game series?
Francona had the quote of the day before the game when he told reporters, “Opening Day is Overreaction Day. If we win, we’re going to the World Series. If we lose, we suck.”
It wasn’t hard to figure which version the Reds resembled Thursday afternoon.
It hasn’t, of course, dampened Francona’s mantra. During spring training, he told his team, “It’s time.” And the word floating around the Reds clubhouse is, “Expectations.”
Grand expectations.
After backing into the playoffs last season due to an insidious late September collapse by the New York Mets, the Reds were swept two games to none by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs.
Elly De La Cruz told reporters before the game, “We got eliminated in the first round last year and we don’t want that to happen again.”
De La Cruz had the only hit that didn’t belong to Stewart, a bloop single in the sixth. He also struck out twice and grounded meekly to second.
Francona also told his team to ignore the prowess of the big market teams and said, “We can compete with the bigger payrolls. It’s time.”
Fortunately for the Reds, they have a lot of time. They have 161 games worth of time. But it isn’t a strong omen when a team heads into its second game of the season looking for its first run.
NEXT GAME
Who: Red Sox at Reds
When: 4:10 p.m., Saturday, March 28
Streaming: Reds.TV
Radio: 1410-AM
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