Reds waste strong start by Leake

ST. LOUIS — Down a run in the ninth inning and a runner on second base, Bryan Price had the pitcher's spot up to bat.

On the bench were two usual starters, Billy Hamilton and Devin Mesoraco. Mesoraco had 25 home runs a year ago, but had been hampered by a hip injury that caused him to stay in Cincinnati while the team played three games in Chicago to start the week. He joined them in St. Louis on Friday and all weekend long, the company line was he was available to pinch hit.

This would seem like the time, so did Price ever consider putting him in?

"No," Price said. "Uh, no."

Instead, Brayan Pena pinch-hit and popped up to third for the second out of the inning. Skip Schumaker then grounded out to first to cement the Cardinals' 2-1 victory and series sweep.

Price didn't consider Mesoraco, because Mesoraco wasn't there. Price was playing with a short bench, just as he had in Chicago, but just under the pretense that it wasn't short.

Before the game, Price said he was confident Mesoraco could pinch-hit and run. He said he wasn't hesitant to put him in the game, the opportunity hadn't presented itself.

It did Sunday. And he didn't have Mesoraco.

After the game, as players' bags were lined up at their lockers, ready to be packed to move on to Milwaukee, there was no bag in front of Mesoraco's locker and nothing but hangers and a folding chair inside. A source confirmed to the Enquirer that Mesoraco wasn't in the team's dugout.

Mesoraco hasn't played since last Sunday, April 12, because of an impingement in his hip, and a move to the disabled list would allow that move to be backdated to April 13. However, before Sunday's game, Price said that wasn't a consideration for not using Mesoraco yet.

The loss wasted an incredible outing by Mike Leake, who threw his third career complete game, allowing just four hits over eight innings with three strikeouts and no walks. He needed just 86 pitches to complete the game. But he allowed a run in the first and another in the eighth, and that was enough to beat the Reds.

In a tie game, Jon Jay led off the bottom of the eighth with a double, he moved to third on Yadier Molina's groundout to second and scored on Kolten Wong's sacrifice fly to left.

"Leaker was great. Eight great innings, you know, and unfortunately it'll be remembered for Jon Jay hitting a double and the Cardinals doing some good situational offense with Molina moving the runner and Wong getting the sacrifice to left," Price said. "That's what's unfortunate, we've got to sit here and talk about what the Cardinals did right and we didn't."

The recent history could fill bound volumes of anecdotal evidence of the Cardinals doing things right and the Reds not. The Reds have won just two series in the third version of Busch Stadium, and just two of the last 16 series against the Cardinals. The Reds are 3-29-2 in St. Louis since the start of the 2003 season. And it's not just geography — in the last eight series at Great American Ball Park, the Cardinals have won six of them, including last weekend's three-game series.

Leake did everything he could to make a dent in that record, holding the Cardinals at bay for most of the night, despite putting himself in an early hole when he gave up a leadoff home run to Matt Carpenter.

Leake said he meant to throw a fastball on the outside corner, but it caught too much of the plate — the same thing that happened on Jay's double.

"It's all it takes, mistakes that they take advantage of," Leake said. "There's a lot of mistakes they don't take advantage of too, but the ones they do are the ones that usually hurt you."

Two batters later Matt Holiday singled. Leake would then retire the next 15 batters until Carpenter (who else?) singled with one out in the sixth. It was Carpenter's seventh two-hit game in a row and ninth in 11 games this season. He's gone hitless twice this season, the last on April 11 against the Reds.

Cincinnati managed seven hits off of St. Louis starter Adam Wainwright, but six of them were with two outs, and four of those were with bases empty.

The only two hits with runners on off of Wainwright were by Brandon Phillips, both singles. One was with a runner on second, allowing him to score, the other was not.

The Reds got to Wainwright for a run in the third when Joey Votto hit a two-out single, his second hit of the game (and his seventh multi-hit game in 12 to start the season) and Wainwright walked Todd Frazier. Phillips hit a blooper into center that fell in front of Jay to tie the game.

With two outs in the eighth, Frazier and Phillips hit back-to-back singles and then Wainwright walked Jay Bruce, bringing up Zack Cozart.

Cozart entered the game on a seven-game hitting streak, but grounded the first pitch he saw to second baseman Kolten Wong, who was in perfect position to flip the ball to shortstop Jhonny Peralta for the final out of the inning.

"I've seen (Wainwright) with a lot better stuff than he had today, but he sure did manage the strike zone well, and just didn't make a lot of mistakes in the middle of the plate," Price said. "He wasn't as overpowering, his curveball wasn't as hard, his velocity wasn't as high, but he managed the strike zone extremely well and made all the big pitches he needed to make. We just weren't able to get anything done, you know? It sucks."