STRIKE A POSEY: Buster Posey’s fifth inning grand slam gave the Giants a reason to celebrate (inset) after San Franciso won its third straight game in Cincinnati and a trip to the NLCS. (Reuters (2))
CINCINNATI — The question of how the Reds suffered the greatest collapse in best-of-five baseball post-season history by losing three straight at home to the Giants after taking the opening two games in San Francisco will be met with yet another question.
And that, quite simply, is: “What was Dusty thinking?”
What was Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker thinking yesterday when, with his team trailing Game 5, 6-3 in the sixth inning with runners on first and second and none out, he had Jay Bruce attempt to steal third on a 3-2 pitch to Ryan Hanigan?
What was he thinking on what would become, in San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy’s words, “the turning point in the ballgame,” when Hanigan was caught looking and Bruce was gunned out at third by Buster Posey?
“It was 3-2, and it looked like the pitch was outside; that changed the entire ballgame,” Baker said after the Reds’ 6-4 defeat that sends the Giants into the NLCS against either the Cardinals or Nationals. “It was 3-2 with a [hitter] who rarely strikes out and who, if he hits it on the ground, it’s an automatic double play.
“If he hits it on the ground and you don’t run, it’s a double play and if you do run and he misses it, it’s still a double play,” he explained. “So we were trying to be aggressive at that time and stay out of the double play.”
The Giants scored all six of their runs in the fifth inning against Mat Latos, the crushing blow a mammoth grand slam by Posey that drove the starter from the game.
The Reds, who hadn’t lost three straight at home all season, got two runs back in the bottom of the fifth in their effort to roll the boulder uphill. They had the tying run at the plate in the sixth, seventh and eighth before getting the potential winning run up with one out in the ninth — 13 of 25 batters reached safely in the sixth through ninth until Bruce and Scott Rolen made the final two outs — but simply could not reach the mountaintop.
“Runners in scoring position the last three games and we didn’t get the big hit, and you can put me right at the top of the list,” said Ryan Ludwick, who homered leading off the sixth to make it 6-3 but bounced back to the mound with two on for the final out of the seventh.
“We had opportunities and did not come through, in this game, the last game and the game before that.”
The lost opportunities for the NL Central champions translated into yet another lost opportunity for Baker, a three-time manager of the year who has not only never won a World Series, but who has now presided over three postseason reversals of misfortune.
His 2002 Giants held a 3-2 lead in the World Series over the Angels — and a 5-0 lead in the seventh inning of Game 6 — before losing in seven. His 2003 Cubs held a 3-1 NLCS lead over the Marlins before losing in seven in the Steve Bartman series. And now this.
“I imagine this ranks pretty high [among disappointments] for him,” said Joey Votto, who did not have an RBI in the series. “There was no reason for us to lose, but we did.”
Baker, who suffered a mini-stroke last month, said he is uncertain whether he will be in the Reds’ dugout next season but that he intends to continue his managerial career.
“It’s going to take a while for this to heal, but like everything heals, sometimes you just get tired of disappointments,” Baker said. “It hurts, big time.”
It will hurt for a long time here, when the question of the Reds’ collapse will be met with the question, “What was Dusty thinking?”