RO, YEAH: Giants reliever Sergio Romo celebrates the final out of last night’s 10-inning, 2-1 victory over the Reds to extend the NLDS last night. (Getty Images)
CINCINNATI — And so the Reds’ wait is now 17 years plus at least one more game.
Poised to sweep San Francisco in their best-of-five division series and advance to the NLCS for the first time since 1995, the Reds could not take advantage of Homer Bailey’s brilliance on the mound or the Giants’ continued impotence at the plate and fell 2-1 in 10 innings last night to make Game 4 necessary this afternoon.
Perhaps equally troubling to Cincinnati is the uncertainty facing the club and manager Dusty Baker regarding the starter for this second elimination game in the wake of the back issues that forced ace Johnny Cueto out of Game 1 after just eight pitches.
Baker said his options to oppose Barry Zito would be either Mat Latos, who pitched four innings of one-run ball in relief in Saturday’s Game 1 victory, or Mike Leake, who went 8-9 during the regular season but is not on the postseason roster.
If the Reds opt to go with Leake in order to save Latos for a potential Game 5 tomorrow on full rest, that would mean placing Cueto on the DL, from where he would be ineligible to return for the remainder of the playoffs.
“It’s very difficult, but you have to go with the healthy bodies,” Baker said after the Giants scored the winning run on an error by third baseman Scott Rolen three pitches after a passed ball that allowed Buster Posey to move from second to third and thus be in position to come home on the misplay of Joaquin Arias’ bouncer.
“That’s part of the consideration, us going without [Cueto],” the manager said. “We realize what’s at stake and that’s part of the decision, if a guy can … if we think he’s going to be able to go in the next series.”
The next series was so tantalizingly close for the Reds, who got seven innings of one-hit, 10-strikeout pitching from Bailey, and then an inning apiece of hitless relief from Sean Marshall and Aroldis Chapman before Posey and Hunter Pence opened the 10th with singles against loser Jonathan Broxton.
“I think we have to be really happy coming away with the win,” Posey said, stating the obvious. “We didn’t swing the bats very well at all.”
The Giants have scored four runs while amassing all of 12 hits through three games. But they remain alive because their pitching was up to the task last night, Ryan Vogelsong throwing five innings of one-run, three-hit ball before being followed by Jeremy Affeldt, Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez and Sergio Romo, relievers who combined to allow just one hit.
“In the dugout in the top of the 10th inning, everyone was fired up,” said Romo, who got the victory in retiring all six Reds he faced in the ninth and 10th. “There is no lack of belief on this team. The emotions are definitely there.’’
The Reds took a 1-0 lead in the first in an inning in which Vogelsong surrendered the only three hits he would allow and required 30 pitches to complete. The Giants, no hit until Marco Scutaro’s two-out single in the sixth, had tied the score in the third on Angel Pagan’s sac fly after a hit by pitch, a walk and a sac bunt.
Neither team got a runner to third thereafter until Posey did in the 10th when Broxton’s first pitch to Arias glanced off catcher Ryan Hanigan’s glove .
“These are the types of games we played all season. We’re a grinding team that plays for the guy next to you.
“We have the will to fight, to win and to survive.”
The same scenario the Reds are searching for — a starter to take the ball, and end 17 years of waiting by bringing them to the NLCS.