Shohei Ohtani vs. Gavin Lux video Reds hitter, Dodgers pitcher
Cincinnati Reds’ Gavin Lux talks about facing Shohei Ohtani and trying to bounce back from one of the team’s worst stretches of the season.
LOS ANGELES – It’s long past time that somebody fixes the Great American Ball Park scoreboard problem before the September playoff drive.
Because it’s scoreboard watching time as much as it is take-care-of-business time for the Cincinnati Reds, and there’s no reliable place at home to check the out-of-town scores during the game.
“(Heck), last night I was laying in bed, and I watched the last couple innings of the Mets game,” Reds manager Terry Francona said a few days ago, after a Reds’ off day afforded chance to watch the struggling Mets – the team the Reds are chasing for the last National League playoff spot.
“(Shoot), what we do is obviously really important, and if we do what we’re supposed to do, things have a way of working out,” he said. “At the same time, watching what they’re doing is kind of fun.”
And this, he added: “It matters.”
It’s never mattered more.
Because when the Reds return home to open a nine-game homestand that kicks off the final 28-game stretch of the season, they need help.
Maybe lots of it, depending on how the next series or two go before they get their last three-game shot at the Mets this year, Sept. 5-7 at GABP.
Veteran Reds pitcher Nick Martinez has been open about his own scoreboard-watching tendencies before recent starts. Teammates have reluctantly admitted to paying attention, even as they focus on their own business.
That scoreboard watching only figures to intensify as the stakes rise on each remaining game over these final nine series.
“It’s hard not to,” Martinez said. “Ultimately we have to win games. That’s the most important thing. But I do fall victim to peeking over there to make sure to see what the scores are.
“I think it’s kind of fun, right, knowing that we’re playing for something this late in the season.”
That’s a big part of Francona’s point.
So’s this: “If we don’t win, it doesn’t matter,” first baseman Spencer Steer said.
Another part of it for Francona is a between-innings stress reliever the three-time pennant-winning manager has developed over the years.
“I usually do it during the middle of innings,” he said during the last homestand. “But we don’t have a very good out-of-town scoreboard here. That might be my only criticism of this organization.”
He chuckled when he said that. But he’s not completely joking.
“It actually relaxes me,” Francona said. “But ours, you don’t see it very well.”
The game-day staff in charge of the scoreboard operations has all but eliminated the ability to check other scores around the league during games in the stadium, other than the occasional, brief and random scores that flash on the ribbon displays on the facades.
It’s actually one of the worst stadiums in the majors for scoreboard watching with the shift in recent years to stat-geek minutia such as exit velocity, horizontal pitch break, vertical break and BABIP filling up the available spaces.
“I’m serious. I usually like gazing between innings, even the other league,” Francona said. “I just like looking. It’s kind of hard here.”
Maybe the GABP staff can get that fixed in time for September.
Because it’s more than a diversion for this team over this final month. It also “matters.” Even more than it did last time they were at home.