In the fourth game of his Major League career, the rookie sensation had four hits and scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning in Friday's 3-2 Reds victory over the Braves before 37,015 fans at Great American Ball Park.
The walk-off moment came when Brandon Phillips sharply smoked a ball on the ground through Chipper Jones' legs. Originally ruled a hit, it was later switched to an error on Jones.
"Winning is fun," Bruce said. "That's something I think we'll be doing a lot more of."
Bruce is batting .571 (8-for-14) with three doubles, three RBIs and five runs scored in four games since being called up from Triple-A Louisville on Tuesday.
"This is one of the best times you're going to have in the big leagues," Reds manager Dusty Baker said of Bruce. "It's when you first get here until they kind of figure out a book on you and what your kryptonite is. Right now, he doesn't have any."
Supposedly, a difficulty hitting against left-handed pitchers was Bruce's kryptonite in the Minors, but no more.
The 21-year-old left-handed prodigy handled one of the best southpaws around, future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, for three hits in three at-bats. In the third inning, Bruce went the other way on a 1-2 outside changeup and nabbed a broken-bat single.
"In that situation, he's a smart young hitter," Baker said. "You don't get the way he does just on natural ability. A lot of it is natural ability, but a lot of it is he has an idea and a plan when he goes up there of what he wants to do against certain pitchers."
In the sixth against Glavine, Bruce laced an RBI double that scored Jerry Hairston for a 2-1 Reds lead.
"I just try to look at him as just a left-handed pitcher," Bruce said. "I try not to worry about the name. I know he's not."
"That was kind of the rap before, that he had to learn how to hit lefties a little better," Baker said. "But now he has a game plan against them. Knock on wood, may it continue."
Bruce's fourth hit came in the 11th when he singled off Atlanta reliever Royce Ring, who was also -- you guessed it -- a left-hander. Ken Griffey Jr. followed with a base hit that shot past Jones and moved Bruce to second to set up Phillips.
"I felt the momentum all night long," Phillips said. "But when Jay Bruce got on, I knew we were going to win the game. I knew that I was going to do something or [Adam] Dunn was going to do something."
Edinson Volquez, who pitched on four days' rest and for the third time in eight days, held the Major League's leading hitter -- Jones -- in check. Volquez worked six-plus innings and gave up just two earned runs on five hits with three walks and seven strikeouts.
"I just threw a lot of fastballs inside and some of my changeups, too," Volquez said about pitching to Jones, who went 0-for-5. "It was my idea. I was watching the video, and the last time he faced me, the fastball away was a base hit and a changeup was a fly ball to center field."
Volquez had worked 1 2/3 innings in emergency relief four days ago in an 18-inning game at San Diego, and he pitched six innings in a start two days before that. It was a similar situation that doomed Aaron Harang in a 7-2 loss to the Pirates the night before.
Even after Volquez's exit, nearly everything went the Reds' way from the eighth inning on. Cincinnati's bullpen group of Bill Bray, Jared Burton, Francisco Cordero and Kent Mercker (1-0) combined to pitch four scoreless innings down the stretch, and at one point, retired nine batters in a row.
No comments:
Post a Comment