Cincinnati Reds vs. Atlanta Braves – Box Score – May 28, 2011 – ESPN.

A classic managers’ duel. Fredi Gonzalez and Dusty Baker went out there to show which one of them was dumber, and Dusty won with his, “I am going to sit there and use an exhausted pitcher and lose rather than use my closer to get out of a jam.” Even Fredi’s “Sir-Bunt-A-Lot” couldn’t answer that. In the twelfth inning, Jordan Schafer walked; Fredi had Martin Prado bunt but the pitcher was so wild it didn’t matter. Chipper Jones, amazingly, was not called on to bunt, and singled to right, bringing in Schafer to win the game.

A game, by the way, that the Braves had led 5-0, getting a run in the first with a two-out rally (a walk by Chipper, a single by Brian McCann, and another single by Eric Hinske), two runs in the second (Schafer driving one in with a bunt single, and Prado another with a single to center) and two in the third (solo homers by McCann and Freddie Freeman.)

But Derek Lowe was clearly off. He had loaded the bases twice in the first three innings, only getting out of the jams because Jay Bruce popped up in the first and grounded into a double play in the third. So when he loaded the bases again in the fourth, Fredi, in his infantile wisdom, apparently thought that he could get out of it again, even though Bruce was nowhere in sight, and didn’t take the simple precaution of getting Cristhian Martinez ready. Two doubles and a single later it was tied at five, and Martinez was finally warm. 40 of the 88 pitches Lowe threw were balls; he walked five and allowed seven hits. Fredi apparently did not notice any of this, because he was doing the Junior Jumble in the dugout or whatever it is he does back there instead of managing.

The Lisp allowed one run of his own in the fifth, a two-out single by the opposing relief pitcher (it was clearly a Sherrill situation) scoring a man who had previously doubled, but otherwise did well, and the rest of the bullpen scattered a ton of hits — the Reds had sixteen on the night. McCann tied the game in the bottom of the fifth with his second solo homer. Scott Proctor came in for the seventh and managed somehow to get through.

Jonny Venters had a weird two-inning outing in which he allowed four hits, two of them infield singles but the other two solid singles; in the eighth, Scott Rolen was thrown out foolishly trying to stretch his into a double to end the inning, and Venters got a strikeout to end the ninth. Kimbrel got a double play after a one-out single in the tenth (Dan Uggla — who was also 0-5, again — tried to throw it away but AAG bailed him out). Because he had a big date or something, Fredi then went with Scott Linebrink. Linestink somehow pitched a 1-2-3 eleventh, then allowed a single to Edgar Renteria starting the twelfth. He got an out on a strikeout but Edgar stole second, then he walked the next guy. AAG then bailed him out with a 6-3 double play, leading to Chipper’s heroics and Dusty’s coma.