One fantastic game-ending play on Monday night brought two players to their knees for different reasons.
Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez hit the ground in quick prayer and lasting elation. The Reds’ Joey Votto could only squat down briefly in disappointment and disbelief.
Gomez’s leaping catch at the fence in the bottom of the ninth robbed Votto of a two-run homer that would have put the Reds ahead by a run. Instead, it sealed a 4-3 loss to the Brewers and gave Cincinnati three losses in its last four games.
“I was pretty surprised,” Votto said. “I thought off the bat it was going to be a non-catch. He went up and made a pretty big play in the game.”
Votto initially protested the last out, because Gomez didn’t show the ball in his glove after he reached over the fence for the catch.
“I just wanted to confirm that he had it,” Votto said.
Instead, Gomez had raised his bare hand in the air before turning his back to the field.
“When I jumped and I felt the ball in my glove, I threw my hands up like, ‘I got it!'” Gomez said. “Then I do the thing that I do all the time [where he kneels and performs the sign of the cross]. Votto still was looking at the umpires and I said, ‘Here’s the ball right here, what do you want?’
“In that situation, when you save the game like that, or when you hit a walk-off home run, it’s amazing. I’ve never hit one, but I’ve caught a home run ball to win the game … it’s something special. You can’t wait to get home and see it over and over.”
The Reds would probably rather forget that such video exists.
“We were just hoping it got far enough over the wall,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “We could tell he had a bead on it. You don’t go back like that if the ball is way out of the ballpark. He made a great play, timed it perfectly and brought it back. It was a bad feeling.”
Also quickly forgotten were any thoughts of Homer Bailey matching former Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer’s 75-year-old feat of back-to-back no-hitters in 1938. Bailey, who dealt the second no-hitter of his career against the Giants in Cincinnati last Tuesday, had more pressing issues, like beating a Brewers team he’s rarely fared well against.
His latest outing was no exception.
Click here to read more of this story.
About Marion Online Sports
