Saturday, April 10, 1999

REDS 3, CARDINALS 0

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Harnisch provides backbone

BY CHRIS HAFT
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Pete Harnisch's first start was worth waiting for. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        ST. LOUIS — For a guy whose back had been troubling him, Pete Harnisch displayed plenty of backbone.

        His resolve was exactly what the Reds needed after losing their first three games, a streak Harnisch ended Friday night by blanking the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0.

        Harnisch allowed six hits and received support from Sean Casey, Greg Vaughn and Pokey Reese, who clubbed home runs that muted the enthusiasm of 35,930 Busch Stadium witnesses.

        The Reds couldn't have picked a better pitcher to end their season-opening, three-game losing streak. Harnisch (1-0) notched half of his team-high 14 victories last year after Reds defeats.

        Back spasms forced Harnisch to rest for 10 days late in spring training, dulling the life of his pitches and forcing him to skip his scheduled Opening Day start. But he staged his own worthy christen ing by pitching the first shutout and complete game in the majors this year.

Sean Casey is greeted by Greg Vaughn after his seventh-inning HR. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        Recent history underscored the rarity of Harnisch's feat: The Reds notched only three complete-game shutouts last season; the Cardinals were shut out just twice in 1998.

        “I'm pretty sure if we had him on Opening Day and he pitched like this, we wouldn't be 1-3,” Reds manager Jack McKeon said. “We needed him. That might be just the ticket we need to get us going.”

        Harnisch walked nobody — that's zero, zip, nada — after his predecessors combined to issue 23 free passes in the first three games. He threw first-pitch strikes to 26 of the 32 hitters he faced, including 14 of the first 15. He threw 77 strikes in 105 pitches overall.

        “I'm a little tired, actually, of hearing about all this crap about how we're not throwing first-pitch strikes and we lost the three games because we walked all these guys,” Harnisch said. “It's obvious. There's nobody on the staff who's trying to fall behind the hitters. It was a little annoying to hear about it, to tell you the truth. We've been hearing about it from everybody, the coaching staff ... We don't know, as major-league pitchers, that we should get ahead of the hitters?”

Mark McGwire and son after a strikeout. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        Harnisch also thrived by defusing the most powerful Cardinals, Mark McGwire and Fernando Tatis.

        McGwire, who ascended to the single-season home run throne last year, mustered only a single in four at-bats, though he launched a warning-track fly ball in the ninth.

        “I like to pitch him as hard as I can,” Harnisch said. “For the most part, if I try to throw hard, (the pitches) will usually be up. He's such a great low-ball hitter that I really don't want anything down in the strike zone to him, which I know sounds totally weird.”

        Tatis, who homered in St.Louis' first three games and needed one more to match the season-opening major-league re cord shared by McGwire and Willie Mays (1971), went 0-for-4.

        After retiring the first nine Cardinals, Harnisch stranded four runners in scoring position from the fourth through sixth innings.

        All he had to that point was a tie. Cardinals starter Darren Oliver (0-1) was just as masterful as Harnisch, retiring 14 consecutive batters after Vaughn hit a two-out infield single in the first inning.

Mike Cameron is out at home in the ninth. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        But Oliver weakened in the seventh, which Casey opened by driving a 2-0 pitch into the left-center field pavilion.

        Said Casey: “It was one of those things where you'd come into the dugout after every inning and say, "Hey, let's get some runs for this guy. He's busting his butt out there.'”

        One strike later, Vaughn hammered his second homer in two games over the left-field barrier.

        Right-hander Manny Aybar relieved Oliver in the eighth and began his evening by facing Reese, who lofted a 1-0 pitch into the left-center field stands.

        “I thought it was going to hit the wall,” Reese said.

        Something Harnisch never did.

        “It's difficult,” Reds catcher Brian Johnson said, “to pitch much better than that.”

       

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