Friday, May 21, 1999
Five-game win streak: 'It's a start'
BY CHRIS HAFT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SAN DIEGO — The Reds sought to prevent their egos from becoming as inflated as their statistics in the wake of Wednesday's remarkable 24-12 victory over the Colorado Rockies.
As they took Thursday off before opening a three-game series tonight against the San Diego Padres, they preferred to emphasize their recent fortunes, not the record-setting performance at Coors Field. Cincinnati has won five games in a row and 10 of its last 14 while rising from sixth place to fourth in the National League Central Division.
“Hopefully, it's a start,” manager Jack McKeon said of the team's first three-game sweep at Colorado.
“We're going to try to get the ball rolling, stay over .500 and keep it going,” first baseman Sean Casey said.
That requires a decent performance against the Padres, who lost two of three games in Cincinnati last weekend. Though the Reds have no illusions of victimizing San Diego's pitching staff as they did Colorado's, their 24-run outburst bolstered their offensive confidence. They had owned the worst batting average in the majors for much of the season.
“Even when we can't get good pitching, we're getting runs, which is the exact opposite of what was happening when we were losing,” McKeon said.
Casey, who ranks second in the NL in batting average (.399), and is among the leaders in hits, doubles, total bases, slugging percentage and on-base percentage, characterized the Reds' record-setting day in Colorado as one of the manic swings that every club experiences.
“You're going to have that in baseball,” Casey said. “You have 1-0 shutouts sometimes; you have big games like that, too. You still have to put up a "W.'”
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