The Fog From Game Five Last Year

[Edskin]

All season long I've wondered why our relatively good/positive season hasn't felt particularly good or positive to me. I've often found myself drifting during games and this team has left me with a general feeling of disappointment. But then I look at the standings and realize we are having a fine year and a year that so obviously trumps pretty much every year we experienced from 1996-2009 (99 being the exception). That is when I tell myself to get over myself and enjoy the fact that the Reds are in a race in September.

But I can't shake the feeling and this sort of malaise of an attitude I've experienced all year. What is more frustrating is that I can't really figure out WHY. I think for the first time last night it revealed itself.

I'm not over the playoff choke last year. I will admit it. I have subconsciously gone over the final two at bats in that game (Bruce and Rolen) over in my head many, many times since that day.

I didn't think so at the time and I didn't really realize it al off-season or through the course of this season, but that series shook my faith in this team. I don't believe in them anymore or in their ability to rise to the occasion.

Last night I was as into the game as any all year. But as it wore one I felt convinced we would lose-- this feeling of dread I believe all stems from that series with SF last year and the game five loss. Last night was a case of a team who has excelled in that situation for years versus one who bombed in their most recent attempt at October success.

Even though we are up 2-1 in the series and have one very nice win under our belt in this series, it still somehow manages to feel like the Cards are getting the best of us because they managed to win that epic game. Now, if we win today there really can't be any complaints--taking 3 out of 4 would be nice, but if we don't it really amplifies the loss last night. And regardless I do think the loss illustrates to me what might be confidence issues on the team.

Baseball players are not robots. They have emotions and stresses too. I don't think it's insane to think that what I feel is 100% different from what they feel. They control the situation of course, but I sense a tightness in these games. I think it is quite possible that the playoff series last year lingers in their minds just as it does in mine. Not on the surface perhaps, but it kind of sits there like a fog.

Losing those three games in a row last year was brutal. It has undoubtedly affected my perception of this team--- even though I really haven't wanted to admit it. And what I wonder is if it has also affected the perception of themselves a bit. I don't think it's hocus pocus or reading too deep. The Reds are an organization that haven't had many of those opportunities over the past 25 years or for their best opportunity to end in they fashion.... Well, I think it stands to reason that it could leave everyone a little shaken.

Obviously, it hasn't stopped them from being a solid team. And because they've won enough they will keep giving themselves chances to exorcise the demons from last year--- it would probably only take one huge win or one series win to do it. But right now, I will admit that I have no confidence of that happening.

Not ripping the team here, just giving an honest assessment of where I'm at as a fan and wondering if maybe it can explain a few things.

[Tom Servo]

If the Pirates and Cardinals were a little bit worse this season, this wouldn't be an issue. I'm still not over the NLDS so I don't blame you for not being either, but I don't buy that the players aren't.

[RadfordVA]

Yeah players are not getting wrapped up in big picture stuff like that. They are trying to hit a 98 MPH fastball or lay off a curve. They are completely in the moment. When a bunch of individual moments pile up writers will feel compelled to make a narrative out of it. Just as Giants winning last year hasn't affected their season I do not believe it has affected the Reds.

[Red Raindog]

I'm still drinking too much because of last year's loss to the Giants.

What has disturbed me so much this year is I see way too low of baseball IQ on display with this team -- sometimes I think I'm watching tee ball players.

I could go on & on listing the bonehead moves & plays from this year -- but you've seen them too.

My choice right now -- Rolen as manager next year (after the Reds right the ship & win the World Series)

[cumberlandreds]

The team is in no fog from last years playoff loss. The fans may be but the players are not. If they had been this season would have been a disaster. It is far from that.

[Roy Tucker]

I stayed for all stinkin' 16 innings last night.

By and large, the Reds performed well. Great pitching, great defense (except one lapse, but Cozart is the real deal at SS), and some good hitting. Lots of bright lights moments where the Reds produced. Duke with a big K, Simon and Hoover, and some good hits.

This probably should be in the new Dusty thread, but his obsession with small ball hurt the team.

[Roy Tucker]

Oh, and I was at the game 5 DS game too. It did feel the same, but that's because it was an ultra-contested and very tight game. Just like the 1-0 game the night before.

[RadfordVA]

I stayed for all stinkin' 16 innings last night.

By and large, the Reds performed well. Great pitching, great defense (except one lapse, but Cozart is the real deal at SS), and some good hitting. Lots of bright lights moments where the Reds produced. Duke with a big K, Simon and Hoover, and some good hits.

This probably should be in the new Dusty thread, but his obsession with small ball hurt the team.

Maybe he loves small ball too much but there did not seem much large ball to be played last night. Reds only had 2 extra base hits in 52 at bats. They had plenty of chances to hit.

[RedsManRick]

The 1-run loses always hurt the most. It's just so easy to identify individual events that, had they been different, would've swung the outcome in our favor.

Personally, Game 5 doesn't linger in my mind explicitly. But it does serve as a particularly notable data point in my brain's biased selection of clutch failures.

While most fans probably have greater faith in their opponents ability to come through in the clutch than in their own team, I agree that there's something about the Cardinals that makes me especially pessimistic.

For games like last last night, I always try to look for the silver lining. If you told be that our 3, 4, and 5 hitters went 0-17, I wouldn't have believed we managed to even put the game in to extras. So I'll just pretend like it was a routine loss and try to get on with it.

[RedsBaron]

The game five loss in the NLDS still hurts in part because of the probability that the window of opportunity for this team may be narrow. Some of the Reds players were/are at their probable peak in 2012-13 and the window probably will not remain open that long. These Reds are not the Big Red Machine, a team whose window remained open for a decade or more, given their depth and the lack of free agency.
There were no dominant teams last season and the World Championship was there for the taking. The 2012 Reds went into the post season with seemingly as good a chance as any team, but came up short.

[BuckeyeRedleg]

Game three stung more.

[cumberlandreds]

Game three stung more.

Totally agree with this. You won't ever get a better pitched game than you got from Bailey that day. Not to win that game just killed the Reds. Game four was a giveaway because of Cueto's injury and Leake had to start. Then a game five/deciding game is always a crap shoot. I felt after game three the Reds were in big trouble in that series and I still think they lost the series that night.

[RedEye]

Errol Morris could make a great documentary about this topic.

[joshua]

I'm still drinking too much because of last year's loss to the Giants.

What has disturbed me so much this year is I see way too low of baseball IQ on display with this team -- sometimes I think I'm watching tee ball players.

I could go on & on listing the bonehead moves & plays from this year -- but you've seen them too.

My choice right now -- Rolen as manager next year (after the Reds right the ship & win the World Series)

Don't know if Rolen would ever be manager. I don't know if I'd want a guy managing the major league team who has never managed a game before.

Bringing Mack Jenkins up from Louisville to be assistant pitching coach leads me to believe that was a step to prepare for Dusty leaving and Price taking the reigns.

Price as manager, Jenkins as pitching coach and Rolen as hitting coach could be an improvement. Even if Dusty remains as manager and they replace Jacoby with Rolen, I think it'd be a step in the right direction.

[Edskin]

Yeah players are not getting wrapped up in big picture stuff like that. They are trying to hit a 98 MPH fastball or lay off a curve. They are completely in the moment. When a bunch of individual moments pile up writers will feel compelled to make a narrative out of it. Just as Giants winning last year hasn't affected their season I do not believe it has affected the Reds.

I'm not so sure. You are describing robots. Beings that are completely unaffected by anything that is going on other than the task at hand.

I definitely believe in "culture" and that emotional issues do affect a team. What I can't do is quantify it... And I certainly don't think it is specific or easily indentifaible. Every time Votto makes an out I'm not asserting that he was too busy thinking about the playoff loss last year.

But yes, when a situation turns on the team-- and last night the game turned into something somewhat unpredictable in terms of how that moment felt--- I do think that a general tightness or anxiety can set in for certain teams while a greater sense of confidence could permeate other teams.

Ultimately I admitted in the OP that this was mostly about my own perception of the team and my own emotions as a fan--- being unable to let go of that series loss last year and have it affect my view of the 2013 Reds.

Now, if you REALLY want me to stir the pot I'll bring up something I've never mentioned on the board knowing exactly where it will go

But I have a friend who knows more about the "clubhouse" than anyone else I know. He is a former pro and actually once almost got a Rolex from George Steinbrenner (apparently he would give those to any ML pitcher who tossed a no-no and my buddy lost his in the 9th). My buddy has sworn up and down since the day it happened that the Cueto injury in game one last year did damage to the team internally. He said there were questions and rumors about his toughness prior and that while no one would admit it publicly, he thought certain guys on the 25 man had their doubts.

I have fought him tooth and nail on this... Told him it was hogwash, etc But he has never backed down--- I won't tell you the word he says some use to describe Cueto off the record. My friend is not an insider and doesn't have direct connections---- neither he or I claim that. But he has told me that I wouldn't believe how full of machismo these guys are and how there are strong grudges held if they think one guys isn't "manning up" like the rest.

Like I said, I know the reaction it will get on here, so I never mentioned it--- in large part because I've argued against it since he brought it up. But this thread seemed an apporopriate place to throw some gas on the fire