The 1st place Chicago Cubs await!
Joey Votto played baseball in 118 respective games in Wrigley Field, all of which came during his Hall of Fame career with the Cincinnati Reds. In that time he crushed to the tune of .321/.422/.607 while socking 26 homers and 42 doubles in 517 PA.
Retired, Votto is these days, though memories of him blasting the crap out of Chicago Cubs pitching is the kind of thing that just won’t ever fade in my memory.
Memories like this one, for instance:
I always applaud the murmur of a daytime Wrigley Field crowd, some 37,000 fans swigging warm beer and casually enjoying the efforts of the players on the field while creating the classic background noise of an afternoon at the park well spent. It comes with the turf as Wrigley became the home of the ‘loveable losers’ for decade after decade, the end result of each game far less important than the time there seated.
There’s a big bit of jealousy there for me, in all honesty. As I look back at the last (read: lost) trio of decades of Cincinnati Reds baseball, there’s a big part of me that wishes that, at the least, Great American Ball Park had been a packed place full of partially inebriated celebrants of the sport itself while the product on the field remained woefully subpar. At least we Reds fans would have had that on which to lean, though instead the futility of the franchise under Castellini ownership has instead also featured an always empty, mostly lifeless echo chamber more accurately representative of the futility in the standings, too.
It’s not beyond me that Red Reporter actually helped recreate that for me, personally. If I was going to watch the Reds lose day after day, I wanted to at least be able to do so while surrounded by fans finding ways to enjoy themselves while following the losses, and RR created a much better landing spot for me than an empty home park ever could.
Anyway, the Reds will wake up in Chicago tomorrow and begin a three-game series in Wrigley against the first place Cubs, each of which will be a classic 2:20 PM ET day game. The Reds, as they are wont to do, enter the series both a) under .500 and b) in 4th place ahead of only the Pittsburgh Pirates, a trend that became old long before any of the current Reds were getting paid to play this sport. The Cubs, meanwhile, sport a +95 run differential that’s the best in the National League and a burgeoning star in Pete Crow-Armstrong who they pilfered from the New York Mets years ago in a deal that may well help continue the de-cursing of the northsiders for the next decade.
On paper, it doesn’t have the makings of a great spot for the Reds. Joey Votto isn’t walking through that door, after all. Still, I beg of you to clear your afternoon schedules and take in these three games for the sake of the sport of baseball itself – it’s hard to say anything other than this is precisely how it’s supposed to be displayed.
Pitching Matchups
Friday, May 30th (4:10 PM ET): LHP Andrew Abbott vs. RHP Colin Rea
Saturday, May 31st (7:40 PM ET): LHP Nick Lodolo vs. RHP Ben Brown
Sunday, June 1st (7:40 PM ET): RHP Nick Martinez vs. RHP Jameson Taillon
How to Watch
All three of these games will be broadcast on FanDuel Sports Network. You can watch FDSN in-market through cable packages, though it’s also available to be streamed in-market with no blackout restrictions even without a cable subscription. You can check the link in the above sidebar (which I’ve re-linked right here) for more information on how you can do just that.
Each of Friday’s and Saturday’s games will also be broadcast on MLB Network, so you can catch the action there.
Per usual, you can view these games from outside the Reds TV market by catching the FDSN stream through MLB.tv.