oil and water

The Cincinnati Reds should have known better. They should have known it wouldn’t work out. They put a former Ole Miss pitcher on the mound and a former Mississippi State catcher behind the plate on Saturday. That’s asking for trouble. And sure enough, the Reds lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers 11-4. Ex-Rebel Matt Maloney gave up eight hits, two walks and five runs in five innings, taking the loss to fall to 0-3. Ex-Bulldog Craig Tatum, who surely did hit best calling pitches against the powerful Dodgers lineup, couldn’t pull Maloney through, though Tatum did belt his first big league homer in support. That blast was part of a 4-run third inning that tied the score at 4-all. But a run in the fifth was Maloney’s undoing. Chalk it up to bad chemistry in the battery.
P.S. Joey Gathright must be feeling a little frustrated. Baltimore traded him to Boston on Saturday. The Red Sox become the Hattiesburg native’s fourth team in less than a year. The Chicago Cubs signed Gathright in the off-season (taking him away from the Kansas City Royals) but hardly played him before dealing him to Baltimore. He never left Triple-A with the Orioles, despite hitting well above .300, and the Red Sox have assigned him to Triple-A Pawtucket. Perhaps he’ll get a September call-up. He has some value as a pinch runner, at least. … Atlanta may have planted some seeds of doubt in the mind of ex-Meridian CC star Cliff Lee on Saturday, when they roughed him up in a 9-1 win over Philly. Lee had been almost untouchable in his first five National League starts. The Braves seemed to figure him out, belting three homers against Lee in his five innings of work. It was a big game, at least for the Braves, and Lee came up small.