Guess it's never a good thing to go against a Cincinnati Reds team with a "P. Rose" in the lineup, as Pat Rose broke a 5-5 tie in the 8th win a homer and singled in two more runs in the 9th to give the Reds an 8-5 win over the Rays in Game 1 of the World Series at Publix Park. For the first 6 innings it looked like the Rays had this one in hand, up 4-1 behind a big game from Mike Willis who singled, doubled and tripled and was in the middle of the offense while Dan Gregory homered. But Brad Jackson started running out of gas and had two on with two out in the 7th. He was at 98 pitches and Cincinnati's premier slugger Nelson Gamez was up. Being a lefty-lefty matchup and Jackson not actually showing fatigued, I thought I could get out of the inning but Gamez had other ideas and homered to tie it. Then I let Jackson pitch to the next guy and
he homered as well. Andy Ruggles (who else?) tied it up with a homer off old friend Ron Adams but Chris Williams, who should have come in to face Gamez the inning before, gave up the game-winning homer to Rose, and Chris Toombs didn't pitch well in the 9th, loading the bases and Ed Pretty gave up a 2-run single to Rose as the neither the manager nor the bullpen covered themselves in glory today. We'll be back at it tomorrow with Danny Romero on the hill.