The crowd settled into the shiny new months-old seats at Riverfront Stadium, expecting to see two great clubs go at it hammer and tongs, and perhaps wondering how the balance would fall between Cincinnati's dynamic young attack and Baltimore's deep, talented starting rotation. What they didn't expect, perhaps, was to see the Reds' Nolan go toe-to-toe with Palmer. The home team produced a run in he 2nd when Lee May doubled with one gone and scored on Tommy Helms' two-out base hit, and Nolan did his best to make it appear as if that would be more than enough in the way of support. The Orioles couldn't even manage a baserunner until Paul Blair's one-out single in the 4th, and he was immediately erased testing the arm of Johnny Bench on a steal attempt. Nolan whipped through the 5th, now having retired fifteen of sixteen batters, before he ran into his first trouble in the 6th while still holding onto that 1-0 lead. Davey Johnson began the inning with a double, Mark Belanger worked a walk from a long at-bat, and it appeared that the Birds were in business. Palmer got his job done with the bat by bunting the runners along and then Buford walked to load the bases with only the one out. Sparky Anderson was on the top top step of the dugout, having allowed Nolan to go the distance just four times all season, but he allowed the right to work to Blair and was rewarded with a huge called third strike and then a fly ball by Powell that caused some throats to tighten on contact but settled into Bobby Tolan's glove short of the warning track in straightaway center field. It was still a single-run game contested by the starters when Cincinnati made noise again in the bottom of the 7th - a leadoff walk to Bernie Carbo appeared to be wasted after two groundouts, but Ty Cline's pinch-hit single scored Carbo from second to double the Reds' lead. Sparky then dipped into his bullpen for Clay Carroll, who allowed one hit in a scoreless 8th, and Wayne Granger, who put two aboard in the 9th on a walk and hit batsman before popping up Hendricks and getting Johnson to fly to medium center. The teams combined to get only six men into scoring position, but Cincinnati found a way to get two of theirs across and the Orioles did not. Cincinnati 2-6-0, Baltimore 0-4-0. [scoresheet] [broadcast]
Baltimore got off to a quicker start in Game Two, with Don Buford singling to start the game and eventually scoring from third two outs later when Tony Perez fumbled Frank Robinson's grounder. But Cincinnati's response was quick, and it was loud; in the bottom of the 1st, the Reds hit three solo home runs off of Cuellar with Tolan going deep with one out and then Bench and May yanking it out back-to-back one out later. The Os shook off the shock fairly quickly, and crawled back to parity in the 3rd when Frank and Brooks led off with singles, Ellie Hendricks walked, Johnson grounded into a double play to sore one and Mark Belanger singled home another with two outs. Cuellar had settled into the game by that point, allowing only four hits over six innings after the opening barrage, and the contest finished the 7th inning still knotted at three runs apiece. But the long ball struck for the Reds again in the 8th, when Pete Rose dumped a fly ball into the seats to lead off the frame; this seemed to unsettle the Orioles as the next five batters accumulated three walks and two singles, the last of the latter scoring two more runs off the bat of Hal McRae. Baltimore trued to battle back in the 9th, working two walks off of Don Gullet to start the inning and get the tying run to the plate with no outs, but Blair bounced into their fifth GIDP of the afternoon to relieve the pressure and, although Gullett managed to re-erect the tightrope after again putting two men on base, Granger came on to face Brooks and forced him to fist a foul pop to third base that ended the game in the Reds' favor. Cincinnati 6-10-2, Baltimore 4-8-0. [scoresheet]
Baltimore desperately needed a good start in front of the Memorial Stadium crowd, but McRae homered for a Cincinnati run in the 2nd and yet another double-play ball further deflated them in their half of the inning. When Cloninger touched McNally for a two-run homer into the outfield seats in the 3rd, it felt as if everything was going the way of the National League club; when Dave Concepcion homered for three more Reds runs in the 4th those feelings were confirmed. The Orioles were drowning and, although they managed to score four times in the second half of the game, they also allowed four more Cincinnati runs as they were steamrolled in front of their home fans and left looking everywhere for answers. the 22-year-old Concepcion, in his first action in the Series, had three hits, scored three times and drove in three runs. Cincinnati 11-13-0, Baltimore 4-9-1. [scoresheet]
With Baltimore's hopes for a stay of execution resting on Palmer's right arm, Cincinnati wasted no time building up the pressure. Bench walked to lead off the 2nd, moved around to third on May's base hit, and scored on Helms' sacrifice fly to once again put the American Leaguers (who had held the lead for a single half-inning of the Series thus far) on the back foot. Palmer was sharp, striking out four over the first four inning while allowing only three hits but, again, Nolan was a complete mystery to the Oriole hitters who again had only a single hit through four. In the 5th, Baltimore got two on with one out, but Belanger popped up and Palmer skied to center. In the home 7th, Brooks started things off with a skipper to third which Perez couldn't handle and, after two quick outs that advanced the runner to third, Belanger came through with the big hit by singling to left to chase Brooks home with the tying run. The relief and excitement of the Baltimore crowd barely had time to build when, what else, Perez atoned with a deep drive into the left-field stands after a walk to Rose in the top of the 8th and it was again Cincinnati's ballgame to hold. Gullett came on for Nolan in the 8th, and Blair and Johnson provided a single in each of the final two innings, but the Orioles could not turn those into threats and Perez flipped PH Merv Rettenmund's ground ball to Helms to force Johnson for the final out of the game and an emphatic Series sweep for Cincinnati. Cincinnati 3-6-1, Baltimore 1-6-0. [scoresheet]
Well, I certainly didn't see this one coming! Baltimore had six GIDP and nine total runs, while the Reds pounded eight home runs in only 140 plate appearances. Perhaps the scouting report would have suggested a potential matchup problem here, as Cuellar and McNally were both among the League leaders in homers allowed while the Reds offense led the NL, but you still wouldn't have expected this. Nolan was virtually unhittable and, while the Cincinnati bullpen was not, they found a way to avoid giving up the big hit (for four days, at least) when Baltimore finally managed to get baserunners aboard. [Series stats]
Reds RHP Gary Nolan (2-0, 0.00) stifled the Orioles on the two occasions when they got a strong performance out of their starting pitcher to win the first and last games of the Series. He allowed only seven hits and one unearned run in fourteen innings, holding Baltimore hitters to a .149 average.
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