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It was the type of start that can throw a club into crisis mode. The kind of game in which, Bronson Arroyo said, he might have been better off simply telling the Toronto Blue Jays what he was going to throw on each pitch.
Yet there was the Cincinnati Reds' Adam Dunn sitting in the clubhouse after a 14-1 pasting, he and his teammates simply red-and-white road kill as Cito-Fest took over the Rogers Centre. Simply one more party favour at a game that started with scattered chants of "Ci-to, Ci-to" during the playing of the national anthems and ended with more rhythmic chants of "Ci-to Gas-ton" as Jay Bruce rolled a grounder for the final out of the game.
Dunn wasn't even asked about batting second for the first time this year. No, he was asked about whether he spoke to Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi about disparaging comments Ricciardi made about Dunn on Ricciardi's radio show last week.
"I talked to him [Dunn] on Saturday," Ricciardi said before last night's game. "He called me back. I don't know if he accepted my apology. But I did apologize."
Except Dunn told MLB.com that he didn't speak to Ricciardi.
"Not true," Dunn said of Ricciardi's pregame comment. "One million per cent."
Ricciardi was livid when Dunn's comment was relayed to him. He took the call on Saturday night, he said, while he was in Pittsburgh. Sitting next to him were director of security Ron Sandelli and assistant GM Alex Anthopoulos.
"If it's not him, then it's some prank," Ricciardi said. "But I don't know how the person would get my cellular phone number. I mean, I don't even give it out to you guys [the press]."
So is this a Dunn deal or what?
"I'm so sick and tired of this, foremost, but the real truth is, no, I have not talked to him," Dunn said after the game, clearly exasperated. "Again, I'm not going to go out of my way to get an apology from a guy I don't even know. No, it didn't happen and I hope this is the last time I have to talk about it. I'm sick and tired of it."
But about that phone call …
"No," Dunn said, "I mean, no. I didn't. I mean, if he said he talked to me, it was a lie … it's stupid. I don't get it. I got more important things to worry about than some guy I don't know."
This was a game with so many storylines preceding it that the presence of Ken Griffey Jr. — normally a talking point during these rare interleague appearances — wasn't even worth a mention.
It was Gaston's first game at the Rogers Centre since replacing John Gibbons as the manager last Friday, and that event had special meaning for two members of the Reds in particular.
Gaston was a teammate of Reds manager Dusty Baker on Baker's first professional team, and Baker called him "one of the guys who helped raise me in the game." The two men even shared a bubblegum card in the same year — Baker guessed it was 1993 — when the card company decided it would put two managers on a card. Gaston autographed it for him.
For Toronto native Joey Votto, who was hitless in three at-bats last night to end his seven-game hitting streak, the fact that his first game in his hometown was being played on the day Gaston made his managerial return felt "kind of ironic," in his words.
(Votto's big night did not get rave reviews from his manager. "He didn't have the same quality swings," Baker said.)
"I can't help but have fond memories about the Blue Jays," Votto said before the game. "It's going to be difficult not to look over there [the Blue Jays' dugout] and think about all the great players Cito managed."
