Narron on Encarnacion

Jerry Narron was fairly impassioned when talking about why he pulled Edwin Encarnacion from Wednesday's 3-2 Reds win over the Diamondbacks. Encarnacion did not run on a popout in the first inning. Here's what Narron said:

“You know something, I was not watching Eddie. I was watching the ball. I saw Eddie come in here with his bat. I came down here (to the clubhouse) and looked at it (on video). He did not run.

“Eddie told me he did not see the ball. You've still got to run. I don’t care if we lose every game, we’re not going to play guys who don’t hustle. Simple as that. I told them from Day 1: 'We’ll pinch-hit pitchers. We’ll play pitchers. If you cannot hustle, you cannot play. Simple as that.'

“Eddie will be back in there on Friday. If they don’t run balls out, they’re not going to play. I don’t care if we lose every game we’re going to hustle while we’re doing it.”

“I love him. I think he’s going to be a great player. He messed up. But doggone it, you can't be messing up in this game. If you don’t know where the ball is, you run until you know where it is.

“The one thing he’s never done here is dog it. It was probably an honest mistake. But it was a mistake."


Encarnacion said he understood why Narron did what he did.

"You have to play hard all the time. That's how we have to play," Encarnacion said.

Narron's move should serve notice to everyone on the club.

Narron also said Josh Hamilton - 2-for-4 with a home run, a double and two runs scored Wednesday - will play somewhere Friday against the Cubs

“Josh has got a good chance of playing somewhere," Narron said. "He might catch. I don’t know.”

Narron was kidding about the catching part, he said.