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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME LOG
CINCINNATI (AP) – Rafael Furcal loves what they've done to
Cinergy Field.
|  | | Rafael Furcal drives in a career-high four runs to lead the Braves. |
The diminutive shortstop homered, hit two more balls to the
warning track and drove in a career-high four runs Monday as the
Atlanta Braves pulled away to a 10-4 victory in the first game at
the Cincinnati Reds' reconfigured field.
If the opener is any measure, the National League has a new
launching pad. Four balls reached the warning track, two slammed
off the drawn-in walls and four more cleared them, nudged by a
swirling wind.
Furcal's tiebreaking solo homer off Dennys Reyes in the seventh
soared over the 8-foot wall in left-center and was retrieved by a
hard-hatted construction worker helping with the groundwork for a
new ballpark next door.
"Yes, it's a surprise to me," Furcal said. "You don't see
that every day. I had pretty good swings and the ball carried
pretty good."
The 5-foot-10, 165-pound shortstop hit only four homers in 455
at-bats last season, when he was the NL's Rookie of the Year. He
also flew out to the wall in his first at-bat and had a sacrifice
fly to the warning track.
"It was weird," said catcher Javy Lopez, who hit two doubles
off the wall. "Sometimes the wind was blowing out, sometimes it
was blowing in. With the open (outfield), it makes the wind twist.
It's going to be like that the whole year because of the shape of
the stadium."
Andruw Jones also homered and Quilvio Veras drove in three runs
with a bases-loaded double for Atlanta in the eighth.
All of Cincinnati's runs came off homers – Dmitri Young's solo
shot and Sean Casey's three-run homer off John Burkett that tied
the game at 4 in the sixth inning.
"Sometimes, the ball didn't carry. Sometimes, the ball took
off," said Young, who had to run down Furcal's sacrifice fly to
left field. "On Furcal's fly, I was playing in and that ball just
kept going and going. On Andruw Jones' ball and the one that Lopez
hit, I didn't know if they were that strong or if they got the ball
up in the jet stream."
Marc Valdes got the victory by getting the final out in the
sixth.
The new-look field drew raves from the crowd of 41,901 and
blushes from the umpiring crew, which wasn't clear on the ground
rules.
Second base umpire Bill Miller incorrectly called Lopez's double
high off the 40-foot wall in center a home run in the fifth inning,
a mistake that was quickly corrected and didn't figure in the
outcome.
Neither did Ken Griffey Jr., one of the most prolific home-run
hitters on Opening Day. The center fielder, who was out of the
Reds' starting lineup because of a strained left hamstring,
pinch-hit in the seventh and took a called third strike from Mike
Remlinger, who froze him with a knee-high fastball on the outside
corner.
Griffey has seven opening-day homers, tied with Eddie Mathews,
Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Carl Yastrzemski for second-most in
major league history. Frank Robinson hit eight.
Greg Maddux didn't make it, either. A comebacker off his left
big toe last week forced him to skip his opening day start, ending
the Braves' run of 11 openers by its Big Three – Maddux, Tom
Glavine and John Smoltz.
Burkett, who had started five openers for San Francisco, Florida
and Texas, did fine as Maddux's fill-in until the sixth, when
Casey's tying homer offered more evidence that the ball is going to
carry this season in Cincinnati.
For a few moments in the fifth inning, the umpires were prepared
to award Lopez a homer on a ball that didn't clear the wall. His
drive to center off starter Pete Harnisch smacked the black plywood
above the green padding that extends 14 feet, and Miller
immediately twirled his right hand in the home run signal. It was
the wrong call – the entire 40-foot wall is in play.
Lopez, who held up at second, started trotting toward home as
Reds manager Bob Boone shot out of the dugout. Home plate umpire
Jim Joyce reversed the call before Lopez made it home.
"I thought everybody knew that it had to go over it for a home
run," Boone said. "It was in all the newspapers. The key is to
get it right, and they got it right."
Game notes
At age 36, Burkett was the second-oldest Atlanta pitcher to
start an opener. Phil Niekro started one at age 44. ... Gaylord
Perry and Bert Blyleven are the only pitchers to start an opener
for five different clubs. ... Jones is 6-for-14 career off Harnisch
with three homers. ... Lopez, who broke his left index finger on
March 13, was 3-for-5 and reached on shortstop Barry Larkin's
error. ... Boone and 3B Aaron Boone became the sixth father-son
manager-player combination in major league history. ... The Reds
sold LHP Ed Yarnall to the Orix Blue Wave of Japan for $300,000.
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RECAPS
Chi. White Sox 7
Cleveland 4
NY Yankees 7
Kansas City 3
Baltimore 2
Boston 1
Seattle 5
Oakland 4
Atlanta 10
Cincinnati 4
Montreal 5
Chicago Cubs 4
Colorado 8
St. Louis 0
Philadelphia 6
Florida 5
San Francisco 3
San Diego 2
Los Angeles 1
Milwaukee 0
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Javy Lopez felt good swinging the bat on Opening Day.
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