Since my last Reds Report, the Reds season has been a bit frustrating, along with a lot of exciting and encouraging moments. After winning the first two series against the Angels and Nationals, the Reds were swept by the Pirates before coming home to win the first of three in comeback fashion against the Phillies. During the abysmal Pirates series, the bullpen blew leads and gave up big home runs late in the game, and our ace Johnny Cueto went down with a strained muscle in his back. The bright spot recently has been the Reds' all-star second baseman Brandon Phillips who has been on fire in recent games.
The biggest complaint this year has been the bullpen, and in particular Dusty Baker's questionable decision making when it comes to relievers. We saw J.J. Hoover pitch in what seemed to be every single game to the point where you thought his arm was due to fall off. He started the year solid but has been overworked and has since struggled. This is all on Dusty. You cant run a guy into the ground less than a month into the season, especially when he is a young am and you have the most loaded bullpen in all of baseball. We also saw Jonathan Broxton brought in to face the middle of the Pirates lineup after not pitching for over two weeks. That simply cant happen if you expect your relievers to be productive at all. How can Dusty run guy into the ground at the same time as he keeps another guy on the bench to get ice cold? It seems like a simple problem to solve for a major league manager.
At the beginning of the year the Reds could have had arguably the best rotation in the National League led by Johnny Cueto and Mat Latos. Now that rotation could be in some trouble as the Reds placed Cueto on the 15-day DL with a strained muscle in his back that he suffered in his last start. This is a nightmare flashback for Reds fans after seeing Cueto go down in the first game of the playoffs last year. With that fresh in the memories of fans this hurts, but wont de-rail the Reds season entirely as he is expected to make a recovery this year and the Reds have other viable pitching options for their rotations. Lefty Tony Cingrani is expected to be called up to make Cueto's next start and has been lights out in triple-A Louisville in his first two starts. Cingrani will fill the void while Cueto is gone if he can hold it down and if he impresses could even steal away the fifth starting spot in the rotation away from Mike Leake.
With a lot of disappointing things and injury news, there is also a bright spot for our Redlegs, and his name is Brandon Phillips. BP has been up to his usual gold glove tricks at second base, turning amazing plays that seem to be routine now in GABP. But Brandon has also been golden at the plate, especially when the club has needed his bat most. In Pittsburgh he hit not one, but two game tying home runs when the Reds were down which is about as clutch as it gets even though the Reds eventually lost that game. Two nights ago, after Bronson Arroyo gave up a game tying home run to Chase Utley, Phillips was visibly upset in the dugout and was told by Dusty Baker that h would have his chance to win this game. Dusty predicted correctly and Brandon came up with two men on and promptly hit a two run single to give the Reds a lead they would keep for the rest of the game. He celebrated with as much raw emotion and heart as you will ever see from a guy who cares more about this game than just about anyone. Keep knockin em in BP.
No comments:
Post a Comment