Let’s recap today’s titanic struggle….
FINAL
Cincinnati 4
San Diego 2
W: J. Cueto (10-5)
L: J. Marquis (1-5)
S: A. Chapman (11)
BOX SCORE
POSITIVES
–How about this for a positive?
#Reds 6-5 on the west coast road trip, and 9 games over .500 at the All-Star break. I’m VERY happy with that.
— Redleg Nation (@redlegnation) July 8, 2012
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We all complain about lineups, and which players should be in which roles, etc. Be honest with yourself, though: if someone told you before the season that the Reds would be nine games over .500, one game out of first, and leading the wild card at the All-Star break, you would have been very happy with that. Be honest!
I’m happy with it. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed/changed about this club, but hey, at least we aren’t the Padres.
–Brandon Phillips was 3-5 with a run scored and an RBI. Zack Cozart was 2-5 with a double and a run scored.
–Aroldis Chapman was dominant again tonight. Ended the game on a 101 mph fastball.
–Three of the Cincinnati runs scored on back to back homers by Jay Bruce and Ryan Ludwick in the fourth inning. Both were absolutely drilled. Bruce’s HR was to deep center field (after sending a ball all the way to the warning track in the deepest part of the park in his previous AB), and Ludwick’s was an upper-deck shot to left field.
–In addition to Chapman, the Reds got good work out of the pen from Sam LeCure and dominant work from Sean Marshall.
NEGATIVES
–Scott Rolen was 0-4 with three strikeouts, and he looked pretty bad. It’s sad to see a Hall of Fame caliber player who can’t get around on a fastball anymore.
RIP, Scott Rolen’s career.
— Chad Dotson (@dotsonc) July 8, 2012
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–Drew Stubbs also struck out three times, but at least he got one hit.
NOT-SO-RANDOM THOUGHTS
–A 6-5 west coast road trip. I’ll take that every time, after the struggles the Reds have had out west over the years. Heck, I’d take 6-5 if they were playing PAC-10 teams on the road trip.
–Johnny Cueto wasn’t sharp, and he ended the Reds streak of consecutive quality starts (at nine). Cueto went 5.2 innings, surrendering two runs on seven hits and two walks. I guess if that’s a bad start for Cueto, he must be a pretty good pitcher, huh?
–One of the biggest gripes we’ve had over the last few years is the mismanagement of the roster when a player is injured, and the reluctance to place a player on the disabled list (forcing the manager to play short-handed). To wit:
It was definitely smart of the #reds to let Scott Rolen miss 9 games without DLing him. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gotten this.
— Chris Garber (@cgarber8) July 8, 2012
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If the Reds had just DL’d Rolen, he’d be available to come off the DL after the All-Star break. Instead, the Reds played with a 24-man roster for a week and a half, and got 4 terrible at-bats from Rolen in exchange. Not a good trade-off.
–I can’t verify this yet, but did I hear Thom say, on the broadcast, that Cozart’s double (his 21st of the year) broke Nomar Garciaparra’s record for most doubles by a shortstop before the All-Star break?
–So, what are you going to do without baseball over the next few days?
Source: FanGraphs