Reds fans can expect plenty of good news this week, with the likely return of Devin Mesoraco and Aroldis Chapman. But the past seven days were also memorable. In case you missed it, here are the highlights, from the pages of Redleg Nation.
The week began with Johnny Cueto pitching a great game against Milwaukee (Johnny be REAL Good) and ended with him pitching another (One-Run Heaven) against the league’s best offense.
Both the guys who hit home runs last night, Todd Frazier (Good News: Todd Frazier) and Joey Votto (Maybe Votto IS Wrong about His Power) were featured in columns with optimistic breakdowns of their hitting numbers.
Not everything this week was super, however — Jay Bruce had knee surgery (Out 3-4 Weeks), the Reds shameful roster situation was exposed in Boston (.083/.115/.125) and Mike Maffie analyzed J.J. Hoover’s poor start to the season (Hooverville).
The Reds made a rare mid-week trip to Fenway Park, where they lost a pair of games by the score of 4-3, raising the specter of Twelfth-Inning Ghosts from Game Six and reminding us of the consequences of Failing to do One’s Job. One good thing that came from that brief road trip was Richard’s long, wonderful account of his visit to Fenway (I Don’t Care if I Ever Get Back).
The Reds are in the midst of three games against the Colorado Rockies. To preview the series, we exchanged Q&As with a Denver-based sports network. Here are their thoughts about the series (Blunting Their Blazing Start) and here are ours (Enemy Territory with the Reds).
If you missed one of our regular morning features: Tom Diesman recapped the week for the Reds farm system, Chad and Joel Luckhaupt recorded a podcast, Nick Kirby detailed the status of the Reds’ NL Central competitors, Chris Garber reminded us with pictures of Sparky’s single most important managerial decision, and Doug Gray wrote about early season developments for certain Reds minor league players.
And on Star Wars Sunday, Mike Maffie took a humorous look at actual searches people used to stumble into Redleg Nation (This Isn’t the Site You’re Looking For).