Titanic Struggle Recap: An exciting battle for fifth (also known as last) place!

The Good
–Raisel Iglesias is good. Have I mentioned that I’m excited about his future? Tonight, he went seven innings, allowing three runs on four hits while striking out ten. He retired sixteen straight batters at one point.

When Iglesias is on a good Reds team at some point in the future, that will be more than good enough.

–Brandon Phillips had a couple of hits in the leadoff spot. He also stole a base. Classic leadoff hitter, right?

–Sam LeCure pitched two-thirds of an inning after one Collin Ballester made a mess of things. LeCure walked a hitter, but didn’t give up a run. His ERA since returning to the Queen City remains 0.00.

–Joey Votto reached base three times, with a hit and two walks. He also stole a base (and was caught stealing). He’s good.

The Bad
–Reds got five hits. Not cool.

–Collin Balester, who is an actual pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds National League Baseball Club, tried his best tonight. Which I appreciate. But he had a rough outing: two runs allowed on two hits and a walk, while recording just one out in the eighth inning.

–Ryan LaMarre was 0-3 with two strikeouts. He’s hitting .077/.077/.077. Rough start to his major league career, which is unfortunate since it’s almost universally agreed that LaMarre is a pretty great guy.

–The Reds haven’t scored a run in 19 innings.

Not-So-Random Thoughts
–My head hurts. The Reds have now lost 13 of their last 14 games. Good grief. This is difficult to endure.

–You can absolutely hate the Milwaukee Brewers*, yet be completely in love with their throwback uniforms tonight.

*I don’t hate them, actually. It’s not like they’re the Cardinals.

–The Reds have now dropped 1.5 games behind the Brew Crew in the race for last place in the National League Central.

–What else can we say? Only this, I guess:

Milton was unhappy with Cincinnati’s performance tonight.