Reds Say It's Okay To Stop Supporting Them Now, Padres 7-1

Last night the team made it pretty clear that Gapper is the only one out there who a Reds fan can feel good about supporting. Harang was awful and put up a solid one run on one hit. Nice job guys. Hopefully Dusty gave everyone his famous speech about Hank Aaron after the game. You know, the one where he tells everyone that he is personal friends with Hank Aaron. That always inspires.

So, looks as if the Reds are going to have to win today to earn a split with the Padres which is not what the Reds Rocket predicted coming into the series. Cueto is back on the mound but appears to have forgotten that early in the season he was reliable and effective. Also, it's probably the day for the second team offense to head out there which is going to be a major step down from the offense that we've been seeing for the last month or so.

In big other Reds-related news, Reds acquired Wladimir Balentien from the Mariners for Robert Manuel. Manuel you'll remember as the product acquired from the Mets for everyone's favorite sack of shit, Dave Williams. In addition to being named Wladimir, Balentien offers some plus power and a skill set popular on the current Reds roster, the ability to kill AAA pitching combined with being completely overmatched at the big league level. Wladimir was given the opening day job with the Mariners last year and was somewhere south of fantastic. He was given regular at bats this year and was putting up .213/.271/.355 numbers. Not too bad. He's going to stick around with the big club and strike out in a few big situations. Nice to meet you Wladimir. Enjoy yourself in Cincinnati.