Reds Finally Arrive Home and Find the Brewers There Waiting to Lose More Games, Reds 7-3

Fortunately for the Reds, and unfortunately for all of the teams who play the Reds, Dusty's squad rolled back into town after concluding a solid 2-8 road swing. This improved slightly in Philadelphia and Atlanta in that they were able to win one game in each location. The Reds' play in Atlanta wasn't bad, the two losses were real disappointments. Yesterday Cueto went the whole way but lost 2-1 when no one other than Bruce did much with the bat. Saturday, after a nice comeback following another troubling Arroyo start, everyone but Bruce seemed to get a big hit before they eventually lost in extras. Fisher wasn't quite as solid, giving up the loser in only a little over an inning of work. But the rest of the pen did a pretty nice job.

Today things were better. Bruce continued his hot streak, going out of the yard and adding a triple and a single. His average is all the way up to .294 and the homer was his NL leading 16th. Pretty good Ray Jay. Votto is still hitting, sitting at .330 and getting on base just under half the time based upon his NL leading number of walks. I'd give you the number but that would just be extra work for me and extra reading for you. You've already been on this site far too long, 30 seconds or so, so, I don't blame you for being in a hurry to get the hell our of here. Bernie Brewer's dead eyes, even when accompanied with a double finger 'you 'da man' gesture, give me the creeps.

Wood was pretty solid today, going 6 with 3 runs allowed. That's solid when the offense decides it's time to get off its collective behind and pick up a couple of hits. Bruce, as stated, was good. Janish-Yanish, not to be held down by the umpire's mistreatment of his apparently good slide in Sunday night's game, had a couple of hits and stole a base. Gomes has been hot lately, getting his average up near .200 as he bargains with Jocketty not to find his roster spot redundant. Now if Rolen would just start hitting on a regular basis. He received an extra treatment of weird smelling old guy ointment after the game and should be ready to go.

Tomorrow, 29-year-old Chad Reineke gets his first chance in a while to make a major league start. All the luck with you Chad. The Reds site says he hasn't gotten a taste of the big league per diem since '09. I'm sure he's ready to go. At least for now. Volquez looked good in AAA, as he should. And Bailey is apparently okay, but that comes with the same caveat of general dishonesty to the fan base. Leake, who I forgot to mention above, pitched quite nicely against the Bravo Savages Friday night providing the team with its lone Atlanta-based win. He'll get another shot, deservedly so. Reds are ready to start winning again. Reds! Reds! Reds!