Reds, Strategically, Allow Mets to Sweep, 10-9

Sweeps at home are always tough to take. Four game sweeps at home to an, arguably, inferior team who traded its All-Star right fielder after game two of the series which preceded even greater offensive production make Dusty want throw his wristbands into the garbage disposal. But the series just reminded me that I still need to buy one of those collectable Dusty Baker toothpick holders that were a big hit earlier in the season. Because, after lulling the National League to sleep with the feigned poor play, the Reds are finally ready to make their move. The -6 in the win/loss column will soon be remedied and the 6.5 games they trail in the Central leaderboard just isn't going to hold up.

Yesterday, the Metropolitans beat up Arroyo who was still having some trouble, based upon him checking the radar gun after every fastball, getting his heater into the range that he wants. He was consistently at 86-87 yesterday when he usually sits in the 88-90 range. At least per my recollection. Cowboy was making a big point about it and y'all know that Brantley speaks nothing but the truth and ice cream. He does talk about ice cream a lot. Today they hammered Bailey, putting up 9 over 4 innings. The offense which showed little heart yesterday put together a nicer performance today piling up 9 runs. Though the run pile was not quite as tall as the Mets'.

The problem, as I've stated before, is clearly substitute radio play-by-play man Jim Kelch. Other than Votto, who plans to hit a bomb everyday for the rest of the season, the rest of the team struggles with Kelch's slow delivery and overly verbose style. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy, who put in his time at Louisville before getting the call last year, but he's killing the team. And, unfortunately, that's what it comes down to in this business - results. And Jim Kelch simply isn't producing. Maybe they can throw him in on the forthcoming deal for Willie Bloomquist.

Giants roll into town tomorrow with Ryan Vogelsong attempting to get some outs. He's going to have some trouble in that department. The three-game sweep will even the homestand at 5-5 and then the train will be back on track. Willis wears the striped overalls and conductor hat tomorrow.