Cincinnati Reds

The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game Homer Bailey threw a not-quite-Hossian six innings, but allowed just two runs while striking out eight, walking three, and not allowing any homeruns. They say you find out something about a pitcher when he doesn't have his "A" stuff. We found out Homer's "B" game is still good enough to beat the Cubs. Honorable mentions to Derek Robinson for executing a key suicide squeeze bunt, Ryan Hanigan for doubling in an insurance run, Todd Frazier for driving in a couple, and the bullpen for three scoreless. Key Plays Handsome Homer didn't have his best stuff early on. It caught up in the third, when an Anthony Rizzo double and Alfonso Soriano single each plated a run. Cubs 2, Reds nil. Conversely, the beady-eyed, bearded Travis Wood breezed through the first two frames. The bottom of the order made some noise in the third but didn't get a run in. In the fourth, Brandon Phillips walked and went to third (running on the pitch, I think) on Jay Bruce's single. Todd Frazier scored BP with a sac fly. Cubs 2, Reds 1. The Reds took control in the sixth. Votto looked awful against Wood in his first two PAs, but drew a four-pitch walk to lead off. Beep followed with a single. Then, the next four Reds hitters drove in a run: Todd Frazier rapped a single up the middle to score Votto; Derek Robinson laid a nice bunt off of a high fastball for a suicide squeeze to score Phillips; Ryan Hanigan lined a double to score Frazier; and PH Hail Ceasar! Itzuris lifted a single just over Starlin Castro to score Hanigan. That chased Wood, who entered the inning with 81 pitches and departed at 115 and without a Quality Start for the first time this year. Sam LeCure pitched an uneventful seventh, Jonathan Broxton an eventful but scoreless eighth, and Aroldis Chapman closed the door in the ninth. MLB then retroactively changed the Save rule to not award one when facing the bottom of the Cubs' order with a three-run lead. Anyways, ball game. via www.fangraphs.com Other Notes The Reds announced that they are suspending Jose Arredondo as part of a "disciplinary action" (i.e., not drugs). Jim Riggleman thinks it will be for up to two weeks. El Beeperino extended his hitting streak to 12. This is the fastest the Reds have gotten to 12 games over .500 since 1995. H/T to Jamie Ramsey. The Beach Boys are playing tomorrow at GABP. Wouldn't it be nice to see them? God only knows I'd rather be out than stuck here in my room on Red Reporter instead. Start the reactor at 1:10 tomorrow, when the Heroes' Johnny Cueto takes on the Villains' Matt Garza.

The Reds suspended Triple-A right-hander Jose Arredondo. General manager Walt Jocketty said it was a disciplinary action and the suspension will be “short.” “It was a disciplinary action we took, nothing major, but something we felt we had to address,” Jocketty said. Arredando, 29, appeared in 66 games for the Reds last season, going 6-2 ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Nationals didn’t have a close shave, and neither did Davey Johnson. View full post on Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Cincinnati Reds News

Joe Morgan has a locker close to Brandon Phillips in the Reds clubhouse, while several other former Reds, including Johnny Bench, Eric Davis, Tom Browning and Mario Soto are either employed by the Reds or will make appearances in spring training and occasionally throughout the year. But for manager Dusty Baker, there’s one face missing ...

Reds pitcher Homer Bailey looks to continue his strong performance against the Cubs, as he is 5-2 in 10 starts and has won his last four decisions against them. Cubs left-hander Travis Wood will make his fourth start against his former team. Wood, who pitched two seasons for the Reds, is 0-1 with a 4.42 ...

If you read an article on Sports Illustrated this week, you would have seen a local laughingstock trying to start a debate where there isn't one. Now, I have no idea what SI wants with Paul Daughtery, but I'm embarrassed for this city that he's representing us. Allow me to retort. The old school scout is tanned and paunchy. His face is leathery from decades of sitting in sunburned high school bleachers; his eyes are wrinkled from all the squinting. Cut him open, he bleeds rosin. He has a radar gun, a notebook and some binoculars. He knows what he knows. Well, I wouldn't expect him to know what he doesn't know, would I? This is meant to romanticize the old weathered scout. This is Clint Eastwood in that Amy Adams movie nobody saw. "Joey Votto is supposed to drive in runs,'' he says. "The guys in front of him are paid to score them. When you're batting third in any lineup, if you're taking close pitches with runners on base, you're not doing your job.'' This is utterly ridiculous. If you're making the "the guys in front of him are paid to score them" argument, why isn't this article about Zack Cozart? If this is lineup construction, why isn't this about Dusty Baker making questionable choices? Nope. Joey Votto's fault. The best player on the team and one of the best hitters in the league is what's plaguing this 30-18 Reds squad with the 3rd best record in baseball. Got it. The new age executive is young and lean. He wears a tie. He has a laptop, which he opens to reveal the secrets of baseball. His secrets, anyway. He looks at the old scout and says, "Tell me again where you got your Economics degree?'' The young exec uses terms the scout finds exotic. He seems to talk in code: WAR. OPS. BABIP. "Youth" is used as a bad word here. Sounds like Old Man Daughtery is letting his personal biases through here. He's one of the remnants of a bygone age of journalism, but instead of adapting like many of his contemporaries, he chooses to feel threatened and attack a younger generation. Hal McCoy has been covering the team for twice as long as Doc has, but has embraced the new medium with open arms, now with Fox Sports Ohio. Then again, this is about advanced stats, right? It's callous to insinuate that any scout needs an economics degree to be a good scout. In fact, I think Doc's knowledge of the "stathead" side of this argument is what he learned from watching the trailer to "Moneyball". If there's a scout out there that isn't familiar with WAR, OPS and BABIP, they probably aren't employed. Seriously, it takes 5 minutes to read about these concepts and familiarize yourself with them, even if you don't choose to put much stock into them to evaluate talent. BABIP? Yes, BABIP. Batting Average on Balls In Play. Something you can learn about in 5 minutes if you did your research before writing this article. I guess they didn't do research before fancy laptops came along, so Doc's not going to do it either. The exec loves Joey Votto. He thinks Votto earns every penny of the $9.5 million he's making this year, and the $225 million he will make through 2023, if he plays out his current contract. The young exec knows what he knows. And why wouldn't he? Someone like Daugherty should know this better than anyone, given the fact that he lives here. Joey Votto may be overlooked at times on a national scale because of the market he plays in, but he's larger than life in Cincinnati. Joey Votto passes the eye test a million times over. To suggest that he's not earning his $9.5M salary is ludicrous. "Look how much better he makes the hitters around him,'' he says. "Look at the opportunities he's creating to score runs, not just for himself, but for others.'' The debate rages. Scout says, "He has 22 RBIs in 47 games. That's a 75-RBI pace. Unacceptable.'' The exec sounds like a pretty smart dude, doesn't he? Seriously, how can you completely isolate one part of his game for an argument and ignore everything els

When Ryan Ludwick underwent surgery to repair a tear of the labrum in his right shoulder, the word was that at best, Ludwick would be able to return after the All-Star break. That’s not going to be the case, Ludwick said Saturday. “People seem to be under the impression that I’ll be back in the ...

Beating the Cubs is so much fun, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Reds do it again today. Wouldn’t you? Discuss today’s beating here.  And GO REDS!

Next Game Chicago Cubs @ Cincinnati Reds Saturday, May 25, 2013, 4:10 PM EDT Great American Ball Park Travis Wood vs Homer Bailey Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to right field at 1-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 65. Complete Coverage > Last night was about as much as you can ask for as a Reds fan. Bats alive, sell-out crowd who was into the game, solid night by Bronson, and a bunch of dingers. Today sees Travis Wood return to GABP to pitch in front of what should be another pretty nice crowd. Wood has been one of the better pitchers in the NL so far, honestly. He's got a 2.24 ERA through 9 starts, all of which have been quality ones. He hasn't gone less than 6 innings in a start, and hasn't given up more than 3 runs all year. That's getting it done. It's nice to see Trailer Park Trav having some success, but I wish it wasn't with the Cubs. I digress. He'll face Homer Bailey, who is similarly having his best season yet. He's coming off of two great starts in a row, and will hope to erase what happened in his last start at home, where he gave up 4 runs in 5 innings. Bullpen Log Reliever 5/20 5/21 5/22 5/23 5/24 5 day totals Aroldis Chapman 1.0, 11p 1.0, 18p - 1.0, 22p 3.0 IP, 51 pitches Jonathan Broxton 1.0, 11p - 1.0, 21p 2.0 IP, 32 pitches Sam LeCure 1.0, 18p - 1.0 IP, 18 pitches J.J. Hoover 0.1, 3p 0.1, 3p - 0.2 IP, 6 pitches Logan Ondrusek 1.0, 15p 1.0, 14p - 1.0, 13p 3.0 IP, 42 pitches Manny Parra - 0.0 IP, 0 pitches Alfredo Simon 1.0, 15p - 1.0 IP, 15 pitches

Chris Jaffe over at The Hardball Times notes that Joey Votto is on track to become only the seventh player ever to lead his league in both Hits and Walks. You don't have to think long to see why it's so rare. Drawing walks necessarily takes away from the ability to amass hits. Leading the rate categories of AVG and OBP is one thing, but collecting more base hits than all of the free swingin' singles hitters is quite another. Per Jaffe, here's the list: Lenny Dykstra, 1994Carl Yastrzemski, 1963Richie Ashburn, 1958Rogers Hornsby, 1924Billy Hamilton, 1891Ross Barnes, 1876 That's nice company. Four are Hall of Famers. Barnes was a great hitter by the rules of the day, though the league soon changed the rules. (He was master of the fair-foul hit, in which if the ball first landed fair, then it was fair even if it went foul before leaving the infield). Dykstra is the weird one, but even he had a nice career. I wrote way back in 2009 that the Reds hadn't seen a 200-hit season since Pete Rose in 1977, easily the longest drought in the majors. You all resoundingly voted for Votto as most likely to break the streak (who's the wise guy who voted for Stubbs?). With 65 hits through 48 games, Votto's on pace for 219 for the season. I wouldn't have thought that was possible earlier this year when his walk rate soared around 30%. Now that he's at a merely excellent 18%, 200 hits seems very attainable so long he doesn't suffer any freak injuries this year. All of this is just another way to show how terrific Votto has hit this year - through numbers completely incapable of manipulation. Votto has more Hits and more Walks than anyone else in the National League. How can he not be the league's best hitter? It would take a dim soul to conclude otherwise. Probably through a tortured calculation of the number of runs scored during Votto's at bats while ignoring opportunities. Looking at the rest of the NL hitting leaderboard, it's no surprise to see Shin-Soo Choo's name all over the place. He's second to Votto in OBP and offensive WAR, among other things. He's also third in Runs and ninth in Homeruns. Jay Bruce still has the Doubles lead with 16 (and Ks with 63) and he's seventh in RBIs with 31. Brandon Phillips is tops in that category with 42. Phillips and Zack Cozart are in a three-way tie with Yonder Alonso in Sac Flies with 5. No Reds are among the top ten in Stolen Bases, but they also don't appear among the GIDP leaders.