Le Sigh

I miss being able to count on our offense to do something. I'm sure one of these days we'll get back to that. I really hope "one of these days" translates to "tomorrow." I'm not throwing this season away. It's still much too early for that. But I am getting more and more concerned. You can only say "They can't slump like this forever" so many times before you begin to wonder if they actually can. Losing 5 in a row, and two of those to the Pirates, is no fun. I think I might seriously have forgotten what last season felt like.

On the bright side, According to one of the guys on FSN Ohio, Cincinnati's record (23-17) is still better than it was at this point in their last two winning seasons. And it's still above .500. They also pointed out yesterday that the Reds play much better when the temperature is above 70. I'm going to take that to mean that this summer will be awesome. We just have to get through this fake October first.

Yesterday, instead of using their fury over having been swept by the Phillies over the weekend, our guys seemed to have continued their offensive naptime. I'm hoping that offensive juice and cookies time is about here, which ought to lead into offensive play time, where the Reds kick everyone's boo-tays and we all celebrate again.

Anyway, Harang had a pretty subpar outing. Among other things, he walked 3 in a row. But, at the same time, he struck out 8, which is good. But then the walks are bad. His 7 runs weren't very good either. Sure, only 3 of them were earned, but the other 4 were a result of his own error, so they might as well all have gone on as earned runs. I'm going to assume the not-so-great showing was a result of role reversal, in that the bottom of the rotation had such a great weekend that the top had to compensate. Arroyo did a good job of reinforcing that theory tonight. Matt Belisle and recently recalled (and slightly less recently sent down) Mike Burns allowed no runs on a few hits. Brian Shackelford gave the Pirates their final 2 runs, bringing the total to 9. The Reds put up a grand total of 3 runs, thanks to pinch hitting Dave Ross's two-run homer and Felipe Lopez's solo shot. Loss number 4.

Tonight was really much of the same. Arroyo, furthering my role reversal theory, made it through just 6 innings (9 hits and 4 runs). Not exactly terrible, but not up to his usual standards. He had a brain meltdown in the 2nd and completely missed the damn pitcher stealing 2nd. I don't know if he forgot he was there or what. I wouldn't have been surprised to see Ross slap him in the face when he went out to talk to him, though. His control wasn't all that great, either. Todd Coffey came in for the 7th, gave up 1 hit, walked one and struck out 3. Rick White managed to screw things up again, effectively putting the game out of reach in the 8th by giving up 3 more runs.

The Pirates only managed 7 runs on this occasion. Always accomodating, the Reds knocked some off the top of their previous day's total as well and only scored 2 runs. Kearns sacrificed in Freel in the 1st. Later, in the 5th, Griffey singled, which brought in (surprise!) Freel.

I don't really have much to say about that. The Reds have lost 5 in a row. It's gotta stop. Williams is pitching tomorrow. I don't know if I should be hopeful or terrified. It's all so confusing!