I Wanna Be a "Blog of Note"

Whoa holiday! I'm back at the blog. Now that I'm here, though, I can't think of anything to say. Or rather, I can't narrow anything down to something say-able. Not posting for a couple months at a time creates this problem.
I'll start with this: I'm not sure why, but I've been feeling better about the second half of the season. I don't know if it's the new management or just the new half or what, but I feel better about it. I don't know that the Reds are doing any better, as we're still near the bottom of the division (though at least now the Pirates are under us where they rightfully belong). I think part of it is that I've been able to learn a bit more about the games on a more regular basis now that the newspaper hasn't been disappearing every day. Just knowing what's going on helps.
I think it must just be knowing that we're not in last place anymore. Not in last place and sweeping the Braves. Even losing to the Cubs by embarassingly large margins hasn't been able to break through the tiniest little glimmer of optimism I've let come back. You know, I'd love to think the Reds could still pull something amazing out of their asses. They've still got about a million games left against the Brewers. I suppose something could happen. It'd be nice if the rest of the division would keep sucking, too.
So there's what you get when I let my mind wander off and write whatever it thinks it wants to talk about. At least I stayed with baseball.
COMPLETELY RANDOM CHANGE OF SUBJECT
It doesn't appear likely that the mystery of the ballpark trashcans is going to be solved this season. Prospects for attending any games this season look dim. Tiny Casey and Tinier Dunn are getting bored of looking at the same trash cans over and over, but there's no more investigating to be done around here. All the research is complete.
I wonder how one becomes a Blog of Note.

I Swear I Still Heart Them

Hey! I'm online! I've been online for more than 5 minutes without getting kicked off! It's a miracle! Anyway, I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that I still heart the Reds. I can only see about 1 1/2 games a week, I can't manage to stay online long enough to get any information on the team and all I know about most games is whether they won or lost, but I still heart them as much as ever. The last nearly two months have not been pleasant. I hope they pull out of this crap, soon. At least they haven't been losing by quite so many runs lately. It looks a little less depressing. Also, I want to know what the hell is going on with Arroyo. Is this just how he pitches when he's not trying to prove he's too good for Cincinnati, or is something actually wrong? And one more little tidbit. I haven't been able to keep up on Freel's injury lately, but I hope all is going well for him, and Farney as well. His little world was probably rocked pretty good, too. Go Reds!

Tiny Casey: Super Sleuth - Part I

In my quest to solve the mystery of the Great American Trash Cans, I enlisted the help of a great, though small, detective. Tiny Agent Casey and his protege, Tinier Dunnson, are on the case. The two are very thorough. To begin the investigation they researched the different kinds of recepticles they might be looking for.

First up, the small, beige-ish white kind of can:

Then the medium, blue can:

And finally the large, green can(s):

I'm not exactly sure how examining the trash cans around my house will help them, but they're the detectives. Tune in next time for the continuation of this mystery.

Workin' for the Weekend (and more)

I'm not used to this whole working during baseball thing. As it turns out, it sucks. I don't get to see anything. And apparently I'm going to whine about that all season, but I gots ta make a livin'. In the last several days the Reds have finally won a game against the Diamondbacks, won another series with the Cubs (though barely) and lost the first game of the series with the Brewers. The common theme of all the games (until today's) was pretty good pitching backed by crap at the plate. This is made all the more disappointing by the hot start last year. Granted, last year we had a few more big bats in the lineup. One that I still miss a great deal. Because, you know, I knew him personally and all (that was sarcasm in case you didn't get it. I feel like an ass explaining it, but no one ever gets it). DAMN YOU AOL AND YOUR RANDOM BIAS AGAINST PARAGRAPH BREAKS!! Tonight it seems the offense might finally have started putting things together, scoring 6 runs. Unfortunately, those 6 runs were less than the Brewers' 10. If Coffey hadn't blown up and given up those five runs, though, Cincy might have been able to pull off another victory. That is assuming, of course, that the rest of the game went the way it did. But if you've seen Back to the Future you know what happens if you change the past. Hamilton contributed two of the Reds' runs with his third homer of the season. Encarnacion and Griffey also helped the score. As for pitching, Milton did not have too terrible an outing. He only gave up one home run in his five innings, only three hits, and three runs. Santos and Saarloos allowed a run a piece. Coutlangus continued looking pretty darn awesome and allowed no runs on one hit. Coffey, however, allowed five runs, four earned (thanks mostly to a Bill Hall grand slam) in one-third of an inning. Tomorrow it's game two. Matt Belisle attempts to keep his good times rolling against Milwaukee's Dave Bush. The game's on FSN at 7:10. Guess where I'll be!

New(ish?) Blog

New blog to link for you. New for me anyway. I've been meaning to check this out for a while but I am lazy and have failed to do so until now. It's quite entertaining. Go check out Redus and Weep.

Hamilton

I finally got to see Hamilton do something live!!! I missed his first major league at bat. I missed his first major league start. I missed his first major league hit. I missed his first major league home run. Granted, three of those were contained in one game. Tonight, thanks to the wonders of this thing called a "night off" I got to see his second major league home run. I think he's going to be pretty exciting.

Since I Can't Say it Better Myself

Yeah!

Hardy Har Har

Anyone else think Jeff Brantley's air time consists of more laughing than anything else?

Mr. Giant Golf Club Inventor

That would be my new favorite Real Man of Genius and I just thought you all should know it, since I heard the commercial during tonight's game. FOUR!!!
Tonight was another 1 run loss for the Reds, this one coming at the end of 11 innings. Thanks to the extended nature of the game, I was able to hear/see more than the last inning of the game. Still, I was not able to bear witness to Josh Hamilton's first major league hit/homerun. I'm sorry to have missed it, but I'm sure I can find a number of replays. There's probably one up on Reds.com already. It's going to be quite the popular story in the Cincy area.
Kyle Lohse started the game for the Reds. The only players not to leave the bench or bullpen during the course of the game were Chad Moeller, Victor Santos and Jon Coutlangus.
Dunn started off his evening with a solo homer in the 1st. Hamilton's 2-run bomb came in the 3rd. Brandon Phillips finished out the scoring with his own solo shot, also in the 3rd.
Even with those three home runs, the Reds could not pull out a win. The Snakes jumped out to the lead in their half of the 1st on a 3-run homer from Chad Tracy. Hamilton and Phillips gave the Reds the lead in the 3rd, but Chris Snyder's home run in the 4th brought the game to a tie. It stayed that way until the bottom of the 11th, when Arizona finally managed to put the game out of its misery, handing the Reds loss number 4, with a score of 5-4.

Quadruple Header

Belated happy holidays and all that! Thanks to work and the rabbit I now have 4 games on which to catch you up (how strange, in order to avoid ending the sentence in a preposition, I rearranged it so that it ended in another preposition. Of course, to avoid it all together I'd have to have said something like "up on which to catch you," and that just sounds dumb). Seeing as that would take forever to do well, I'll do it short and crappy.

Game the first was the first of the series with the Pirates. Also a game my evil mother attended without me. Let it be known that I actually love my mother and do not think she is evil, but she never even asked if I wanted to go and now I am bitter. Though the cold was also bitter, the Reds won convincingly, by a score of 6 to 1. Matt Belisle pitched and did a bang up job, becoming the fourth pitcher in a row for the Reds to make it through at least 6 innings, which I think is pretty darn nifty. He also held the Pirates to just 1 run. Mom would also like you to know that she put her hot dog wrapper in her pocket rather than let if drift onto the field because she is a concerned citizen and fan and also because there were apparently no trash cans nearby. This is a situation I plan to look into next time I'm at Great American. I cannot recall ever seeing trash cans inside the park. That could be because the trash is not high on my list of Things I'm Excited to See. Or maybe there really aren't any. The investigation begins.

The second game was also against the Pirates (imagine that!). In order to avoid frostbite, the game was moved to 1:00 in the afternoon. Even with the short rest and the bitter cold the Reds came out on top once again, giving Harang his 2nd win of the year with a score of 7-5. Adam Dunn hit his 3rd home run of the season and also stole 2 bases. Jon Coutlangus's major league debut was rather successful, giving up no hits and striking out one in his 0.2 innings.

I pretty much missed Sunday's game due to family time. I played ImaginIff, Spoons and Shoot My Cousins with Foam Airplanes while the Reds were losing for the 2nd time this season. Eric Milton was the pitcher and earner of the big, ugly L. The defeat was pretty crushing, 6-3. The bullpen gave up more than 0 runs for the first time this season, with Coffey and Coutlangus both giving up solo homers. I was able to stop by the TV long enough to see both.

Tonight's game was in Arizona where it is much warmer. It always seems that the Reds have a hard time with the Diamondbacks, and so it was again today. Cincinnati's new away uniforms look a lot like the Phillie's, but I like them still. The D-backs also look different this year, sporting a surprising amount of red. Surprising to me, anyway. While I struggled through an evening of controling high school kids, Bronson Arroyo was working his way through 4 innings of no-hit baseball. The Snakes struck back, though, and took the lead in the 8th. I jumped in my car and turned on the radio in time for the top of the 9th, during which Josh Hamilton walked, making it on base for the first time this season (I think). Hatteberg's double play eliminated them both. Javy got on base with a single just before Phillips ended the game on a fly ball out, giving the Reds loss number 3.

The standings page is all kinds of messed up right now, but I believe Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are still tied for first in the division, both with a record of 4-3.

Number Three

The Reds squeaked out a win for their third game of the year. They put the Cubs down 5-2, but didn't manage to get the lead until the 7th inning. Kyle Lohse pitched for the Reds while Jason Marquis did the same for the Cubs. In his 6.1 innings, Lohse gave up 2 runs on 10 hits and struck out 3. He was replaced by a slew of relievers, including such memorable names as Victor Santos, Rheal Cormier, Kirk Saarloos, Mike Stanton and David Weathers. Their combined 2.2 innings pitched resulted in no more hits and no more runs. Santos got the win and Weathers earned his first save of the season.

The Cubs scored the first run in the 2nd, but the Reds came right back with their own in the 4th when Edwin Encarnacion singled in Brandon Phillips. LFC (Least Favorite Cub) Matt Murton was partly responsible for Chicago's 2nd run, coming home on Aramis Ramirez's double in the 5th. Luckily that was all the scoring the Cubbies would do. The Reds put up 2 more runs in the 7th on a Jeff Conine single and an Adam Dunn walk, at which point they took the lead for good. And just for good measure Scott Hatteberg put up a 2-run homer in the 8th. That all adds up to 5 runs for the good guys and 2 for the bad guys. Good guys win.

Cincinnati is currently tied with Milwaukee for 2nd in the division, just behind the surprising Pittsburgh Pirates, who somehow swept Houston. The Pirates come to town this weekend, and my mother is going to the game tonight without me. How rude.

In Case You Hadn't Noticed

Thom Brennaman would like you to know that it is cold outside today and also that it was not cold outside yesterday. For those of you not living in the eastern half of the US, I suppose that could be news to you, but I'm assuming the vast majority of the people who watched the game tonight probably already know that it's snowing, even though it was almost 80 yesterday.

While Thom talked about the weather there was an actual game going on. Bronson Arroyo's 2007 debut was not quite as clean and shiny as his 2006 debut, but it wasn't too bad. Sure, it ended in a 4-1 loss to the Cubs, but who wants to play baseball when it's 20 degrees and snowing anyway? Perhaps things would have gone better for Arroyo if he had worn long sleeves. He gave up 8 hits and 4 earned runs through 7 plus innings. He did strike out 9, though. Mike Stanton and Todd Coffey combined their efforts for the 8th inning, giving up a hit and no runs. Jared Burton and Victor Santos covered the 9th. Burton's major league debut was not exactly stellar. While he gave up no hits, he walked all three batters he faced. I'd be a nervous wreck, too, though, so no judgment here.

The offense was apparently frozen tonight, scoring just 1 run on 3 hits. The lone RBI goes to none other than Adam Dunn, who probably would have added a few more home runs to his record tonight had the weather been a bit more baseball-like. Or at least that's what Thom said on TV. I really don't know much about how temperature affects a ball's ability to travel, but that's why I'm not a physicist.

On a completely different note, did you know that Jeff Conine is an accomplished racquetball player? If you didn't, now you do.

Too Many Networks

Do you think FSN-HD is an actual channel? I don't have any fancy HD channels, even though I am currently house/cat-sitting for people with a giant HD television, and the Reds site says the game will be on FSN-HD. I don't know enough about the various Fox networks to understand if that means tomorrow's game will or will not be on FSN Ohio. I have time to watch this one, too! Exciting! Maybe I'll get to see Josh Hamilton's second major league at bat. I did finally see his first, courtesy of RHM.

That's really all I've got for now. It's almost 6 AM and I have yet to go to bed. Here's hoping for some work-free baseball to watch tomorrow (or today, rather).

Startin' Out Right

I get some crazy amount of joy out of kicking Carlos Zambrano's butt. I would if I had the opportunity, anyway. Short of that, the Reds kicking his butt on Opening Day is pretty darn good, too. Being able to see more of the game would have been great, but work has this annoying habit of always starting in the middle of games. Since the score when I left was 5-1, though, I suppose I didn't miss a whole lot of consequence.

Adam Dunn earned himself the position of Hero of the Day quite early in the game. He got Zambrano all in a tizzy after hitting home runs off of him in each of his first two appearances. Number two also earned him his 200th career homer. What a nice milestone to reach on Opening Day.

The only run the Cubs managed to score was due to an error by Ryan Freel. Freel was just a little extra excited to be playing and missed his target, allowing my Least Favorite Cub for two seasons running (Matt Murton) to score.

The last I saw of the game was poor little Carlos's meltdown in the 5th, which helped to add a couple more runs to the 3 Dunn contributed. With the bases loaded, Zambrano walked Scott Hatteberg, scoring Brandon Phillips. Shortly thereafter Ken Griffey, Jr. scored on Alex Gonzalez's sacrifice fly, which brought the score to its final 5-1, which means the Reds are currently a team with a 1.000 record. Woohoo!

Also of note:

• The Reds, thanks to the magic of alphabetical listing (and also due to their win today) are in theoretical first place and the Cardinals are in theoretical last place. Ha!
• Gameday looks super awesome cool this year.

Yay!!!

Happy Opening Day y'alls. I swear I'm going to do better at this whole posting thing than I have been. I don't know how, but I'll find a way. Dunn seems to be keeping his promise so far, so I can keep mine, too.

Go Reds!

New Threads

This year the Reds get new uniforms. You can check them out on some very sexy models here. I think I like them. I was never very in love with the vests, so I'm happy to see them gone. Also happy to see that they're not blue. Overall I find them pleasing.

Happy Josh Hamilton Day

Half of the front page of today's DDN's sports section is a picture of Josh Hamilton. In case you somehow missed the story, Hamilton had some major drug problems and is trying to make his way to the majors after two years of suspension. If he makes it, I think he might be able to help with my continuing bitterness over the loss of my beloved Kearnsy (I don't know if I'm ever going to get over that). If he lives up to his billing (the cannon arm and whatnot) he could be very much like Austin. He's got some curly locks for starters. I guess using him to heal the pain is a little like buying a new puppy to replace the one that just died. It's probably not something he'd aspire to be. It could always lead to actual affection for him, though, like it sometimes does for the puppies. I'll just have to work on not being disappointed if he turns out to be nothing like Kearns. We can't exactly give him to the pound.

Reds on the Radio

Cincinnati got a new radio station somewhat recently. It's taken me quite a while to decide whether I like it or not. On the way to work today I finally made up my mind. During the hour of commercials at 5 they played an ad for Reds' season tickets. I've never heard any Reds advertising on the radio before (which could be because I've never been able to get a station out of Cincy up here until now) other than WLW.

I can't freaking wait for baseball.

Also, Googling yourself is all kinds of fun. Did you know that I have senior pictures from 1979, when I was -3 years old? Or that I am some kind of fashion recruiter?

Tidbits of News

In case you haven't already heard, Majewski is the center of some unpleasant attention once again. He showed up at camp this year still sporting the shoulder inflammation that caused all the ruckus last year. I feel for the guy, but isn't it about time we figured out what is going on with his arm? That's an awful lot of inflammation to let go.

Also in the news today, Adam Dunn has a brand new lease on life, or at least on his job. He took a page out of Austin Kearns' book, adding excercise and healthy eating to his list of things to do. He also plans to put a lot more effort into his game, mostly in the defense category. I can't wait to see what a healthier, more dedicated Dunner can do.

I also failed to mention before that Joe Nuxhall is being treated for lymphoma in Florida. Sunday he was reported to be "resting comfortably" and awaiting the results of an MRI to help determine his course of treatment from here. Best wishes to Joe and the family.

Griffey Fends off Sharks/Bermuda Wrestling Pirates, Breaks Hand

Apparently Mr. Griffey broke his hand a few months ago. I don't remember hearing about this injury and the conspiracy surrounding it until now. It seems there was speculation that he hurt himself performing daring but dangerous stunts that, while heroic and amazing, would be a breach of his contract.

In reality, he fell on his hand while wrestling with his kids on a yacht in Bermuda. Perhaps his contract should now forbid him any good, clean, family fun as well. The good news, Griffey's hand seems to be working now.

Waiting for Snow

I really like snow. I also really like to watch it snow. Since it's decided to start in the middle of the night, I'm bound and determined to keep myself awake until this mega-blizzard gets good and started. So, whilst I wait, I decided I'd try to get caught up on some of the dealings that went down while I was away. This may not be a bright idea because I'll probably still have to go into work tomorrow and they kind of like for me to be awake while I'm there, but off we go anyway.

Goings of Note

We lost a few players of considerable note during the offseason, namely Jason LaRue and Rich Aurilia. I'm a little sad to see LaRue go. I'd feel a little bit better if I could convince myself it was because the powers that be just felt that three catchers was too many, but that's obviously not the case (I'll elaborate on that in a bit). Aurilia I'm rather ambivalent about. I like him, and he's always good to have around when you need a clutch guy, but also, he likes San Francisco an awful lot, and perhaps he'll be a little less whiney about playing time there. And if he's not, at least we don't have to hear it anymore.

There were others, I am sure, and forgive me for not mentioning them. There's just so much I missed.

Comings of Note

Going back to that thing about three catchers, in place of Jason LaRue, we now have Chad Moeller. He comes from the great state of Wisconsin. Well, techinically he comes from the great state of California, but we got him from the Brewers. I really don't know much about him. I have learned from his page, though, that his batting average over his career is .227. He only played 29 games last year I guess. I feel like I should know a lot more about him, though. His name is too familiar for me not to know anything about him. Maybe he's one of the many people who only play really well against the Reds. Like Yadier Molina, who hits half of his homeruns in games against Cincinnati.

We have three new outfielders. I've never heard of any of them. Two of the guys are newbies to MLB. The other is a former Yankee. That's too bad. It'll take me a while to get over my irrational hatred of all things Yankee. I'll do my best for him, though. Also, Ryan Freel is listed as an outfielder this year. That's different.

There are a few new names among the pitchers and infielders, but no one I really know anything about, so I'll let you learn about them from someone who knows more about judging people based on their stats. You've probably already done that, though. They've probably been around for months.

More Pitchers

Check it out! Bronson's going to be in Cincy for the next 4 years, too!

I'm Still Alive!

For the last 5 months or so I've been contemplating shutting this thing down. It started feeling more and more like work and less and less like fun. I thought once I was finished with school it would be fun again, but it wasn't. So, I gave myself some time off, and have now missed so much in the news department it would take hours to get it all in here. But, yesterday I saw that Harang will be in Cincy for the next 4 years and I got all excited, so I thought I'd give the old We Heart the Reds another try. Only now I'm pretty sure it's just going to be Me Heart the Reds. The other half of the team up and moved across the country on me.

And now on with the show (short though this episode may be)! Aaron Harang will be staying with the Reds for at least the next 4 years. He gets 36.5 million cookies for it, too. And he's got an option for 12.75 million cookies for a fifth year with a 2 million cookie buyout. Hooray for Aaron and for cookies!