The San Diego Padres did crush/bruise a little bit – but after six mediocre innings, the newly minted Reds bullpen came in for three bangarang innings to finish out the game. Lefty- righty – lefty: Marshall took the seventh and got three outs on balls in play, Broxton grabbed a strikeout and two groundouts in the 8th, and in the 9th, Aroldis “Aroldis Chapman” Chapman was slightly un-Aroldis-y, only one K, and he allowed an hit. But he got three outs on his way to his 23rd save.

Offensively speaking, the Reds scored a respectable 6 runs, and Stubbs and Ludwick provided a lot of that. Stubbs did get caught stealing, but got on base 3 times tonight, and scored 2 runs – one of them on a Ludwick single which also saw Ludwick AND Rolen get out on the basepaths. The Veterans were not very present in that inning. Most of the lineup did pretty well, though – Bruce and Frazier hit doubles, and Cozart had a home run. Even Wilson “I’m really not as good as Brandon Phillips” Valdez got on base twice via the walk.

I suppose Bronson Arroyo was the least un-disappointing performance tonight – but, for Arroyo, a 2 walk performance with only 1 HR is probably acceptable.