Isn’t it amazing? We’ve actually had Reds news the last couple days. It’s not exactly the most exciting stuff in the world. But… news!

This picture has been out for awhile, but I think Chapman kinda looks like he’s doing duck-face.

• The Reds have  their promotional schedule for 2013 out, and Red Reporter has all the highlights for you. Bobbleheads this year are: Votto, Phillips, Frazier, Latos, and Chapman. I’m still waiting for the Brandon Phillips Bowling Ball giveaway. Surely there’s nothing impractical about that.

• Two Reds have come to one-year deals with the team, avoiding arbitration. Chris Heisey is in with essentially a standard midpoint deal (Heisey: 1.6, Team: 1.05, Deal: 1.325). Alfredo Simon and the team also settled, but the number hasn’t been released yet. At “somewhere between $750,000 and $1,050,000″, I’m not that concerned.

• MLB.com released their top 100 prospects going into 2013, with Rangers shorstop Jurickson Profar taking the number one spot this year. Reds prospects on the list include #11 Billy Hamilton (#3 OF prospect), #51 Robert Stephenson, #66 Tony Cingrani (#6 LHP). Former Red Didi Gregorius also made the list (#63), now in the Diamondbacks system.

• Jamie Ramsey posted the broadcast schedule for Reds spring training. Only 1 game will be televised on FSN Ohio, but most games will be on the Radio, and a handful will be on audio-streamed on Reds.com. Of course, there may also be a couple of games televised by the opponent’s network, which might get picked up by MLB Network. Maybe.

• And apparently Rolen does want to come back? But they haven’t worked out a deal yet. Fay interprets it as a money issue. I have nothing but respect for Rolen, but I don’t think it makes sense for us at this point. As Fay points out, there’s not a lot of money left in the banana stand, and I think the pieces we already have are going to be more useful.

I told you it wasn’t very exciting. Thankfully, there’s less than two weeks until pitchers and catchers report, so we’ll be able to overreact to the trickle of standardized quotes that players give in spring training. Hooray!

Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr

Ok, so it wasn’t that bad a showing from the 2012 NL Central Champions. Bronson Arroyo was decidedly un-brilliant, giving up three runs in five innings, starting with a solo home-run by the Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia, the second of his career. But BA really wasn’t all that bad, especially considering the peripherals. 6 hits, 1 walk, and 6 strikeouts isn’t great, but the game remained close into the ninth inning.

Alfredo Simon in the sixth and seventh innings was worse, allowing another run. He just pitched poorly, allowing 3 hits and walking 2 – I’m really not looking forward to seeing him anytime in the playoffs. Of course, I know that he really hasn’t been that bad this season, especially when you compare his numbers with, say, Jose Arredondo. I guess it’s good that we’re using this time to get some of our other bullpen options some more rest. J.J. Hoover had an easy, uneventful inning in the 8th. I know Hoover has control problems of his own, and doesn’t have Arredondo’s experience, but I’d still almost have Hoover on the playoff roster.

Offensively, two runs scored is obviously slightly pathetic, but it wasn’t so terrible as it sounds. The worst performances were turned in by Joey Votto, who no one should be worried about, and Ryan Ludwick, who is probably still a little rusty. And hey, Drew Stubbs actually got 2 hits! Assuming a three game hot streak doesn’t convince the management to bat him second again in the post-season (maybe a bad assumption to make), we can all be happy about that, right? Probably my least favorite part of the night was Jay Bruce getting caught stealing.  I mean, sure, the numbers say it’s only the third time he’s been caught stealing this season, but my gut says that he’s been a horrible baserunner. Also saying that, baseball reference’s tracking of outs made on the basepaths – where Bruce leads the team with 9. (But that’s not much worse than Votto’s 8, or Rolen’s 7.)

Mostly, it’s hard to care too much at this point. Yes, we all hate the Cardinals with the fire of one billion suns, but we’re also the division winners easily, while the Cards, at best, get to try their luck in the wild card. Right now, the Dodgers are leading by one run, and a win will keep their wild card chances alive, but the Cardinals’ magic number is down to one. Would I like the Dodgers to win their next two, while the Reds take the final two games to eliminate St. Louis? A little. Ok, maybe a lot. But the Reds have nothing to play for, and the Cards have everything. We’re probably just as well off trying to wear down the pitching, to try and add a little stress their playoff schedule.

(Photo by sideonecincy on Flickr)

Reds Awesome! Ok, that doesn’t work.

But you know what does work? Our bullpen. That’s right. Even withstanding the loss of the magnificent Ryan Madson and his spectacular changeup (I like to think of Ryan Madson and his oevre as an early 20th century magic act), the Reds bullpen has really come into its own recently. Partially this is because we put Chapman in the bullpen, and Aroldis has been really really good. But Ondrusek’s been great, Hoover’s  been good in his short callup, and even Alfredo Simon’s been pretty steady after his initial struggles. Not bad, considering that we’ve had no value from Madson, Masset, or Bray , who we assumed we’d be relying before the season. As noted on twitter and elsewhere, the Reds bullpen is building on a 20+ inning scoreless inning streak, which is not too shabs.

Here’s how the bullpen stacks up in various stats around the league, not counting tonight’s games.

• ERA: NL 1st, MLB 4th
• WHIP: NL 2nd, MLB 6th
• K/9: NL 1st, MLB 1st
• BB/9: NL, 10th, MLB, 23rd (I guess we have to be bad at something)
• HR/9: NL, 7th, MLB, 9th
• xFIP: NL, 2nd, MLB, 3rd
• WAR: NL 3rd, MLB, 6th

Yeah, that’s pretty great.

Latos K'd 11, the Reds scored 5 runs. 11 times 5 = 55. Brilliant!(Image from BaseballBacks on Flickr)

Today was a pretty good game, all-in-all:

• It was a win
• It won us the series, which means it’s the fifth straight series we’ve either won or tied.
• It put us back above .500
• It was a shutout
• Latos struck out 11. While I was interested to find out that this doesn’t really measure on any record board for the Reds no matter the time period, it’s still impressive. I think only Cueto and Harang are very recent Reds pitchers to match or exceed that number
• The bullpen was badass. Hoover, Chapman and Simon combined for three scoreless innings with six Ks, no walks, and one hit. Our bullpen is awesome
• Stubbs proved me wrong (and we all know that deflating my ego can only be good for me) by being awesome – going 3-4, with a home run.
• Todd Frazier was also awesome – hopefully awesome enough to keep him on the roster.
• Jay Bruce extending his hitting streak. Wheeee!

Pretty much everything you could want, if you don’t count a couple of sketchy defensive plays. Still. Today was a good day.

Tonight’s game was not fun, as losses pretty much never are, but it wasn’t quite up to the ‘heartbreaking’ levels of other losses. Nothing was surprising, no really outstanding performances were wasted, no ridiculously terrible performances were out there to be ridiculed.

I mean, yes, Leake’s six runs in three innings meltdown was pretty bad. But, really, Leake may just be  an saverage pitcher (which is fine), and average pitchers are going to have a couple outings like this every year – and at least it wasn’t an epic blowout – like Yovani Gallardo allowing 10 runs in 2 innings to the Cardinals tonight. It did feel worse in the ninth inning when Jay Bruce and Devin Mesoraco’s solo home runs brought us within 2, but I’m pretty confident that had we not been 4 runs behind, we wouldn’t have been facing Fernando Abad.

Ludwick and Rolen were also pretty bad, each going hitless. I’m getting closer to losing hope with both these guys, but at least it’s not at all surprising. Ludwick seems to get by with a clutch hit every now and then, just often enough to escape being entirely useless-seeming. And at this point Rolen is a big part of this team’s personality, and management loves his leadership and overall veteranocity. That would be fine if we got some offense out of left field.  Hey, I hear the Angels released Bobby Abreu?

In better news, Stubbs made up for a fielder’s-choice-picked-off combo by getting an actual hit and only striking out once, Bruce was pretty awesome, Frazier’s pinch-hit triple was bad-ass, and the bullpen was excellent. We haven’t seen a lot of J.J. Hoover, but I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be a pretty good return for Juan Francisco. Even much-maligned Alfredo Simon did quite a job mopping up after Mike Leake.

So now it’s up to the Reds to win the next two games to win their second series in a row, and come back to .500 on the year. The pitching matchups are Cueto vs.  Lucas Harrell and Mat Latos vs. Bud Norris.  That’s probably a solid advantage, and a good chance, so I don’t think it’s out of the question at all.

Yep. There can’t be much more demoralizing than losing two straight games to the Washington Nationals, both in extra innings, after scoring 3 runs in a combined 23 innings of baseball. Arroyo? 7 scoreless and the lone RBI for the night. Votto? Reached base 5 times. Everyone else? Royally sucked.

Not totally true. Many parts of the bullpen did very well. Ondrusek, Chapman, and Simon all contributed to stretching out the long, excruciating innings, where the Reds decided not to hit. Even Bill Bray, who came in for a single batter in the 9th and allowed a home run to tie the game isn’t totally to blame. It was a playable ball to Ryan Ludwick which he couldn’t get up to.

The offense sans Votto though, was just terrible. Stubbs sombrero’d himself, and even though Harris and Ludwick each had a double, only Votto had more than one hit through 13 innings. Dusty’s management was a bit confusing as well – putting Heisey in for Bruce, and having Cozart pinch hit in a double switch, for Willie Harris. That’s ok, but then Dusty had Cozart try to bunt the runner over, and that’s not really one of Coz’s skills. If Willie Harris can’t bunt a guy over to third, I’m running out of possible reasons to justify him being on the roster. Of course, it’s certainly not Dusty’s fault that most of the roster is ice cold right now, but he’s really not helping much.  I mean, a manager has only so many opportunities to make any impact on the outcome of a ballgame, and when they come around, you kinda hope that he’ll make positive ones.

It did almost seem like terrible Monkey’s Paw get-what-you-wished-for story for Reds fans. Plenty of people have been angered by Dusty going to Alfredo Simon in the 10th in last night’s unfortunate 10th inning debacle. And to be fair, this is Simon’s pitch chart from last night.

Yeah, not super inspiring there. But tonight, Simon was, well, scoreless, if not exactly fantastic. Marshall, on the other hand, couldn’t hit the strike zone, loaded the bases, and left the Reds with yet another extra innings loss. To be fair, Marshall needs more work – he’s pitched in only three games, total – April 5, April 10, and tonight, which means that’s a lot of days of rest for a reliever.

Well, at least he was wearing a much less silly looking uniform tonight (Photo by SD Dirk/Flickr)

Tonight, unlike Opening Day was not great for the Redlegs. Pretty much nothing went particularly well for the Reds. Latos was very hittable, and gave up four runs in 4 2/3 innings before leaving the game early. Ondrusek came in for a couple batters to finish up the inning.  LeCure then gave up a couple runs in long relief, and the newest Red, Alfredo Simon came in and immediately gave up a triple followed by a home run. Arredondo did ok in the 9th, outside of walking two – he was the only Reds pitcher to not give up a run.

It’s a little too early for buyer’s remorse on either Latos or Simon. It’s just one start, and it’s just as unreasonable to think that Cueto ‘s going to be as good as he was on opening day. (Good yes, 7-inning shutouts everytime, no) . Yeah, maybe Latos won’t live up to the kind of ridiculous expectations we’ve formed around him. But he’ll be fine. Plus, after the two hits, Simon struck out the next three batters, so clearly he’s got something.

The bats just weren’t active, either. The Reds clearly were in no mood to take any pitches, maybe partly because Nolasco does tend to give up a lot of line drives. But tonight, it was all ground balls. Nolasco got 13 ground outs for the Reds, including an untimely double play ball from Joey Votto. He also got five strike outs – all of them swinging, in 8 innings.

Cozart had a triple and home run, and Votto’s home run was definitely a high point for the evening. Out of everyone – Cozart came off ok, making some decent plays. No web gems, but he looks pretty sure out there in the field, which is nice to see from the rookie. It’s also the second straight game with an extra base hit for him – his 3-4 night made him without question the best Reds batter of the night.