The Cincinnati Reds went 0-for-4 in San Diego after going 3-0 in Milwaukee and this is why we all should leave betting on sports to the professionals and I don’t mean Pete. Or if you prefer a different explanation, try a slice of Yogi: “In baseball, you don’t know nothin’.’’
It was a mostly entertaining four days. Joseph Daniel Votto remains the World’s Most Interesting Ballplayer, Thursday night was supremely engaging and the Reds bullpen still stinks.
In fact, that last observation is something we do know about baseball, at least in the here and now. Ownership’s partial deconstruction of a team the Reds spent five years diligently losing lots of games to build remains in the spotlight.
The virus blew up every budget in baseball last year. The Reds lost $80 mil, they say. That couldn’t have been predicted when they went all in for Castellanos, Moustakas and Akiyama. But if we look back after this year and see a season littered with bad relief pitching, we’ll be justified in screaming bloody murder.
Such an obvious lack. Such an obvious solution.
The ‘pen lost two of the four over the weekend. The Reds rallied spectacularly Thursday. After being shutout for eight innings, the bats erupted for four runs in the 9th, only to give them all back to the Pads in the bottom half. Great ballgame, quintessential Cincy sports heartbreak.
The Reds rallied again Saturday, from 5-2 down, only to have the bullpen cough it up.
The bullpen is a manager’s best friend and worst enemy. A good one increases a skipper’s IQ 100 points. A bad one, and he can’t read the back of a cereal box without a tutor. David Bell is trying to finesse his way around losing his one dependable reliever. More innings for his starters, mostly. But there isn’t much that finessing can do against Machado and Tatis Jr., and even Wil Myers.
That said, if The Club can take two in Minneapolis, a 5-4 roadie will look pretty damned good.
It doesn’t change the fact that the Reds narrow window is closing. Or that both Anthony DeSclafani and Archie Bradley could have been kept for a total of $12 mil. Disco is 7-2 for SF, with two shutouts. The Giants paid $6 mil for his free-agent self. Bradley has come back from five injured weeks to throw 7 innings of 1-run relief this month for the Phillies, with a win and a hold.
Not great. Not Cionel Perez, either.
The Reds didn’t add to the rebuild after last season because The Big Man didn’t want to ask his partners for money. That prompts the question: Will he ask in the next several weeks, if his team continues to nag at the periphery of the division lead?
Beats me. Keep demanding it. Write your Congressman or something. It can’t hurt. Ask not what you can do for the Reds. Ask what the Reds can do for you.
The players deserve the boost. Lord knows, you folks deserve it.
And really, it’s very hard to feel any pain for minority partners who have made a lot of money on their risk-free investments. If you were among the folks that helped Bob C. buy the team for $270 mil in 2006, your investment has close to quadrupled, based on the ballooning value of the franchise. There has never been a chance of losing a nickel. Someone get me that kind of deal for my portfolio.
If the Reds are a sacred trust/institution that demands good stewardship – if a pledge to return “championship baseball’’ to the Queen City is more than a catch phrase – well, let’s go.
Now, then…
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. VOTTO. . .
There will never be another like him around here. No more humanity will be displayed than what Joseph Daniel Votto has provided his whole career here. From the traumatic death of his dad to this weekend in San Diego, to whatever is still to come of Votto’s sunset, he has been all-human, all the time.
He got ejected from Saturday’s game for going nuts when he thought he checked his swing and the plate ump disagreed. No player goes more Jekyll and Hyde than the usually restrained Votto, when a call angers him.
“I was thinking about feeling regret and did I feel any sort of shame with my emotional outburst,” Votto said to reporters afterward. “The answer is probably no. Maybe a little bit with some of the language but probably no, because I was true to myself.”
Frequent perusers of This Space might know I’m not crazy about people who see the world almost exclusively through their eyes. Votto was true to himself, sure. He also got run in the 1st inning from a game the Reds could have used him.
That said, he made the best of it. His first inning boot made a young Reds fan at Petco Park cry. Votto signed a baseball for the young lady: "I am sorry I didn't play the entire game," he wrote. The Reds got her tickets to Sunday’s game. Votto does this kind of thing a lot, much of it quietly.
When he retires, I’ll recall his batting, of course. His invincible seasons of ’10 and ’17, the way he studied hitting like Galileo studied the stars, how he re-invented his stroke to accommodate both his hitting philosophy and advancing. Age. I’ll remember as much Votto’s worldly perspective and his humanity.
TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY of gunk-checks for MLB pitchers. The most interesting aspect of Baseball’s crackdown on ball-doctoring will be if we can tell any difference in pitchers’ performances.
Hitters seem to be torn on the issue. They want a fairer shake at the plate. But they don’t want to be hit by errant pitches, either, because hurlers can’t grip the ball as well without the Spider Tack.
Also, one of the stories I read indicated MLB is looking for a better way to rub up baseballs. That could mean the end for Susquehanna River mud, a staple of baseball for more than half a century.
TODAY IS ALSO the day after the longest day of the year. For those of us who adore summer in every possible way, who revel in the memories it provokes and the possibilities it holds, the day of the summer solstice is as much a celebration as any other day, Christmas and Thanksgiving included.
If you wanted to play 9 holes on Father’s Day, you could have teed off at 8 last night and been done before dark. The hottest, stickiest summer day is better than any day in February.
Does anything truly momentous happen in other seasons? I think not.
You only have to have been a kid to love summer. Those of us of a Certain Splendid Age will recall these summer loves, in no special order:
The Good Humor Man.
Wiffleball ‘til dark. Sleepovers.
Kool-Aid. Popsicles. The freedom of bicycles.
The All-Star Game on TV, before every game was on TV. Seeing guys from the American League: Yaz and Reggie and Kaline and Blue. Feeling that pride balloon swelling in your chest when Your Guys were introduced: Clemente, Stargell, even Dock freaking Ellis. Pete, Johnny, Tony, Joe.
Girls.
The drive-ins (movies and food).
That first bright day in June, after school let out, when you knew the whole great season stretched before you like a big, tall wish and all you had to do was embrace it. Lying in the grass, staring at the sky, talkin about all the cool stuff you were gonna do in the next two and a half months.
I still have that child-like enthusiasm for summer, when anything is possible.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . War sum(mer)s it up.
Source link
