Yonder Alonso, the rookie with a great bat and no natural position to play on the field for Cincinnati Reds, now has one less position to try to play.

Alonso had been playing left field in AAA Louisville, and then spent some time there for the Reds. But that is no more.

Asked if Alonso would play left again, Dusty Baker said: “Not in the near future.”

Alonso was rough in left field over the weekend, but I think not playing him might be premature. I mean, this is a team that supported Adam Dunn playing left field for just about forever. A great bat can more than make up for bad defense.

The plan now, though, is to have him try playing third base some. I fear this may end up leading to a Brandon Larson type of situation.

Boxscore

The Cincinnati Reds finished a disastrous road trip today. Before it, they were fresh off sweeping the world champion San Francisco Giants and looking at doing about the same to two of the worst teams in the majors in the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs.

That didn’t happen. The Reds barely won 1 of the 3 against the Astros. And today, they were looking at the very real possibility of being swept by the Cubs.

Bronson Arroyo started and made it all the way until the 3rd inning before giving up a home run. He would give up another in the 6th, but at that point the Reds actually had a 6-2 lead. The second homer made it 6-4.

Not a problem. Turn it over to the bullpen, right? Not so fast. Since the All Star break, sending relievers Logan Ondrusek and Nick Massett into games has been the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire. They continued their suckage today and gave up the lead.

But then there was a miracle. The Reds actually got a hit when it mattered. In the top of the 8th, Ryan Hanigan had a one-out hit to drive in the winning run.

Aroldis Chapman held the lead in the bottom of the 8th by striking out the side, and Francisco Cordero didn’t screw things up in the 9th.

Dave Sappelt made his major league debut, hitting leadoff in the lineup, and went 1-5 with a run scored. He also had a couple great defensive plays, including one where he didn’t search for a ball in the Wrigley outfield ivy. That move cost the Cubs 2 runs.

Drew Stubbs, Todd Frazier, and Edgar Renteria all contributed home runs in the 8-7 win.

The Cincinnati Reds have had a tough go of it this year. Performances of several players has not been what was expected, injuries have plagued the team, and they’ve also been a bit unlucky.

The injuries continue. The Reds today put outfielder Chris Heisey on the disabled list.

Heisey is dealing with a strained left oblique. He was too sore to hit and play the field Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

To replace him, outfielder Dave Sappelt was called up from the Louisville Bats. In AAA, Sappelt was good, hitting .313 with a .387 on base percentage and 7 home runs and 27 RBI. Hopefully he can also avoid the injury bug.

With all the problems that Reds fans have to content with, it’s nice that television availability of the games is rarely one of them. FOX has been picking up a bunch of Reds games for national broadcast this year, which in and of itself isn’t necessarily good or bad, but it has led to even more coverage, thanks to the local station selecting replacement day games. Such as this one in September:

FOX has selected the Reds August 20th game for national broadcast, which means FOX Sports Ohio can no longer air the game.

As replacement, FOX Sports Ohio will televise:
  REDS VS ASTROS
  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
  12:30pm

HD coverage begins at noon with Reds Live Pregame Show. We will also replay the game that night at midnight and the following day (Thursday, 9/22) at noon.

It’s funny how you start to run out of titles for these posts.

Today the Crack Technical Staff and I both had the day off work AND had arranged for childcare for the day, so we were already at a local brew pub when the game started. The pub is, unfortunately, owned by a Cubs fan, so all its waiters and bartenders wear Cubs shirts all the time. It would have been all manner of fun to hold a Cubs’ loss over their heads, but alas, they were playing the Reds today, so that wasn’t happening.

I mean, who are the Reds to stand up to the might of Ryan Dempster? Bah.

Swept by the damn Astros (I know they’re a second-half team but c’mon) and now have started the series with the Cubs with a loss. I think I’ve made it clear that I’ve already given up on this season, but I’d still like to enjoy baseball through the month. Maybe it’s time to let BP set the line-ups and see what happens.