Boxscore

The Reds ended the season doing what they spent most of it doing: losing. Oh, and also playing manager Dusty Baker’s favorite crappy players.

The Cardinals ended the year in 4th place, 11.5 games out of first, somehow winning with players that I didn’t think had the combined abilities to compete. Yet there St. Louis was competing for a playoff berth until about a month ago. Not bad. And since they haven’t made any expensive acquisitions, either in terms of monetary commitments or by giving up prospects, they should be in a good place to jump up a few spots in the standings next year.

Cincinnati finished the season in 5th place, 23 games out of 1st place and 7 games ahead of the Pirates. The Reds have tons of great young talent, yet I have no optimism about them competing next year. Their starting rotation has two extremely talented young kids, with more competing for spots. If only the team had someone in charge who knew how to deal with them. Sigh. No, I expect 2009 to be more of the same.

Wow, nothing I wrote there was funny at all. I tried this year, I really did. But there are only so many jokes you can make about the clueless moves Dusty Baker repeats before the well is dry. All I can hope is that the Reds start next year losing 30-40 in a row so Baker will finally be gone, otherwise the misery of Cincinnati will not end until sometime after 2010.