Boxscore

Whatever Johnny Cueto did in the offseason, it should be bottled up and sold for massive profits. He appears to be a new man. Last year he was trying to prove he belonged in the major leagues. This year he is looking like a Cy Young winner. Yes, its early, but all hyperbole aside, the one thing that hurt Cueto last year was his high number of base on balls. Lack of command. This year teammate Volquez became the guy who walked too many batters. Cueto is dealing. Right now he easily looks like the ace of the staff. His line: 8 innings pitched, 9 Ks and zero BBs.

Bruce smashed a solo homerun in the second inning and it was an easy ride to victory. Jay looks like the cleanup hitter to me. Sure it means batting consecutive lefties but the fact that Votto is hitting .333 against southpaws makes the decision more palatable. I think we’ll get this lineup thing figured out by mid-June, folks. I really do.

I will give credit to Dusty for having a psychic vision during his sleep. Apparently the lineup card last night had Rosales slotted for #6 with catcher Ramon Hernandez behind him. After his vision Dusty flipped Hernandez and Rosales. The big hit today came from Hernandez, a bases clearing 2 out single.

Dusty resisted abusing Cueto this early in the year by sending him out for the 9th. Instead he sent in Old man Rhodes who pitched a scoreless inning for the hold. He is on pace to pitch about 100 frames this year. That’s approximately the same number of innings he pitched from 2006-2008 combined. If his arm doesn’t fall off by August the Reds have a good chance of making the playoffs.