The Cincinnati Reds, fresh off of being eliminated in the 2011 season, have announced their 2012 schedule.

The Cincinnati Reds’ tentative 2012 schedule has been released by Major League Baseball. It is subject to change.

The 2012 campaign will begin with Opening Day on Friday, April 6 against the Miami Marlins at Great American Ball Park. After that 3-game series, the Reds will host the St. Louis Cardinals from Monday through Wednesday, April 9-11 to complete the first homestand of the season.

“The Reds already are working with the Findlay Market Parade organizers on Opening Day 2012,” said Reds Chief Operating Officer Phil Castellini. “No fans look forward to the start of baseball season more than ours.”

Other featured matchups at Great American Ball Park in 2012 include a pair of weekend series against the National League Central Division rival Cardinals (July 13-15, August 24-26), plus weekend battles with the Milwaukee Brewers (July 20-22), Chicago Cubs (August 17-19) and Los Angeles Dodgers (September 21-23).

Highlighting the Reds’ 15-game interleague schedule are home series against the Detroit Tigers (June 8-10), Cleveland Indians (June 12-14) and Minnesota Twins (June 22-24) and road visits to new Yankee Stadium (May 18-20) and Cleveland’s Progressive Field (June 18-20).

It sucks to already be thinking about next year. The full schedule is here.

In yesterday’s Reds Notebook, Mark Sheldon wrote about a few interesting things Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Bryan Price had to say about Aroldis Chapman.

“With all the question marks on who’s going to be with us going into next season, it’s hard to say for sure,” Reds pitching coach Bryan Price said on Wednesday. “I would be very confident in saying that he will absolutely get a chance to start, maybe as early as next season.”

This sounds good to me. Chapman may not work out as a starter, but given how much more valuable good starters are, he certainly deserves a chance. And this is the first time I’ve heard a Reds manager mention that in a while.

“There are a lot of benefits to him starting. No. 1, I think his growth as a pitcher will increase at a faster pace when he gets more time, more innings, more bullpen time to really focus and work on his delivery and his pitches and situational baseball.”

Given how dominant Chapman can be when he’s consistently delivering his pitches, seeing that as a starter would be amazing.

The Reds will be tempted to try Chapman as the closer, depending upon how they deal with Francisco Cordero, but I hope they resist that temptation. Chapman needs to spend some time in the Reds’ rotation.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Bats	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	7	12	2
Indians	3	2	0	0	0	0	3	9	0	8	11	0

Boxscore

Over the Labor Day weekend on Saturday, we made it out to the final home game for Pittsburgh Pirates AAA affiliate the Indianapolis Indians. And the Cincinnati Reds AAA affiliate the Louisville Bats were in town.

It was an exciting game, with the teams combining for 10 runs in just the first two innings–two innings that take well more than an hour to play. It was looking like a long game, but both teams settled down after that, until the Indians took the lead for good in the 7th.

We sat in the Captain’s Cove, an excellent bar with comfy chairs in left field. I can’t recommend this place highly enough.

Former Cardinal Ryan Ludwick was manning left field for the Indians and had a solid game, going 3-4 with 2 RBI.

Travis Wood pitched for the Bats.

Now that Devin Mesoraco has been called up, the Reds new catcher of the future is in AAA: Yasmani Grandal.

Matt Hague, winner of the Indians 2011 MVP, at the plate.

The Indians players exchanging high-fives after the win.

After every home win, the Indians ring the Victory Bell. This was the last time this season.

The final scoreboard of 2011 at Victory Field.

And with that, the 2011 home season for the Indians was over. It passed by way too quickly. At least there’s almost a month left of major league ball to enjoy.

This happened last Thursday, but the Cincinnati Reds did make several moves to add players when rosters expanded. And some of those players have already come up big in the just completed series win over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Chris Heisey was activated from the disabled list, while Juan Francisco, Chris Valaika, Jared Burton, Carlos Fisher, Jeremy Horst, and Matt Maloney were all called up. Top prospect Devin Mesoraco had his contract purchased and was brought up, as well.

Fred Lewis was sent down Louisville.

“It’s never easy to do,” Baker said of Lewis’ departure. “Things didn’t really work out the second half as well as we thought they possibly would. And we got Heisey back. You hate to have to tell somebody, but it’s a tough part of the game.”

Hopefully, this means we’ll be seeing a lot more of Chris Heisey and Yonder Alonso in left field for the rest of the season.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Reds (68-70)	0	5	0	0	0	1	2	0	3	11	14	0
Cardinals (73-65)	0	2	1	0	2	1	0	1	1	8	12	0

Boxscore

Fresh off sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers, the St. Louis Cardinals must have thought they had a chance at actually re-entering the playoff race. Especially with the Cincinnati Reds coming to town and Chris Carpenter on the mound.

But Reds manager Dusty Baker did something unexpected: he actually played the young players general manager Walt Jocketty had just called up when rosters expanded. And the youth movement exploded for some runs off Carpenter and the St. Louis bullpen.

Three new guys hit home runs to lead the Reds to their 11-8 victory: Todd Frazier had a solo shot in the 6th, Yonder Alonso had a 2-run shot in the 7th, and Juan Francisco had a 3-run shot to put the game away in the 9th.

Johnny Cueto had another bad start for the Reds and lost his ERA lead in the process, which is troubling, but the offense bailed him out. And the Reds helped hammer on that nail in the Cardinals’ season. Maybe tomorrow they can drive it in a little deeper.