Either that, or the gobs of millions does

I saw this story about the growing closeness between Ken Griffey Jr and Ichiro Suzuki on Deadspin today.

Ichiro Suzuki spreads a towel on the carpeted floor in front of his locker, lies on his back and begins doing stretching exercises. From Ichiro’s blind side, Ken Griffey Jr. pounces, gets his hands deep under Ichiro’s armpits and digs in with his fingers. Ichiro’s laughter is almost childlike – genuine and uncontrolled – and after about five seconds he screams the magic word to make Griffey stop. Junior stands up, walks back to his locker and sits down. Ichiro lies quietly for a moment, letting his body relax, then goes back to stretching as if nothing had happened.

Baseball players are weird dudes. Apparently, Ichiro was unhappy with the team losing so badly last year, as opposed to all those players of sports who get lively thrills from getting their asses kicked on a daily basis. But the arrival of Griffey has changed that, and the two have become BFFs.

Of course, the Mariners are still losing more than they’re winning, but at least Ichiro has, at long last, found happiness.

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.

According to this slice of life story from Reds MLB.com writer Mark Sheldon, Chris Dickerson is now getting beat up by revolving doors.

Apparently, he banged his head during a recent trip through the revolving door of a hotel he was staying at while in Cincinnati. Knowing that Westin is the Reds official hotel and having come from a stay at the Cincinnati Westin and run into one of their revolving doors, I can only determine that Westin is now against the Reds. Hey, one more party jumping on the Fire Dusty Baker bus is fine with me.

Dickerson had this to say:

They do need to do something about that door. It’s a deathtrap waiting to happen. I can only imagine what happens with people less coordinated than me. I’m a little clumsy, but a pretty coordinated guy. I should be able to fly through that thing easy. I struggle with it every day.

Revolving doors are the suck. They allow fewer things through than bigger doors and can stop quite suddenly. Hopefully, Dickerson will overcome this new nemesis soon, allowing him to focus on those dreaded left-handed pitchers.

Digging through my neglected RHM inbox uncovers another gem that’s of no particular interest to me but I know there are tons of baseball fans out there who will love it. And since I’m so far behind in posting it, it’ll hardly even seem redundant if any other blogs you read posted it.

Over at Sully Baseball, Sully had taken on an odd task: creating a roster of the best homegrown Cincinnati players throughout history and a roster of the best traded-for Cincinnati players throughout history. Brandon Phillips makes an appearance.

Check it out at http://sullybaseball.blogspot.com/2009/02/cincinnati-reds-all-time-home-grown.html

In a quote from Reds reporter John Fay’s blog, Brandon Phillips had this to say.

I don’t believe that on-base percentage stuff. That’s overrated to me. If you get hits, you’ll be on base. That’s what it’s about.

My first reaction is similar to Fay’s and others: that it does nothing more than piss off baseball fans with brains. However, the more I think about it, the more I think the quote wasn’t for us.

Phillips was directing that comment directly to “manager” Dusty Baker. That’s right, Brandon Phillips is kissing ass.