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.

Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker catches a lot of flack for all sorts of things, from his lineup construction to playing veterans over young guys to letting pitchers pitch for too damn long. Some of it is warranted, and some of it isn’t.

But since the non-waiver trade deadline came and went, some Reds news has seeped through the cracks about one failing of Baker’s that may prove his downfall: a disagreement with General Manager Walt Jocketty. And Redleg Nation has put it all together.

The post starts in the off-season before this one when Jocketty signed Fred Lewis and Edgar Renteria. The things Jocketty said about how he viewed those players fitting in with the team were quickly shot down and never really implemented by Baker.

I think a majority of us were extremely disappointed with the relative inaction of the Reds last off-season, and our skepticism has been proven right by the team’s performance this year, falling short of their 2010 season. Walt Jocketty’s moves were small bore, at best. You can debate the merits of Lewis, Gomes, Renteria and Janish all you want. But when even the meager steps taken by the GM are deliberately sabotaged by the manager, you have a recipe ripe for failure.

It’s true. The post fails to touch on the most recent difference of opinion between the two: Yonder Alonso. When Jonny Gomes was traded, it was ostensibly to make room for Yonder Alonso to take over in left field. But Baker cancelled that after three games in Wrigley Field.

This situation is clearly something that needs to be addressed in the next off-season. It might even be more important than whether Aroldis Chapman is a starter or reliever.