Boxscore

In game 2 of the meaningless 4 game series between the Indianapolis Indians and the Louisville Bats, the Indians came from behind in thrilling fashion to take the lead in the bottom of the 8th.

Todd Coffey blew the save for the Bats before Daniel Herrera gave up the tie. All in all, a performance for the Bats that the Reds’ Dusty Baker would be proud of. As for the Pirates, I don’t think there’s much to like. The pitching struggled, with 3 of the 4 pitchers who made an appearance allowing runs. At least there was some offense, though.

Steve Pearce went 1-4 and drove in one of the Indians’ runs.

Here, Chris Duffy practices the old floating ball trick.

I was surprised at the number of Bats players I’d never heard of. Take right fielder Shaun Cumberland, for example. No idea who he is or where he came from. He seems like a nice enough guy, though. At one point, a kid playing on the outfield grass seating area threw his ball into the outfield. Cumberland walked over and returned the kid’s dropped ball.

Boxscore

The Cubs allowed 9 runs and committed 3 errors, but still managed to win. Strangely, it’s what’s becoming expected of this aberrational 2008 Chicago team. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when your playing any version of the Pirates for the last 17 years.

Carlos Zambrano started and sucked. Obviously, his head wasn’t in it, as he gave up 6 runs in 4 1/3 innings. His opponent, Ian Snell, wasn’t any better, lasting only 4 innings and giving up 5 runs.

There was plenty of offense in the game, but the star is Geovanny Soto, who drove in 7 runs while going 3 for 5 with a homer. Just think, though, if his team hadn’t scored at least 3 more runs, his offensive explosion would have been for naught. Isn’t he lucky he plays for the 2008 Cubs?

Chicago’s on a roll again, having won their 4th straight and increased their record to 32 games over .500. The Pirates fell to last place again, thanks to an unexpected win from Cincinnati.

As much as this season sucks for Reds fans, it’s got to suck even harder for the players. I mean, sure, they’re making the big bucks, but I can escape the games by going to work. For them, the games are the work. When I’m in the office, only a handful of people give me grief about how bad the team is; for them, all 10,000 people who bother to show up let them know about it. And if I really need my decent-team fix, I can just look at the Cubs, Brewers, or Cardinals, all of whom are within the scope of my blog and none of whom are rotten. All the Reds players can do is hope to be traded to Arizona.

In fact, what I actually do is get so busy doing other things, that I end up stocking up almost a month’s worth of content to cram into on podcast. Enjoy!

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Boxscore

Chris Dickerson went 3-4 on the day after being “protected” by his “manager.” (Corey Patterson continued to play and would have screwed the Reds over again with a base-running blunder, had it not been for Dickerson saving his pathetic butt.) Javier Valentí­n added a solo shot along with the 2 RBI from Dickerson, and that was enough.

Johnny Cueto finally got a win again, and the Reds bullpen didn’t suck, despite the appearance of Magic Man Gary Majewski.

Ian Snell pitched okay for the Pirates, allowing 2 runs in 6 innings, but his team was unable to score.

The win gave the Reds the victory in the 3-game series.

Boxscore

When your team is 5 zillion games out since 2001 and you’ve traded away your best hitters for prospects, that’s usually the time that a baseball team calls up its young players or the prospects it just received and plays them. A reasonable person could expect that, especially when the manager of the team has gone on record as saying he would love to play young players. Just give them to him.

Yeah, well, that wouldn’t be the Cincinnati Reds. In a pointless game yesterday, Dusty Baker didn’t play Chris Dickerson and Adam Rosales, favoring Corey Patterson and Andy Phillips. Josh Fogg started, too, instead of someone who might be with the team next year. Sigh. When will that man be fired.

The Reds lost, of course. Is it any coincidence that the Pirates had their shiny new young players, you know, playing?