We continue to add more Dodgers rejects with the last name “Ross” by trading a player to be named later for Mr. Cody Ross. Judging by his minor league numbers, he's a mediocre-average, mediocre-walk rate, solid power, lots of strikeouts kind of guy with pretty much no speed. He's like Wily Mo if you took away a bit of his power and gave that to his eye. Judging by his scouting reports, he's very good defensively, so he's really nothing like Wily Mo in that regard. And as far as I know, his hair isn't crazy and he isn't an awesome Dominican clone of Pedro Cerrano.

To make room for this, Tony Womack was DFA'd. Hopefully McCracken is gone when Junior comes back and Narron will be nearly rid of his incompetent bench players and will be forced to use real baseball players.

Last week I was checking out a list on somebody's website of online chat rooms related to baseball teams, and there wasn't one for the Reds.

I thought that was bogus, so I created one. On the IRC network IRC-GLOBAL there is now a channel called #RedsNation. You can connect to the network using server irc.proxemic.net OR us.irc-global.org on ports 6661-6669, then of course just /join the channel #RedsNation. (It's not case sensitive, you can type /join #redsnation and you'll get there)

For the IRC savvy, IRC-GLOBAL is brand new. It's running unreal 3.2.4 ircd, and services are anope 1.17.14. The IRCops are:

parallax <-- That's the owner Badger_N <-- That's one of his helpers KC2HMZ <-- That's me!

Lancaster says he was in the locker room after the game, and Gosling was already optioned back to Louisville. Should be officially called up before tomorrow's game.

Now all I need is some Wags back with the team.

LHP Michael Gosling has been called up from Louisville, and Mike Burns optioned to Louisville to make room for Gosling on the roster.

I won't swipe RHM's thunder by doing a whole game wrap here, but Gosling celebrated his return to the majors by giving up a mammoth dinger to Abercrombie in today's game (493 feet, the third longest homer in GABP history). The Reds still won it to take two of three from the Marlins, just like I said on Sunday that they should have had no trouble doing.

Now it's on to Milwaukee to show the Brewers who's boss. GO REDS!

John (HMZ)

With Ken Griffey, Jr. currently on the DL with a bruised *cough*ego*cough* knee, it seems like now might be the best time to ask him to move to first. The Reds continue to be able to score runs without Griffey's presence in the lineup, but as RHM commented, his absence leaves a hole in the third spot that no one else on the team but him can really fill.

Unfortunately, Griffey's return will remove the defensive upgrade that Freel provides in center. Griffey's defense has really fallen off since his leg injuries. There was a rolling catch that Freel made during the St. Louis series that I know Griffey would have let bounce one or more times in front of him. Instead, Freel caught it, saving extra bases and more runs from being scored. Besides, I like having an outfield with two good defenders instead of one good one and two terrible ones.

My ideal defensive outfield would have Freel in left, Heartthrob in center, and Kearns in right. That's not going to happen anytime soon, but there's no reason to accept terrible outfield defense. Do something about one of the positions while you still can.

Ask Griffey to suck up his mammoth-sized ego and move to first. It will help both him and the team. What's the worst that happens? He demands a trade? Big deal. The Reds have no problems finding outfielders.