An afternoon game today in Milwaukee, where the Reds attempt to get back on the winning track. Paul Wilson and his 6.00 ERA take the hill against Wes Obermueller, who is sporting a nifty 1.74 ERA. Obermueller, however, has pitched only 10.1 innings, all in relief, so we’ll be seeing his first start of the season.

Use this thread to discuss the game today. Here’s a topic for discussion: can the Reds win with Paul Wilson as one of the rotation’s top two?

UPDATE: Finally!!! After bashing one just foul, Ken Griffey, Jr., crushed a ball to deep center field for his first home run of the season.

For the better part of a week, Junior has been hitting the ball very well, so it was only a matter of time. Seemed like he was snakebit, though; how many balls has Griffey hit to the warning track over the last week?

The Enquirer has a story here, and Marc Lancaster says the Reds wasted an opportunity.

There is also this piece by John Fay that discusses the fact that Dave Miley has finally dropped Joe Randa back down in the lineup. Can someone explain to me, however, the rationale for hitting Casey third and Dunn fifth? I understand Miley’s obsession for breaking up the LH and RH hitters, but why not hit your best hitter third?

Could it be that Miley thinks Casey is his best hitter? Sheesh….

Finally…did you know that the bullpen remains terrible, even after O’Brien’s supposed “makeover” in the offseason?

Why do we have so much trouble in Milwaukee? Seems like they always play the Reds tough.

For what it’s worth, I don’t like Bill Hall.

Any thoughts on today’s game?

Well Chris brought us a 21 game progress report for some of the players, 13% of the season is gone. Time to kick the teams tires too.

These things we know.

The bullpen is a bigger mess than the bathroom in your first apartment, Milton is racking up frequent flyer miles that likely redeem only at Eastern Airline affiliates and once again there are 4 players for the 3 outfield positions.

In honor of the yearly outfielder dilema I will list the last few years to keep you up to date.

They have been in order by the years for those of you counting.

2002 - Encarnacion, Dunn, Griffey, Kearns
2003 - Guillen, Dunn, Griffey, Kearns
2004 - Pena, Dunn, Griffey, Kearns

Just for kicks 1997’s outfielders

GAMES                            G
1    Deion Sanders               113
2    Reggie Sanders               85
3    Curtis Goodwin               71
4    Jon Nunnally                 60
5    Mike Kelly                   59
6    Lenny Harris                 42
7    Willie Greene                39
8    Chris Stynes                 38
9    Ruben Sierra                 24
10   Eric Owens                   18

Ughhhhhh… I remember ranting on my Netscape Browser 1.6 about that sad state of affairs. That outfield went the way of Cox Medias internet sport site fastball.com, either they faded into obscurity or they were bought up by other fools who over valued their skills and contributions.

So, here we are, 13% of the season gone… and yet it seems so familiar, like the background in a Yogi Bear cartoon, trees, rock, bush, tree, bush, tree, rock, etc.

If I had ever been here before

Don’t you?

Off days are either good days to forget about baseball and do something else, I used to watch Hockey during these early off days, but they took that away from me too… so I just decided today that I should really look at the team stats from the first month.

From there I decided to look at last years April and see if there was anything to pick at.

Pretty similar stuff; even with the new deckhands and usual slow starts.

It’s as though last April was cloned and just thrown out again this April, just with a larger payroll, and from the vitriol that I’ve seen around the net much larger expectations.

Some Similarities:

Both last April and this April had hitters with OPS’s over 1.100, Dunn of course is in both groups, last year it was Casey and his OB heavy OPS, this year it’s Pena and his SLG driven OPS.

The second tier of hitters is better this year than last years with Freel, Lopez and Randa all having OPS’s above .880. The offense this season has been spread around more that’s for sure and currently it looks a bit thinner because of it. Four players are poised to join Dunn and Randa in double digits in runs scored, however last year at this time there were five players with twelve or more runs scored.

Another oddity is that after a combined 168 ab’s Griffey and Casey have as many runs scored as Joe Randa. If you told me prior to the season that that is what would happen I would have most likely thought you daft.

2004’s team at this time walked more and this years team is walking considerably less and succeeding more, this is seen in the increase in batting average and that in turn has enhanced the teams slugging percentage. The drop in OB% from last April still places them above last years .331. Perhaps they can get above .340 for the first time since 2000.

Since the hits are falling more this season (so far) you’ll see that the hits are distributed a bit more this season than last, with 10 players having double digit hit numbers to last years 8.

Casey is once again the team hit leader with 22, last April’s 36 looks really good in comparison eh? Last year at this point Casey had 15 Extra Base Hits; currently he has only 3 doubles.

Dunn’s walk rate is half of what it was last year and believe it or not he was a .328 hitter last year after 22 games. His current OB% is closer to his targeted one than last years gaudy .538. He also has 5 more extra base hits than last year at this point.

Joe Randa leads the team in runs scored with 14, yes Joe Randa leads the team in runs scored last year at this time the Reds had 3 players with 14 runs scored. Randa who has scored over 80 runs three times in his career is on pace for 113 runs scored

Last year the Reds as a team walked an incredible amount in April 1 every 6.8 ab’s they finished the season at 1 every 9.2 ab, this year they are averaging 1 every 8.1. The April rate last year was fueled by Dunn’s 28 and Jimenez’s 17, with 2 other players with 10. This year Dunn and Joe Randa lead the team in walks with 14.

Currently the Reds are scoring 1/2 a run less than the 2004 team.

Think it’s the walks?

2005
NAME		G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Sean Casey	21	79	9	22	3	0	0	5	6	.278	.322	.316	.638
K. Griffey Jr.	20	73	5	18	7	0	0	7	9	.247	.325	.342	.668
Joe Randa	20	72	14	20	4	0	4	14	14	.278	.402	.500	.902
D. Jimenez	20	64	9	14	2	0	0	3	9	.219	.315	.250	.565
Adam Dunn	20	64	12	20	9	1	6	15	14	.313	.450	.766	1.216
Rich Aurilia	15	59	8	13	4	0	2	8	3	.220	.258	.390	.648
Austin Kearns	17	57	9	13	2	0	2	8	8	.228	.328	.368	.697
Jason LaRue	17	51	2	11	2	0	0	4	9	.216	.375	.255	.630
Wily Mo Pena	17	43	9	14	6	0	5	11	2	.326	.370	.814	1.184
Ryan Freel	15	40	7	15	5	0	0	1	7	.375	.468	.500	.968
Felipe Lopez	9	26	3	7	1	0	2	6	3	.269	.345	.538	.883
J. Valentin	5	16	4	5	2	0	0	2	0	.313	.313	.438	.750
Jacob Cruz	14	13	1	4	1	0	0	2	1	.308	.357	.385	.742
Team Total		695	93	179	48	1	21	88	85	.258	.344	.420	.764

Strikeouts 174
RECORD 10-11
Reds have scored 5 runs 10 times
Reds Pitchers have given up 5 runs 12 times. More than 10 runs 2 times

2004
NAME		G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Sean Casey	22	87	16	36	11	1	3	18	7	.414	.458	.667	1.125
D. Jimenez	22	85	13	20	4	0	2	11	17	.235	.365	.353	.718
K. Griffey Jr.	20	81	12	18	6	0	3	13	10	.222	.315	.407	.723
Barry Larkin	20	77	14	21	5	0	0	5	6	.273	.325	.338	.663
Ryan Freel	20	67	7	17	3	2	1	5	2	.254	.296	.403	.699
Adam Dunn	22	64	17	21	3	0	8	18	28	.328	.538	.750	1.288
Jason LaRue	16	57	7	12	4	0	1	10	5	.211	.292	.333	.626
Austin Kearns	17	51	7	7	2	1	2	5	10	.137	.290	.333	.624
Juan Castro	18	39	6	10	2	1	0	4	2	.256	.293	.359	.652
Wily Mo Pena	14	28	3	8	1	1	1	4	3	.286	.375	.500	.875
J. Valentin	14	16	2	1	0	0	0	0	2	.063	.167	.063	.229
Corky Miller	4	11	0	0	0	0	0	1	3	.000	.313	.000	.313
Paul Wilson	5	10	0	2	1	0	0	0	1	.200	.273	.300	.573
B. Larson	4	10	1	3	0	0	0	1	3	.300	.462	.300	.762
Team Total		725	107	181	43	6	21	97	106	.250	.353	.412	.766

Strikeouts 167
RECORD 12-10
Reds scored 5 runs 11 times
Reds Pitchers gave up 5 runs 10 times. More than 10 runs 3 times

PITCHING 2005 - 2004
 	W	L	Sv	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	K/9	P/GS	WHIP	ERA
Reds 	10	11	8	181.1	205	104	33	62	126	6.25	85.3	1.47	5.16
 	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	TB	RBI	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2005    714	109	205	39	8	33	359	106	62	.287	.351	.503	.854  

2004	W	L	Sv	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	K/9	P/GS	WHIP	ERA
	12	10	10	191.0	221	105	31	61	130	6.13	82.2	1.48	4.95
	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	TB	RBI	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2004	760	113	221	45	9	31	377	109	61	.291	.348	.496	.844

Once again the pitching is in shambles, 1.13 hits an inning, whip the same HR’s the same, K Rate the same, OPS allowed the same.

Cookie Cutter Reds season so far, pure .500 ball, some offensive games from batters as well as pitchers.

The Reds are like that photograph of a guy holding a photo of a guy holding photo of a guy holding a photo.

Winding its way into infinity.

The Post reports that former Reds third baseman Brandon Larson, recently released by the Devil Rays’ organization, has signed a minor league contract with Rangers. He was supposed to be going to AA Frisco, but still has not appeared in a game.

The D-Rays reassigned “former Reds bust ” (TM Marc Lancaster) Jimmy Haynes to Hudson Valley of the New York-Penn League - “generally a place for young, recently drafted players. ” Haynes, 32, started the season with AAA Durham.

- NY/Penn is a short season league. It’s where you go when you’re drafted, but too old for rookie ball. They don’t start until June 21. Haynes was pitching for Durham a couple days before the move. What in the world is going on there?

On a similar note, Jimmy “Turd” Anderson was signed as a free agent last week, and is “pitching” for Rochester (MIN) at AAA. He’s still listed as 6′1″, 210 (which makes me 6′4″, 145). He somehow has a 2.53 ERA in 10.2 IP, but he’s up to his old tricks with 8 walks and 13 hits allowed.

For all the complaining I’ve been doing (online and off), this club is still only 1 game under .500 (10-11) and 5 games back of the Cardinals. But as Bob Scanlan (of all people) was saying about the surprisingly inept Padres yesterday, “I don’t care about ‘games out of first,’ I care about the performance on the field - and the performance has been bad.”

The Reds been a little lucky: 93 runs scored vs. 109 allowed, “should” equate to 9-12 (or a touch worse). Though, according to Baseball Prospectus, they’ve actually been a bit inefficient, given their individual pitching/hitting stats, and should’ve scored a few more runs.

In any event, couldn’t sleep last night, so here’s an insomniac’s (partial) report card, 13% of the way through the season (other players to follow - though I’m moving over the next couple of days and may not have access):

Dunn: (A+) Fourth in the league in VORP, FIRST in OPS (1225), and “a .300 hitter.” Best of all, doesn’t seem to be playing *way* over his head at this level.

WMP: (A) Only weakness is an apparent inability to pinch-hit. Would probably drop from his 1184 OPS with lots more playing time, but is still raking. Second on the club in VORP, with only 45 PAs.

Joe Randa: (B) Super-hot start endeared him to fans, perhaps to the worse. Recent tailspin is bringing his numbers back toward Randa level, but he’s still sporting a tasty 902 OPS. Third on club in VORP, despite being worthless for a week (i.e. 1/3 of the season). Should NOT be batting 4th. Touted as a defensive wiz, but hasn’t impressed.

Ryan Freel (B) The good: Five doubles in 40 AB = .500 SLG; 7 BB = .468 OBP. The bad: Only 2/5 on steal attempts. The ugly: Defense is still, as Chad coined the phrase, “the 2b Funhouse.”

Felipe Lopez (B+) Why in the name of all that is good does Rich Aurilia play ahead of this guy? 929 OPS in very limited play. No sign of “inconsistent” defense (1.000 FPct).

Rich Aurilia (D+) Only this high becuase I have low expectations. Not hitting… not fielding…better be “veteran leading” pretty darn well. Take away the two-homer game and his line drops to .200 BA, .241 OBP, .272 SLG, 513 OPS. Makes Castro look appealing as a starter. For those of you who hate strikeouts, has whiffed 11 times in 55 ABs.

Jr. Griffey (C+) His VORP is barely replacement level. His OPS would be decent for a shortstop (668), and he looked really lost for a while. That said, he’s been hitting the ball pretty well recently, and *does* have 7 doubles (on pace for 54. Since Jr. hasn’t turned into Tommy Herr, to my knowledge, I doubt a season of 54 2b, 0 HR. Don’t expect $10M worth of production - but he’ll come closer to earning his salary than will…

Eric Milton (F) Jeez, this has been ugly, hasn’t it? And everyone told us so, too. Looks to be just a terrible signing. The pitching has been pathetic, and the excuses more so (”Milt just elevated some balls,” Miley said. “Those guys hit the pitches that were up.”) Will wrap up the franchise record for HR allowed by Independence Day. Other than the one start, has been throwing batting practice out there. Limiting himself to 5 BB saves him from the F-.

Continued from Part Two (here’s Part One, if you missed it), this is the final installment of my interview with Marc Lancaster:

Redleg Nation: That seems like a healthy approach, frankly. What’s reassuring to those of us out here is that they’re not rejecting outright, for lack of a better term, the “Moneyball” approach.

Marc Lancaster: Oh, no. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s funny, I was working on the story in spring training. I cornered Brian Cashman, the Yankees G.M., and I was sort of asking him about it, on the run, real quick. And he said he’s interested in it, but he said, “Well, I don’t have a ‘stat guy’.” And it’s funny, because the first thing I thought was that it’s not because you can’t spend the money to hire a stat guy. (laughs)

But is it surprising to anybody? No, it’s not. It’s just kind of the Yankee way, right? But I think teams like the Reds, they recognize that they’re going to have to take advantage of every possible angle to compete, in this kind of marketplace they’re in.

RN: Let’s talk briefly about the Reds. What’s your opinion on the off-season acquisitions Dan O’Brien made?

ML: Well, I think that they did…I was going to say, as well as anybody could have expected. I think they did better than anyone could have expected. Part of that is that none of us could have expected them to spend the kind of money they did. You can argue that they overpaid for Milton, and so on and so forth, but you look at the marketplace for pitchers. Dan’s been after the Reds to be able to go get one of these upper echelon pitchers, and Milton’s expected to be in that upper echelon by almost everybody.

The Mets kind of blew the market out by giving Kris Benson $8 million, so if you want to play the game, you’ve got to play the game.

But I think the key to it was basically bringing in seven players for that extra sixteen, seventeen million dollars this year. There are certainly regimes that you would hand seventeen million dollars to, and they would have signed two players. This team needed more than two new bodies.

I think you saw last night how valuable those veteran guys in the bullpen can be when they’re on. And obviously, a couple of them have not been on thus far this year, but we’re, what? Ten, twelve games into the season. Who knows how that will pan out? But you’re investing $600,000 in Ben Weber and $600,000 in Rich Aurilia. That’s not much. They’re not paying any of these guys, except Milton, a lot of money.

To me, they used their money very, very wisely.

RN: What about Dave Miley’s evident preference for veterans over youngsters? How do you see that playing out with this team?

ML: People can complain about, oh gosh, look what he’s doing. I can guarantee you that Dave Miley will take his chances every day with a guy like Weathers, or a guy like Weber or Mercker than he will with Juan Padilla, Aaron Myette, Brian Reith. Think about how many games those guys pitched last year. Those are not major league pitchers. And that sort of panned out that way.

RN: · This is something that concerns many of us in Redleg Nation: with the hot start Joe Randa has had, do you foresee the Reds signing him to an extension, thus delaying Edwin Encarnacion’s entry to the Major Leagues?

Read on…
>> Continue

I know we all thought the Reds would have an improved bullpen this year, especially since last year’s pen was historically bad.

But is it possible that this year’s pen could be worse? Ryan Wagner is the only one I trust.

One of my baseball habits involves deadball era imagery I make paper products out of old baseball cards and sell them on the net, for fun I like to peruse the Library of Congress for old photos, especially Reds photos.

This one particularly interested me. It’s a pretty basic picture from the deadball era; the field looks “hard” and not very picturesque like the manicured ones on TV these days. The stands are raw and uncovered, barely teeming with the denizens that fill Wrigley these days. I’m fairly certain sure that the roving WGN cameramen would have a hard time finding a woman in a tank top in that crowd.

This picture is struck me with numerous Cincinnati connections, there are more than few in this picture, probably more than I can site. Two main facts strike me about it, Each man in the picture worked for the Cincinnati Reds at one time and each man managed in the Major Leagues later in their lives.

Date - 1908

Batter Miller Huggins (Attempting a Bunt) Catcher Johnny Kling, Umpire Hank O’Day.

Site: Chicago West End Grounds.

To start Miller Huggins was a Walnut Hills boy who despite his small stature made himself a nice little career in the National League and he was a skilled leadoff hitter and finished his career with a robust .382 OB% vs. the league .327. Miller drew 103 walks in 1905 as a Red; this was the club record until the 1972 season when Joe Morgan joined the Big Red Machine. Currently Huggins and Johnny Bates share the 10th slot for most walks in a season as a Red, but that is bound to change as Dunn logs more ab’s as a Red.

WALKS                         YEAR     BB
1    Joe Morgan               1975      132
2    Adam Dunn                2002      128
3    Joe Morgan               1974      120
4    Joe Morgan               1977      117
5    Joe Morgan               1972      115
6    Joe Morgan               1976      114
7    Joe Morgan               1973      111
8    Adam Dunn                2004      108
9    Pete Rose                1974      106
T10  Johnny Bates             1911      103
T10  Miller Huggins           1905      103

Huggins is the last man in the photo to become a manager and is certainly the most famous. He was traded to St. Louis after the 1909 season and became the Cardinals manager in 1913 and from there his career was eventually redefined in the ubiquitous Babe Ruth lore and his actual playing career and early NL managing experience was dimmed in the mighty shadow of his relationship with Ruth.

Known as a fine bunter and often credited with inventing the delayed steal Huggins was what folks call “Scrappy” and as a player was most like Willie Randolph without the fielding skills. The picture shows the ball coming in over his head and Johnny Kling is standing to catch the ball. Kling is probably a step behind the normal placement of today’s catchers; this is most likely an attempt to protect him more than a strategic move. It wasn’t uncommon for catchers to set up further behind the plate when the bases were clear. Of course the bunt might suggest in another era that a player was on base, but in the deadball era it is not a good idea to assume that scratch hits and strategic plays always involve runners.

Another odd Cincinnati connection can be found in Millers decision to play professional baseball. Huggins was convinced by a Law professor at the University of Cincinnati to pursue his dream of playing in the big leagues, the professor was a large man and came from a popular local family. His name was William Howard Taft, whose half brother would later fund a former Cincinnati Enquirer sports editor (Charles Murphy) when he bought the Cubs in 1905. Taft’s older brother ended up purchasing the team from Murphy (for 5 times as much as Murphy paid for it with Taft’s loan) and owned the Cubs himself from 1914-1915 and is the last Cubs owner to own the ballpark in the photo above.

One detail that leaps out to me is Kling’s lack of shin guards. Roger Bresnathan introduced shin guards in 1907 and only he and George Gibson of the Pirates wore them in 1908 (a season in which both were #1 and #2 in the league in games caught, thus changing the game by increasing the sturdiness of the catcher) Kling was generally regarded as the finest defensive catcher of that era. In his prime he decided to stay west (Kansas City) and pursue the worlds Billiard Championship, which he won. He supplemented his income playing some semi-pro ball but in 1910 he decided he wanted back in the big leagues. Problem is he had some trouble getting his game back. As many do even to this day when forced to miss a year.

Later in life he was fast to admit in interviews that his skills had diminished due to his absence. Noting that timing was essential to returning to form and that long layoffs can really hurt your game. Like any older player the Cubs later moved Kling as his game declined and Jimmy Archer pressed him for playing time. He ended up in Boston (National League Purgatory at that time) and was eventually inserted as the manager for the newly named Braves in 1912.

52 wins later Kling was looking for another job, however in retrospect it’s not as though he did anything worse than his predecessors.

1908  6th     63   91  .409   36
1909  8th     45  108  .294   65.5
1910  8th     53  100  .346   50.5
1911  8th     44  107  .291   54
1912  8th     52  101  .340   52

Those are some bad teams the Nationals/Rustlers/Braves were trotting out there, absolutely horrid. No wonder they had an identity crisis in naming that mess.

Kling was once again a man without a job, and proceeded to look up former teammates in hope of catching on with a team for another year. This is where the Cincinnati connection arises. In Cincinnati former Cubs SS Joe Tinker was obtained from the Cubs and trying his hand at running Gary Herrmann’s team. He could use a backup catcher and a old friend from happier times so he inked Kling to back up Tommy Clarke, Kling played out his string with the Reds that summer and walked away from the game with a league average OPS and a reputation as a fine fielding catcher who’s soft talking ways charmed many an umpire to see the game as he did.

The umpire in the picture might be the most interesting man in the photo. Henry “Hank” O’Day was one of those rare men who played, umpired and managed in MLB.

Started his career in the 1880’s in the American Association; his catcher was the Fleetwood Walker the first black man to play professional baseball. Not a good pitcher in an era that boasts gaudy pitching numbers O’Day managed to throw 1600 innings and play in 3 different professional leagues before he hung it up with a sub .500 after the 1890 season.

O’Day joined the umpiring business in 1895 and is in that position that he gained most of his baseball fame. O’Day is most famous for being the umpire during the famous “Merkel Incident” and the second base umpire for the first triple play in World Series History.

The Cincinnati connection with O’Day is found in 1912, a year that O’Day found himself a manager in the National League and it was the Reds who gave the arbitrator his first chance at managing O’Day’s greatest accomplishment as a Red is that he was at the helm of the club when they opened the new stadium that was christened “Redland Field” and later renamed Crosley Field.

It was also the Reds who also gave him his first pink slip after the season ended. Back to umpiring went O’Day only to reemerge in 1914 working for the aforementioned Taft family in Chicago managing the Cubs to their first sub .500 record in 12 seasons. In 1915 he was once again wearing blue and defending his calls to the players he managed the year before.

Felipe Lopez just hit a grand slam to put the Reds up 6-1. That ought to buy him at least one more start before Rich Aurilia gets back into the lineup full-time.

Here’s Part Two of my interview with Marc Lancaster of the Cincinnati Post. Part One is located here.

Enjoy:

Redleg Nation: Going back to “the beat,” do you think that being so connected to the team on a day-to-day basis can cause a writer to lose perspective, or even be unable to enjoy the game from an aesthetic point of view?

Marc Lancaster: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I had lunch with my boss yesterday, and I said, please, if you see any sort of bigger issue that I’m missing, let me know. Forest for the trees, kind of thing.

Because you’re grinding every single day. We take days off, but you get into a stretch where you’re going out there for two weeks, and you’re just focused on, what’s my notebook, what’s my game story going to be about? For us at the Post, with our deadline and publication schedule, we try not to do straight game stories all the time, because we figure everyone will already have seen that by the time they see our actual paper. We need something different.

So we try to add a different angle, give you something more to think about. So, yeah, you tend to view baseball through different eyes. I don’t think I’ve lost any sort of love that I had for baseball, but I’m also not going to take a day off and go watch baseball. It’s not that I don’t enjoy baseball at all. I really do, and that was one thing that surprised me last year, my first full year on the beat, that I didn’t get sick of watching the games. Because I kind of expected that that could be a possibility.

It is strange, because it’s something that you’re around every day, and it just becomes your routine. It is what it is, and you get used to watching a baseball game every day. For other people, it’s like going to their 10 a.m. meeting.

RN: Exactly. As I was watching the game last night (the April 18 game, where the Reds came back from a 5-1 deficit for an exciting victory), I kept thinking that it was classic drama. Perfect baseball theater. While I watched it, I wondered if, because you are there every day, whether you were able to appreciate it.

ML: Yeah, and I’ve never been a huge, die-hard baseball fan. I haven’t gotten an autograph since I was eight, ten. So I don’t live and die with it, and I didn’t grow up a Reds fan, so I don’t have any interest or stake in winning or losing. But, you’re right, last night was just bizarre. There are some things that happen that are pretty much out of the realm.

Like, there was a two game series at the end of April last year in Milwaukee, where the Reds lost two games in a row in the ninth inning.

RN: Bill Hall.

ML: Right. Bill Hall, and Brandon Larson throwing the ball away on the last out. You get a sequence like that and you’re like, this is a little messed up. But even that, that’s just something for you to remember, and you go on, but they do kind of blend together. That’s why we keep a scorebook.

RN: With most major newspapers now online, your audience is no longer just local. Does that impact your approach, or your paper’s, to covering a story?

ML: That’s something that there’s never really been a position about that at the Post. Honestly, circulation numbers for newspapers are declining. And there’s some question about how much time any paper has left.

If I were writing for the Thursday paper, and the Reds had a game that afternoon, I would try to avoid making reference to that game, or who’s pitching. The thought is, by the time that our subscribers get the paper, that person will have already pitched. So that’s the approach that the Post has always followed.

I’ve always – and I think this goes along with what I learned from writing the blog – just realizing how many people read this stuff online. You look at blogs like Redleg Nation, and forums like RedsZone, and you see how many people are out there posting your stories at 7:30 a.m., or whenever they go on the website. And it’s like, I don’t know that writing for the people who actually get our paper at home, delivered, specifically for them, is the top approach anymore, considering how many people are reading our stuff online.

And that doesn’t apply to all of our beats, by the way. I think with the Reds, and the Bengals probably, over and above, that’s something that we need to be aware of, because the culture changes. That’s what’s been happening with newspapers over the last ten years. The internet exploded, so we have to adapt to it.

RN: What are your thoughts on the declining readership of newspapers and the ever-growing internet age? And how do you and many of your colleagues view baseball blogs such as RedlegNation.com, as well as fan message boards?

ML: (laughs)

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The NL record for grounding into double-plays is 30, shared by Reds legend Ernie Lombardi and out factory Brad Ausmus. Jim Rice holds the MLB record with 36. (The records for lefites are much lower - 32 for Ben Grieve and 27 for A.J. Pierzynski, set last year).

Through 20 Reds games, Sean Casey has grounded into 7. That puts him on pace for 57. He’s well on pace to set a record. At his current pace, The Mayor will break Rice’s record in the Reds 106th game — August 2, vs. the Braves. Buy your tickets now, as they’re sure to sell out.

(I have tickets to the Padres series the weekend before - with a little luck, I might see history.)

Marc Lancaster has a short piece today about the fact that Randa is still in the cleanup slot, despite entering Monday one for his last 22, and three for his last 34 (left unmentioned is Randa’s career .424 SLG, and 102 career HRs in 4600+ ABs).

“He’ll be fine,” said Miley. “Hitters are going to go through some slumps; he brings a lot to the table in other ways.”

I suppose that Randa is still bringing things “to the table,” in the way of fielding (though he’s been unimpressive to me), baserunning(?), and of course, chemistry. But how in the world are those things justification for keeping him in the cleanup spot?

Maybe Randa has to bat fourth because he’s the only one who can competently come out of the on-deck circle to tell the leadoff man “slide!” or “up!” on a play at the plate. Of course, since D.P. Casey is batting third, Randa is really a “second leadoff man.”

Here’s a game thread for tonight. If you have any comments on the game, let’s hear them.

Junior just hit one on the nose, but it was caught with a back to the wall. You can just see him heating up more every at-bat. Let’s hope he keeps that up.

Thoughts?

Also, after last night’s 2B Funhouse for Ryan Freel, is it any surprise that D’Angelo Jiminez is back in the lineup tonight? And D’Angelo just demonstrated some excellent baserunning to score in the first inning.

You will recall that, last week, I teased an interview I did with Marc Lancaster, the Reds beat writer for the Cincinnati Post.

Well, we had a great conversation about many different topics. It was such a good conversation that we kept talking for longer than we had expected.

As a result, I’m going to split this interview up into three parts. Part One is below (Parts Two and Three will appear over the next two days). Enjoy.

FYI: This interview was conducted with Marc Lancaster on Tuesday, April 19, 2005. I found Marc to be a very engaging person, and I look forward to talking with him again. Frankly, he’s just a great guy.

Redleg Nation: Most fans know what a beat writer does, but may not really understand what goes into the job? Tell us about that.

Marc Lancaster: Well, I guess the first and foremost thing is, wherever the team is and whatever the team does, we’re supposed to be on top of it. And that means, from the first day of spring training in Sarasota, we follow them all the way through to October, and go everywhere they go.

Basically, there are three of us who do that job: myself, John Fay, and Hal McCoy. Just keeping a pulse on the team is how I like to think about it. There’s what I would consider a minimum level of what we have to do, which is take care of the injury news, player moves and trades, signings, and all that sort of stuff. But you can get that, especially nowadays, everywhere.

So, I think what a lot of us try to do is get a little more nuanced, a little more analysis sometimes, really let people know what’s going on with the team, in a big-picture sense.

And it’s not…your readers probably understand that we’re not just going and watching baseball games. It certainly beats the heck out of hauling trash or coal mining, or anything like that, but there is a bit of work to it.

For night games, we’re basically at the ballpark four hours before the first pitch. The clubhouse opens three and a half hours before the first pitch. That’s when we go down and talk to Dave Miley and talk to the players. We all do notebooks every day, and that’s when you try to get all your notebook stuff done. Ninety percent of the time, you try to get that all done before the game. Lineup things or injuries, or a guy might be streaking or slumping, you go try to find that guy and try to get something from him, or talk to Don Gullett or Chris Chambliss, talk to Mark Mann about injuries.

You get all that stuff done, watch batting practice, go upstairs, write your notebook during the game, and then basically see what happens during the game. So it definitely is a long day every day.

RN: I don’t think any of our readers would be surprised by that. How’d you get into the business?

ML: Well, sort of accidentally. I always thought I wanted to be a radio guy, a play by play guy. I grew up listening to Ernie Harwell. I was a Tigers fan and I thought he was unbelievable. He still is, even though he isn’t doing it anymore. That was sort of what I wanted to do. I ended up bouncing around a couple of colleges and I found myself at the University of Georgia in 1995, and they didn’t have a very good radio program, so I was just trying to figure out something to do.

I’d always been interested in sports. One day I wrote a letter to the editor of the school newspaper. The editor called me up and said, “Hey, you look like you have an idea how to write. You ever thought about writing for the newspaper?” I was like, “Absolutely not.”

He said, “why don’t you come down?” So I went down and I think my first story was on the UGA intramural basketball championship game. I sorta started off part-time, doing little things, and I fell in love with it immediately. It seemed like something that was natural to me. I was always a big reader, but I never enjoyed writing.

A lot of people, the first thing they ask is “How do you write so much every day? How do you think of things to write?” It just kinda comes to you, and there’s no better way to explain it. I can’t think of one, anyway. You don’t even think of how many words you’re writing every day.

But it was just one of those things that took off from there and I ended up, before I graduated college, getting a job with the city paper there in Athens, Georgia. I ended up working there for four years, and covered University of Georgia football for three years, when Jim Donnan was head coach.

From there, I went to CNN/SI.com, and ended up staying there for two years. Mostly did behind the scenes editing and some writing there.

I came to the Post in March of ’02. I backed up Tony Jackson for a couple of years before I took over for him last year.

RN: Has the baseball beat changed to a more-or-less year-round schedule?

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