I constantly hear about how the Reds would be so much better scoring runs if they would just bunt more. If they would just do the LITTLE thiings. Bah humbug. I saw this article at the Hardball Times today, after Mike Howes from the Reds Listserv pointed it out. Here is my favorite excerpt

But if you play for one run, you will only score one run.

Two runs are still worth more than one run. And, as Earl Weaver famously said, if you play for one run, you will only score one run. If you sacrifice a runner to second base, you are still giving up an out. I don’t think any of the “things” in this article suggest that there should be a much greater use of one-run strategies.

But I’m not totally against sacrifice bunts either, for many of the reasons outlined in this article. And maybe our list of one-run things can help you better identify situations in which one-run strategies are appropriate.

Game thread. Enjoy.

Billy Beane is interviewed at the Athletic Nations Blog. Think anybody from the Redleg Nation could get an interview with OB? hahahahah I doubt he knows what a blog is.

One thing I did pick out of the interview was Beane’s desire for more power, Dunn is the perfect fit for Beane. I hope when Dunn gets traded its to a team that understands his talents.

Don’t look now, but after a horrible start the A’s are 3 games below .500 and 6 games out of the WC. This will be six straight winning seasons, with payrolls less than the Reds. Yep all the “baseball people” are right. Billy Beane is an idiot.

Blez: Yeah. Have you ever seen a team go into team-wide funk all at once like this team did? And how tough was it for you to be patient and not run out and throw a band-aid over it?

Beane: I was patient because you take someone like Chavy. You know he’s going to come around, it’s just a matter of when. And his impact on the lineup is huge. You knew when he picked it up, well, it’s as simple as looking at his good days. When he has good days, everyone else does. So you knew he was eventually going to come around. He’s only 27 years old, remember. The offense, in fairness to them, when guys are hurt, each guys have a tendency of trying to be the hero with each at-bat they have. We got in a very bad funk there and there’s no explanation except to try and be patient. One of the things that we are severely lacking in, and it’s due to the erosion of losing some guys, is the power. It’s an area we need to address going forward. Not just short term, but long term. When you don’t have power, each game you have is likely to be a close game, even when you win, it’s a tight game. Like the game in Seattle the other night when we won 5-0. You add power and those games become 7-0 or 8-0 games, as opposed to every game being a 3-2, 4-2 game.

Power is the great separator. You can manufacture your butt to one run, but after a while, luck is going to hurt you.

Blez: Moving forward then, you’d say power is one area where you’d like to upgrade?

Beane: Yeah, but it’s not easy to find and it’s expensive. That’s why we no longer have it. Because when we develop it, we lose it through free agency. We lost Jason (Giambi), a 35-40 home run guy and Miguel (Tejada), the same thing. Now, there’s going to be power developed from some of the guys within, like from Crosby. But he’s a second-year player. You don’t expect him to go out and hit 30 homers. It’s going to come over time, but in the short term, waiting for it is going to be difficult. You go to the team stats of every team and the teams that hit home runs are going to score runs. The one consistent thing for scoring a lot of runs is getting on base and slugging. You can have 1,000 stolen bases, but if you don’t have power to go along with it you’re not going to be bringing those guys home. And that’s why Boston is so deadly. You look at those two games there. Home run. Boom, boom, game over, see you later. You’re never out of a game if you have the ability to hit one over the fence.

Here’s a game thread to discuss tonight’s game. Ramon Ortiz takes the hill; let’s hope he has more success than we’ve seen thus far.

Whats this guy gotta do to get the call?

Denorfia From To AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG OPS
Chatt. 04-08 05-26 188 40 62 17 3 7 26 17 38 4 3 .391 .564 .330 .955
Lou. 05-26 06-28 106 15 35 2 1 6 26 10 15 3 1 .385 .538 .330 .923

Why didn’t they give him the call over Romano? He’s pretty much going to be a career 4th outfielder in the majors anyway, and he can actually hit. He probably plays the infield as well as Romano too, for all we know.

Denorfia is getting clarked big time.

Later,
Tom

So I guess I’m curious, were does the Reds draw the line on having patience with young developing players? Kearns seems to have found his stroke as quick as Pena has lost his:

Pena AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
April 43 9 14 6 0 5 11 2 13 0 0 .326 .370 .814 1.184
June 70 9 17 4 0 3 10 4 27 1 0 .243 .284 .429 .712
Total 118 19 32 10 0 9 22 6 43 1 0 .271 .312 .585 .897

Kearns AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
April 63 11 15 3 0 3 10 10 22 0 0 .238 .347 .429 .775
May 89 9 20 7 0 2 14 8 23 0 0 .225 .293 .371 .664
June 18 2 3 1 0 1 1 0 5 0 0 .167 .211 .389 .599
Total 170 22 38 11 0 6 25 18 50 0 0 .224 .306 .394 .700
AAA 49 9 15 9 0 1 9 6 12 0 0 .306 .393 .551 .944

So if your playing the hot hand, it looks to be Austin now. He also is at least solid in the field when he slumps. I’m thinking it may be time to change the guard again. I will be watching with great interest to see if the Reds make any moves in July to free up a spot for both of these young sluggers.

Later,
Tom

I still haven’t seen an article about St. Casey’s assault on the GIDP record. He is STILL on a pace to do it.

18 GIDP that’s a pace for 39. The old Record is 36.

Also despite his .322 batting average he is ninth in the NL at 1B with a .789 OPS.
Despite batting 3rd for some odd reason he is 10th among NL 1B with only 35 RBI
There are 20 more 1B in the NL with more Home Runs. He has 3. One more than Ben Broussard had during one game.
Don’t you think maybe a guy making $6 Million a year, and occupying 1B the easiest position to replace, and the #3 spot in the order would garner some negative ink? Nah. Let’s pile on our 25-year old future star that produces at a .956 clip. Yeah that’s the ticket.

I appreciate that Marc Lancaster tried to do some meaningful analysis today, but why would he use incorrect numbers? Did the numbers come from the Reds? Are they tryin to drive down his arbitration value?

Dunn is hitting just .196 with runners in scoring position. Of the 91 men he has found in scoring position, he has driven in only 10 of them (11 percent) - four of those coming on home runs.

Not only does his percentage of men in scoring position batted in pale in comparison to the team total of 21.6 percent, it’s far inferior to the efficiency demonstrated by nearly every other regular.

Sean Casey has driven in 29 of 93 (31.2 percent). Ken Griffey Jr. 26 of 92 (28.3 percent), Felipe Lopez 22 of 82 (26.8 percent), Jason LaRue 14 of 53 (26.4 percent), Rich Aurilia 18 of 73 (24.7 percent) and Joe Randa 22 of 93 (22.6 percent). Only leadoff man Ryan Freel, who has batted in 5 of 43 men in scoring position (11.6 percent) comes close to Dunn’s rate, and RBIs are not expected from him.

In the Article Marc states that Dunn has 11 RBI with RISP. That is wrong according to the stats on Yahoo, and on ESPN. Both sites say Dunn has 18 RBI in 73 plate appearances. The batting average quoted in the article is correct, the number of walks is correct. But the RBI are wrong? ARe the Reds feeding the media bad stats on purpose?

Casey’s numbers are right, WTF, why would they do this?

The end of the article says all of the right things, but it misses the most important point Dunn’s OPS with RISP is the second highest on the team (.912 vs. Griffey .915)

The Enquirer (i.e. John Fay) reviews Narron’s management style:

After five games as Reds manager, Narron has provided some insights into his managerial style.

He’ll play small ball, even early in the game. He had Rich Aurilia sacrifice in the first inning Saturday night. Aurilia got the bunt down and the Reds scored the run, but lost 12-7.

He’s not afraid to use unproven players in tough spots. Brian Shackelford made his big-league debut in a one-run game Sunday.

He wants his players to be conservative on defense early in the game. Third baseman Edwin Encarnacion cut off a ball in the first inning Friday night. The throw might have gotten the runner at the plate.

“Early in the game, you don’t want to give them the extra base,” Narron said. “Sparky Anderson used to preach that. You want to stay out of the big inning early.”

His lineups have been similar to Miley’s. Stats lovers thought Narron’s first move would be flopping Dunn and Sean Casey in the lineup based on Dunn’s superior on-base plus slugging percentage - .956. That hasn’t happened.

Bunting in the first inning on a team giving up over 5 runs a game…that’s a sure sign of genius. It won’t win more games, but it will impress the “old time baseball” people ’cause that’s how the game was played when Leo Cardenas was the Reds shortstop.

Fay writes an article today entitled “Allen mum on O’Brien’s future”

Not much information, but it does make you wonder how, unless they play better ball in the second half, O’Brien can escape being held accountable.

We took a little trip down to Cumberland Falls State Park in the RV this weekend, and to pass the time on a long drive my kids get to watch videos in the TV above my head. My 9 year-old son who is as addicted to baseball as I am chose to watch a copy of game 7 of the 1975 World Series that I bought a few years ago.

I have watched this game a million times, but I never noticed something that Pete Rose did in the Top of the ninth.

For those of you that weren’t around (or don’t remember) I will set the stage. In the top of the ninth inning of game 7 of the 1975 World Series, the Reds had a man on 3rd base with two outs. The score was tied 3-3 and up to the plate came Pete Rose, who would become the all-time hit King. On deck was future hall of famer Joe Morgan. Rose is a gamer. Rose is a professional hitter. Rose would never give up. So what did Rose do when the pitcher through junk at him? Did he swing at bad pitches and try to get a hit for the good of the team? Nope. Mr. Hit King, Mr. Cincinnati Reds Baseball in the eyes of many…..FAILED! He took ball four and ran down to first base. IF that same situation were to come up and Adam Dunn had done the same thing, that whiney Marty Brennaman would bellyache and cry. Rose’s batting average in that inning with RISP? .000

Joe Morgan then ripped a single and the Reds won the game and the series.

The Post has more on that plan we’ve been hearing so much about for Austin Kearns:

What Kearns is doing is sticking to the plan laid out for him by Reds management.

No. 1, the goal was to get at-bats every day, something that was nearly impossible in Cincinnati. So far, he’s looked good in a Bats uniform, batting .394 while smashing eight doubles, a home run and eight RBIs in 33 at-bats.

No. 2, the goal was for Kearns to drop some weight. He said he was expected to lose 10-15 pounds, and already, he’s making progress. He doesn’t know exactly how much weight he’s lost, but he said he feels better.

No. 3 - and this might have been only in his mind - the goal was to have fun playing baseball again.

There’s also this, which speaks well about Kearns:

“Austin came down with a very good attitude,” Sweet said. “I’ll be honest, I have seen a lot of guys come down before, and some of them come back so-so and some of them it takes a week to recover. ‘AK’ came back from the first day, he put his uniform on the way we want it put on, he wore his helmet during batting practice, the way we want it in the minor leagues. He knew every little off-rule we have that they don’t have in the big leagues. He adhered to every one of them. He walked in this clubhouse with a smile on his face.”

Also, Kearns says that he didn’t demand a trade, but he did inquire about it. Sounds like he asked to be traded, but didn’t demand it of O’Brien.

There seems to be no dispute that O’Brien lied to Kearns’ face about whether there is interest in Kearns out there.

From the DDN:

Amazingly, the team snubbed outfielder Austin Kearns again, this time re-acquiring outfielder Jason Romano from Louisville. Romano was designated for assignment June 7 and removed from the 40-man roster.

To make room for Romano, the Reds transferred injured infielder Luis Lopez from the 15-day to the 60-day disabled list.
“We had hoped to wait on Freel until at least Monday, and none of us wanted to put him on the DL and he didn’t want to go on the DL,” manager Jerry Narron said. “But he wasn’t getting better, and we didn’t want him to go out and re-injure it.

“Since (outfielder) Kenny Kelly is out and with Freel out, we definitely needed a guy who could play the outfield.”
Kearns? Still being punished for weighing 255 pounds. But his bat is pretty heavy, too — .394 in 33 at-bats with eight doubles in eight games.

O’Brien says they needed someone to play infield and outfield, Narron says they needed an outfielder. And neither can seem to explain why Kearns can’t lose wait in Cincinnati, rather than hitting almost .400 at Louisville.

But the good thing is we’ll get to see Aurilla every day at 2B (and batting second) while Freel is on the DL.

Maybe he’ll continue to hit and they can package him and Randa up for something worth something.

Here’s your game thread. Luke Hudson (1-1, 5.63) at Jake Westbrook (4-9, 4.57) . I keep waiting to see if Hudson is going to be a solid pitcher this season. I think he has all the tools, and he’s shown flashes, but as a young pitcher, I’m not surprised at his inconsistency.

Here are the lineups:

SS Lopez
2B Aurilia
1B Casey
CF Griffey
3B Randa
LF Dunn
RF Pena
DH Cruz
C Valentin
P Hudson

CF Sizemore
LF Crisp
DH Hafner
C Martinez
1B Broussard
2B Belliard
RF Gerut
3B Boone
SS Peralta
P Westbrook

I don’t understand why Encarnacion is up here if Narron isn’t going to play him. I thought the reason to call him up was to get him three games while the Reds were using the DH?

I know EE looked overmatched last night, but still…. He’s the future at the hot corner, let’s see him play, even if batting ninth.

UPDATE: I missed this, but it appears that Ryan Freel has been placed on the DL. So expect to see Rich Aurilia in the lineup, hitting second, for quite some time.

Who got called up to replace Freel in the lineup? Jason Romano! Dan O’Brien’s love child.

Sheesh. What does Kearns have to do to get recalled from Louisville?

One of our favorite bloggers out there in Redleg Nation is Red Hot Mama, who recently set up shop at a brand new location, with a fancy new domain name.

I assume her hilarious take on the Reds won’t change.