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A few items worth discussing…
–After going 2-3 last night, catcher Javier Valentin strained a hamstring and was taken out of the game. Looks like we may have a catching platoon of Paul Bako and Ryan Hanigan now.
–SP Josh Fogg was terrible last night. Hurry up, Homer Bailey.
–Dusty Baker says that Jeff Keppinger is the perfect number 2 hitter.
–With a tip of the cap to Justin, I see this distressing report during a discussion of whether Cincinnati is a good baseball town:
Maybe at one point it was. It has lots of history. And a really good team in the Big Red Machine that they can continually run up the flagpole. They still skip work every Opening Day, and have a parade through downtown, which is pretty cool. But Opening Day is their only sellout, and they spend the rest of the season screaming at their best players.
Aside from the local media, who are about the worst I’ve seen, management of the team has not improved much under Krivsky. And I don’t mean player management, I mean day-to-day management of a ballclub. I mean promising season-ticket holders first crack at buying extra single-game tickets (such as for the Red Sox series this year), but then opening the sales to everyone, and letting the scalpers take them all.
I mean holding a special “come watch batting practice at GABP” the Sunday before Opening Day, but then not allowing anyone to sit in the outfield. Seriously, ushers prevented anyone from going into the bleachers and catching homeruns. They didn’t sell beer. They gave away hot dogs for free, and cans of pop, but all they had was Diet Pepsi and they had nowhere to recycle the cans.
Speaking of groaning at bunting, the decorative bunting in the stadium was pathetic. It consisted of about 20 half-moons, each about 6 feet long. That’s all. For the entire stadium. When I saw it during the BP fiasco, I said “that can’t be the decorations for tomorrow. That looks like the remains of whatever survived the winter, whatever is still up from the last day of the season.” Nope. Came back the next day, that’s all there was, 20 pieces of bunting.
The bunting may a fitting metaphor for the team. Whether it’s Encarnacion or the decorations, the end result is a half-ashed effort and poor execution in just about everything they do.
“Where is that young kid who looked so good in spring training in center field, and why isn’t he here?” — Gary Matthews Sr., former major-league outfielder, friend of (Dusty) Baker and Phillies broadcaster, asking about Jay Bruce.
Fogg was horrible last night. He won’t always be THAT bad, but even at his best, he’s barely average. Why waste a spot on someone with a low ceiling…hurry up Homer or Belisle or Maloney or someone with some promise.
Even in the losses, we have received some good/great pitching performances: Cordero, Lincoln, Cueto, Mercker, Burton. A couple of those guys are real suprises. The bats will come around. It’s good to see Junior start to drive the ball, he always seems to find the gaps just before he goes on a home run tear. I have also seen both Dunn and Griff beat the shift by going the other way. These were all things that we didn’t see in the first week of last year that I feel very good about. I’m excited about Voltron tomorrow. It’s a good time to be a Reds fan, and next year should even be better.
I am encouraged by the apparent improvement in pitching as well.
Fogg has the month of April to demonstrate whether or not he can be a competitive pitcher then it time to hand the ball over to someone else.
Ain’t nothing wrong with this franchise that winning won’t fix.
The article written by Justin is a good article. I am a season ticket holder and also feel like they have to change their ways, especially with ticket sales. One thing that really bothered me, was the so called lottery winners. I have two bleachers seats for the season and was allowed to purchase two bleacher only seats. But my brother in law (a cubs fan) won the lottery and was able to purchase tickets at the same time and could buy four tickets in the field box. Sold them on stubhub for $900. This is just ridculous, how do you limit a season ticket holder to two bleacher seat but reward someone else who has an email account. It is poor business management, and doesn’t want me to continue being a season ticket holder. It is just little things that keep season ticket holders happy.
On top of that, they put a power pack together that was good for scalpers. If you look at any other team, they package the great games with other games that are difficult to sell out. You know opening day with five other average games would at least sell out five other games. These are just simple things they can do to increase sells but fail to do. This is why we will always be a mid market team and have an average payroll at best. Either way, still a die hard Reds fan, but think they should at least appease your season ticket holders.