-- So I go to work yesterday and the Reds are up 6-1. I come home to find that they barely managed to win, squeaking by 6-5. Not surprisingly it turned out to be the fault of David Weathers. Weathers has only thrown five innings this year, but he's already given up five runs, on six hits and an insane six walks.
Maybe we ought to give the guy a day off eh? The way the bullpen is being used is a bit puzzling, especially when the strange case of Brandon Claussen is taken into account. I understand what Dave Miley wants David Weathers to be, but he may no longer be able to fill the role of set up man / middle reliever. He may have entered the phase of his career where he's only suited to garbage time mopping up. Hopefully the Reds find out one way or the other very soon because Weathers is unquestionably hurting the team at the moment.
-- Red Hot Mama has a nice entry on watching a game through Gamecast:
Note to self: look into renting a giant bird that can crap on command for the next time St. Louis comes to town.
Since she's wanting to point the bird in the direction of Jim Edmonds I'd feel obliged to chip in.
-- Back to David Weathers for a moment, Reds and Blues had this interesting stat:
With Weathers, the bullpen's ERA the season is 4.5. Without Weathers, it drops to 3.31.
-- Lone Star Ball, a new addition to the SportsBLOGS family had this to say about Ben Kozlowski:
Ben Kozlowski had another good game yesterday, giving up only an unearned run in five innings, allowing three hits and three walks against six strikeouts.His ERA still stands at 0.00 after 10 innings at AA this year, and he seems to be poised to make the jump to AAA by the end of May.
By all accounts, Koz is a great kid and a terrific talent, someone worth rooting for in his return from T-J surgery. While I'm disappointed the Rangers let him go (as I've railed about at length), I'm hoping he succeeds with the Reds.
At least, if he does well there, he's in another league, and we won't have to face him.
I think signing Kozlowski was a great example of the kind of low risk moves with which Dan O'Brien seems to excel.
-- The Bench Rich Aurilia Campaign had another banner day unfortunately as Rich went 0-4. His line for the season now reads .143/.143/.190 for an OPS of .333. Felipe Lopez is hitting .400, with an OPS of 1.000. Just sayin'.