Awesome to finally see the bats come alive a little.
Quick thoughts:
- Matt Belisle got knocked around, but he looked better to me than Eric Milton on Monday. I think yesterday was about the worst we're going to see from Belisle this year (for the most part) and I can live with that.
- When Ryan Freel is on it seems like it's really tough for the Reds to lose. You can't really say that about too many other players on the team right now (Dunn maybe, Hamilton?).
- Mike Stanton looks pretty damn good. Maybe that'll turn out to be a good signing after all. Certainly has been so far.
- The split against Milwaukee means the Reds have still only lost one series this year. They really haven't looked overmatched against anyone yet.
- I'm starting to wonder just how good Josh Hamilton can be. Maybe I'm late to the optimism bandwagon, but I've always been thinking that Hamilton's ceiling was something like an Austin Kearns replacement. You know, .270/.350/.430 with maybe 20 home runs. With the last week though, I just don't know anymore. Guy still has to go around the league a couple of times (and through a slump for the first time) before we can draw conclusions, but he just looks so damn comfortable. It's not the power that I keep coming back to, it's the patience. He's got five walks already, against seven strikeouts, and I think that stat shows how comfortable he is at this level better than anything else.
I'll just throw it out there: what if Josh Hamilton is the next A-Rod or Albert Pujols? Teams and scouts obviously thought he had the talent back in '99, how huge would it be for the Cincinnati Reds if he didn't just become an adequate player, if he became one of the best hitters in baseball? It would change everything I think. The Reds would become a serious threat as early as this season. Pie in the sky stuff, but I can't help thinking about it after what we've seen so far.