Everyone feel a little better now? I'm not going to lie, I certainly do.
Quick thoughts:
- Great to see Josh Hamilton get a hit off a lefthander. It's something he's going to need to do a lot more of if he wants to take another step forward.
- Alex Gonzalez had an incredible night in just about every area of play. His throw to get Albert Pujols was amazing. It really annoyed me to read the AP recap and find four paragraphs devoted to Ken Griffey Jr. and just one about Gonzalez. I was obviously happy to see Junior's home run, but him moving into 10th place on the all time home run list feels like a non-story to me at this point. Not sure why that is exactly, but he feels like an afterthought in general now, which is a little strange.
Of course, ESPN apparently disagrees with me, but that really only strengthens my feelings on the issue.
- Todd Coffee needs to go to AAA for a tune up. I was watching the Cardinals broadcast and they did a couple of closeups on him in the 9th and he looked a little panicked. Not something you really want to see.
- Aaron Harang looked great, and it was nice to see him rewarded with a win. A 3-0 April start is pretty solid.
- David Ross looked a little more comfortable. I don't know if his night tonight means we're out of the woods with him yet, but it was still nice to see a 2-5 out of him. I'm still waiting for the first 520 foot homerun to left out of him this year. I think that'll be the sign that he's coming out of his slump.
- Josh Hancock looked embarassingly skinny. I really hope the Reds learned something out of that mess.
- Great win, and the Reds now have a great shot at winning the series with Arroyo tomorrow night and Randy Keisler going for the Cardinals on Thursday. You can't ask for a better setup than that.