Quick thoughts:
- Corey Patterson looks like he'll be a pretty good defender in center, but I'm still not behind him leading off, and I'm pretty sure I never will be. I mind the Patterson pick up a lot less now than I did when it happened, but he needs to be hitting sixth or seventh. But that's not going to happen I imagine.
- Aaron Harang looked find, just made a couple of mistakes which will happen. Still managed a quality start. More importantly the bullpen looked halfway decent. Sure, Burton gave up a run, but I'm used to games getting completely out of reach come about the 8th, so any day when the Reds managed to put up 0s in the 8th and 9th is an encouraging one.
- All the Cincinnati writer's seem to be making a big deal out of Valentin not running hard out of the box on his long single, but I'm not so sure he makes it to second even running hard. He looked even slower than I remembered.
- I hope EdE doesn't let the error get into his head. I'm pretty sure he didn't get a good grip on a wet ball, and those are the exact kind of errors that are excusable.
- Brandon Webb is kind of good. The Diamondbacks are going to win most of his starts, so there's no shame in dropping that one. Hopefully they can just come back and get the next two.
- The Nuxhall jersey thing was a great gesture. They need to get his number retired ASAP.
Picture via AP and Al Behrman