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A day after facing perhaps the toughest right-handed pitcher in baseball, Dusty Baker has stacked the Reds lineup with left-handed hitters. Somebody get him a calendar and get him up to speed. In the lineup tonight in place of Willy Taveras is Chris Dickerson, who likes to hit the ball all over the place, and in for Paul Janish is Danny Richar, who will be playing 3B while Jerry Hairston moves to SS. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the lineup, after all lefties are batting .308/.384/.491 against Jon Garland this season. It just seems like this lineup might have been helpful last night too.
The Reds have been scoring some runs for Johnny Cueto lately, putting up 7 or more in 3 of his last 5 starts. Unfortunately, Cueto has managed to give up 5 runs of his own in each of his last 3 starts and the Reds are just 1-2 in those games. I know it's probably just one of those stretches that a pitcher goes through, but it sure would be super awesome if Cueto would switch back into badass mode starting tonight. A nice 7-inning, 1-run start would be fun, I say.
It's been gray in Cincinnati all day today, but still no rain and the radar looks clear, so hopefully this game will go off without a hitch. Time to get that mojo back from the weekend!