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Bronson Arroyo's pitching today? Ugh. Come on Arroyo, don't ruin my weekend before it even starts. That's all of the time I'm going to devote to him today.
Pitching for the Mets tonight is 26-year old righty Fernando Nieve. Nieve was picked up off of waivers by the Mets from the Astros back in March and has done well since moving into the starting rotation last month. He's not very pitch efficient and he doesn't tend to go deep into games, but it seems like every time I describe a pitcher that way the Reds come out hacking and he's into the 5th inning on 60 pitches. Given the Reds inability to hit, well, anybody lately, I don't feel at all confident facing a pitcher who has actually had some success.
The good news is that the Mets aren't exactly tearing things up right now either. They've managed just 35 runs over their last 14 games, which is 18 fewer than the Reds have scored, believe it or not. So once again we get to answer the age old question, does crappy pitching beat crappy hitting.
On the Reds side of the offense, Jay Bruce is getting his second night off in a row. Chris Dickerson will be playing RF and leading off. Also in the lineup tonight are Laynce Nix in LF, Jerry Hairston Jr. at SS, and Ryan Hanigan catching. Hanigan hasn't caught Arroyo since June 19th, which believe or not was his last win as well.
For those that are interested, I was making the rounds today on the New York Mets talk show circuit. You check out my interview with SNY.tv here. I also answered questions for Amazin' Avenue and The Daily Stache. What can I say? I'm a media darling.