We've got a proper win-streak on our hands. Two wins can be an accident, but as the late John Ritter taught us, three's company. The Reds have now put two such streaks together in the last two weeks, where before the Giants sweep (Jul 29-31), it had been a month and a half since the Reds had been able to string three W's together. The've been a pretty OK team since the first game of their sweep of the 64-55 defending Champs, going 8-6 while scoring 4.71 runs per game and allowing only an even 4.00.
For roughly two weeks (or more), we've known the team is out of the race. And, at this point, it looks like the Brewers may be breaking away from the Cardinals, who have fallen 2.5 games to 4.0 back since July 29th. It's not entirely out of the question for the Reds to catch the Cardinals, however, which would provide a certain level of lukewarm comfort. You can't hang a banner that says "2011 - Better than the Cardinals," but maybe you can?
Homer Bailey. The Flange from La Grange. Lately, he seems to have reverted back to his habit of looking good against bad teams and struggling against the OK-to-good. Which might be another way of saying he's not pitching very well. But that's not entirely true. He had pretty good outings against both the Braves and Cardinals in July. Jay Bruce is probably not a very accurate point of comparison on the team as Homer has yet to have a "breakout" season. But both players were Top 10 prospects at the age of 20 or 21 and have struggled with evening out their production, partly as a function of, perhaps, difficulties handling the planning, patience and frequent adjustment required out of major league at-bats - on both sides of the ball.
Jay Bruce has had very real and sustainable success in his career, at a younger age, but I still have difficulty writing off that possibility for the 25-year-old Bailey. As the season winds down though, I have two, closely related, questions: at what point is he considered as a closer candidate; AND: at what point does his trade value start to sink too low not to keep him in red?
Lineup after the jump.
LINEUP:
Dave Sappelt LF
Paul Janish SS
Joey Votto 1B
Jay Bruce RF
Miguel Cairo 2B
Drew Stubbs CF
Todd Frazier 3B
Ryan Hanigan C
Homer Bailey RHP