Pre-playoff poutpourri

When we visited the Fox Sports Ohio booth earlier this season, I picked up a copy of the Reds Media Guide. It's a really nice piece of work and chock-full of glossy Reds facts. Among a lot of other things, it has an index for finding out what numbers have been worn by which Reds throughout history. This is a gap in my baseball knowledge, as I often miss out on chances to say "He's no Tim Pugh, a player who also wore #53."

If I'm not mistaken, the guide was compiled and written mostly by Jamie Ramsey. It's publicly available, so all you need to start broadcasting is the express written consent of Major League Baseball.

I was also able to use it to help answer a question I had last month when Bruce was in the manic phase of his bipolar baseball-playing. Through the end of this season, Jay has won the Player of the Week Award 5 times in his career (and a Player of the Month). That's tied with Eric Davis for the most times of any Red since the award began in '73. That's as good an indicator as any how much of a sine-curve Bruce has been.

(Upon re-reading, I think this whole Bruce thing might have been the premise of a Fox Sports Ohio trivia question. It was, wasn't it?)

It's the wishful thinker in me, but I'm expecting a surge in the playoffs from Bruce. It's easy to forget - with Bruce's costly error in 2010 and his completely undeserved reputation for not being clutch - but he was one of just two Reds to collect more than one hit over the entire 2010 playoffs.

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Here are a few more nuggets, from the media guide and elsewhere. This will kill at least 3, possibly even 4, minutes of wait time for Saturday Night.

• The most post seasons any player has taken part in as a Red is six. Bench and Concepcion are the only two to do it.
• Pirates' rookie John Candelaria struck out 14 Reds in Game 3 of the 1975 NLCS, but the Reds won anyway, en route to World Series win #3.
  
• The last Reds' pitcher to win a playoff game was David Wells (October 6, 1995).
• The crowd that attended Game 3 of the 2010 NLDS was the largest in Great American Ball Park history.
• Three Reds pitchers on the staff are among the five that have ever made a playoff appearance at Great American Ball Park: Johnny Cueto, Homer Bailey, Aroldis Chapman. The other two were Nick Masset and Bill Bray. All in one game.
• Jonathan Broxton has the most playoff experience of any Reds pitcher by appearances (13). Bronson Arroyo has appeared in 11 playoff games.
  
• Scott Rolen leads hitters with 35 playoff games player. He's followed by Miguel Cairo (26) and Dioner Navarro (16).
• Unexpected players who delivered in last several Reds' playoff runs: Billy Hatcher (14-27, '90 playoffs), Hall Morris (5-10, '95 NLDS), Dan Driessen (5-14, '76 World Series).

If there's one common thread through these, it's that anything can happen and hurry up and let's start the playoffs.