Ludwick Reposter - Ludwick, Ludwick, Ludwick!

Luddy's back...Celebrate, ye Luddites!  Ryan Ludwick will make his triumphant return to the Reds' dugout today, and will likely be penciled in as the starting LF, too.  Matt Snyder details that Luddy hasn't exactly torn the cover off the ball on his rehab stint in the minors, but he'll get a chance to put his sparkling 1.000 OBP on the line soon enough.  Snyder also notes that the components used in Ludwick's stead in LF have combined for a season line of .244/.313/.378, which is better than I expected to see while also being not very good at all.  Bring your boomstick, Ludwi C.K.  I'll be officially going by Ludwick Terrell for the near future, until he goes 0 for 12 or so, at which point I'll start saying that signing him was a terrible idea.

The flip side of Ludwick rejoining the team is the concurrent move made to free up his roster spot; that hammer fell yesterday afternoon, as Derrick Robinson was informed he'd be shipped down the Ohio River to Louisville.  Robinson seems to have taken it in stride, as C. Trent Rosecrans so eloquently notes, but there are a few quotes from Dusty Baker that I find quite interesting.  Dusty insinuates that had the option scenarios been different amongst the possible demotees, Robinson likely wouldn't have been the one sent down.  That's about as juicy as rumors get for Reds' fans these days, I suppose.

Mark Sheldon from Reds.com says the Cincinnati ballclub will need Brandon Phillips' hot bat down the stretch.  Yes.  The Cincinnati Reds will need Brandon Phillips' hot bat down the stretch.

Here's a preview of the upcoming series between the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds, because whatever. I instantly forgot most of what I read in this aside from two things:  the Reds are 19-4 in their last 23 games vs. the Cubs, and the Reds have hit just .198 over their last 14 games (and that includes Joey Votto batting a billion gajillion during that stretch).

Speaking of the Cubs, they're coming off a weekend set vs. the St. Louis Cardinals that saw them take 2 of 3 from their fellow NL Central combatants.  Post series, friend of the blog Bernie Miklasz took a look at the Cardinals, and he notes several paradoxical quandaries about their season thus far.  Many of those trends could also be used to describe some of the maddening performances by the Cincinnati Reds in 2013.  The moral of the story?  Baseball is a weird, weird game, and that's why they play a 162 game season.