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Mark Sheldon tackled several hot topics in his latest roundup for Reds.com. Likely the biggest news of the bunch is the return of a healthy Devin Mesoraco from his rehab assignment in Pensacola, and it's pretty likely that we'll see Mez in the lineup for tonight's game against the Cardinals. A lot is being asked of the young Reds catcher this season, and while his Spring and the start of his season has been slightly subverted, he feels good and ready to take on the bulk of the 2014 catching duties. Someone needs to photoshop a pic of Mez and NERTS as Batman and Robin, pronto. Jonathan Broxton has also rejoined the team (though a corresponding move has yet to be announced), and he dropped some great lines when asked about his role in the bullpen: "It doesn't matter to me. You still have to get three outs no matter where you pitch."
Weezy Cheese broke down the performances of the Reds' JV squads in today's Farmer's Only, most of which have been surprisingly positive in this young season. Following up on that was the Pensacola News-Journal's Brady Aymond, who got a few quotes from Michael Lorenzen after his sparkling start last night. I'm still sort of baffled at the Reds' decision to have Lorenzen ditch being a position player in favor of not just pitching, but starting pitching, but while I still have trouble tying my shoes, they've got decades of baseball experience to back their thought process. So, yeah, they probably made the right call.
Keith Sargent caught up with Todd Frazier when the Reds were in New York to face the Mets over the weekend, and the Toms River, NJ native gave him some solid quotes about the upcoming season for MyCentralJersey.com. The gist: Todd's awesome, wants to be awesome, but would gladly take being less awesome if that meant the Reds' season was super awesome. That's awesome. Todd must have forgotten to mention that he was going to have a 162 game hit streak and whack 46 snackpacks this season. Must've slipped his mind while he was busy with baby Blake, I suppose.
There are many things I adore about Minor League Baseball, but near the top of the list is the lengths to which individual teams will go to give themselves publicity. While the Sacramento River Cats may not have had "getting their name out" in mind with a tweet they sent out yesterday, they're certainly getting some solid run because of it. Also of note is that Bobby Abreu and Daisuke Matsuzaka are apparently still plying their trade in Sacramento for the River Cats.
TDIRH will be along later this afternoon with plenty of Reds tidbits, but there have also been a rather large set of MLB anniversaries on the docket of late. Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the movie Major League's release, and Mike Oz compiled a pretty entertaining list of things your probably didn't know about the movie over at Yahoo Sports. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the day Hank Aaron honked his 715th donker, and Bob Nightengale from USA Today gathered quotes from the Hammer and some of his Hall of Fame peers on the history of the moment. On a more somber note, Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports caught up with Jon Wilhite, the sole survivor of the car crash that killed Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others five years ago tonight.
Finally, John Fay chimed in with these nuggets regarding the pretty drab 2-5 start seen by the Reds so far in 2014:
2012 #Reds team started 4-8, lost 4 of first 5 to the Cards, still won 97, the division. Scored 2 or fewer in 7 of the 12.
— John Fay (@johnfayman) April 8, 2014
