Happy Off-Season Hump Day!

The Reds last game was on Sunday, September 28, 2014. It was against the Pirates at Great American Ballpark, and Johnny Cueto started. The Reds won, 2-1.

The Reds next game will be on Monday, April 6, 2015. It will be against the Pirates at Great American Ballpark, and Johnny Cueto will almost certainly get the start.

There are 189 days in between September 28, 2014 and April 6, 2015. Today, January 1, 2015, is the 95^th day. It’s been 94 days since the Reds last played, and it will be 94 days until the Reds play again. Today is Off-Season Hump Day, and as of noon today, we will officially be closer to Opening Day than we are to the end of last season.

We’re now on the downward slope of the off-season. In a month and a half, spring training will open, and we’ll get pictures of baseball being played on green grass under a blue sky. All the players will be in the best shape of their lives, with all the young players ready to take the next step and all the veterans eager to recapture their youth. The games won’t be the most exciting in the world, but they will be baseball games, and even the voices of Brennemen describing them to us will be welcome.

Then, a month and a half after that, the team will come North, there will be a parade, and a new season will start. We made it through the last 94 days, we can make it through 94 more.

More good news for Reds fans: 2015 is divisible by five. In their history, the Reds have made the postseason 15 times. Of those, six postseason appearances – a full 40% – have come in years divisible by five (1940, 1970, 1975, 1990, 1995 and 2010). Of those six, the Reds reached the World Series four times, winning three of them. What does all this mean? Not a damn thing, but it’s something to think about in the dead of winter.

Happy New Year, Red Reporter. But especially, happy Off-Season Hump Day.