Cincinnati Reds links 9/21/2015: Votto is great, the Reds still lose, and the Brewers make a splashy hire

Wanna read an article about how great Joey Votto is? Of course you do. It's from Cut4 at MLB.com, and it's complete with .gifs and pictures and it starts out like this:

With Canadian blood running through him, the most perfectly sculpted eyebrows in baseball and a batting eye more patient than a mother with quintuplet toddlers, you could be forgiven for not realizing that Joey Votto ever went away.

Uh, yeah. Click that link.

In case you missed it watching football or something, and judging by the 70 GameThread comments and lack of recap (Hurry back, Wick!), I'm guessing most everyone missed it; the Reds failed to complete the sweep against the Brewers on Sunday afternoon, losing 8-4. Jay Bruce did his best to secure the victory, finishing his day 2-3 with two solo 450+ ft. dingers and 3 runs scored. Unfortunately, 3 errors from the Reds awarded the final tally to the Brewers, who ended an eight game losing streak with the victory. The Reds remain a half game up on the Brewers in the division by virtue of having played one game less thus far.

Tonight, the Redlegs travel to St. Louis to start a series with the Cardinals that I'm sure is going to end in spectacularly awful fashion. Jamie Garcia will start for the team that's already clinched a playoff birth (barf), while John Lamb will get the nod for the team that doesn't have any notable deal with Satan. The Cardinals will likely be without Yadier Molina, as the toilet is in the shop awaiting news regarding needed repairs. Molina sprained his thumb against the Cubs and is awaiting MRI results to shed light on the severity of the injury. How will Baseball's Best Team ever replace Baseball's Best Catcher and his .660 OPS? Stay tuned to find out.

Hey, so do you guys remember Sean Marshall? Because he's still a thing, and reports are that pitching in 2015 could still be a possibility. You'll recall that earlier this season, the towering left-hander was preparing to have potentially career-ending shoulder surgery, before further tests abruptly reversed that prognosis and cracked the window on a 2015 return. C. Trent caught up with Marshall to check up on that plan. Apparently, Marshall has been experimenting with new arm angles. Arm angles that, coincidentally, are angles similar to ones that his twin brother Brian used to use in his brief professional baseball career.

Basically, what I'm saying is is that we can't rule out that Brian has actually replaced Sean in the Marshall uniform in order to chase one more contract.

Paul Daughtery will lead a discussion with Pete Rose at Miami University today, I think, but I don't really know because I was completely and totally disinterested in that sentence before I finished typing it.

Hey, at least the Bengals won, right?

I almost certainly buried the lede; here is a picture that you'll both never be able to unsee as well never regret clicking on. I (with help from Brandon Phillips) present to you the 2015 Reds rookies dressed up as women and omg "Michelle" Lorenzen is going to haunt my dreams. Yay for rookie hazing, I guess?

And finally, in divisional news: The Milwaukee Brewers have hired David Stearns to be their new general manager.This is particularly of note, because the former Astros right-hand man to Jeff Luhnow for the past 3 seasons is only 30 years old, so obviously he immediately becomes the youngest GM in baseball. In Houston he handled player evaluation and contract negotiations and obviously had a part in the Houston's top of the line analytics department. I think it's also interesting to note that the Brewers and Astros pulled off one of the trade deadline's big moves this season, sending Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers to Houston for a bevvy of young talent.

Reds general manager Walt Jocketty is 64 years old. Quite frankly, I'd be surprised to learn that the Reds hired a 30 year old to be general manager of clubhouse toilet flow, let alone a real-life executive position.