Folks, they’re losing again

My alarm woke me suddenly from a deep slumber shortly after first light this Sunday. The pollen blanketed everything in its path, a yellow sea of future sneezes out there just waiting for me.

As the first whiff of coffee made my eyes begin their crawl out of their sunken sockets and back to the front of my face, it occurred to me that this day, this Sunday, was set to be a day mostly unique within my household. This day, I would not be watching the Cincinnati Reds play baseball.

As it turns out, I can’t watch them play today. They’re in Denver, I’m in Denver, I don’t subscribe to the precise cable package needed to watch Rockies games, and MLB dot TV’s arcane blackout rules prevent me from streaming any coverage of it from my home without the use of a VPN. And for this product, for these 3-18 3-19 Cincinnati Reds, I sure as hell wasn’t about to go through that much rigamarole.

It appears they have lived up to their lofty April standards so far in this, their first game of May. A 6-run Bottom of the 1st dug them a hole out of which they won’t likely emerge, a 5th inning solo swat from Brandon Drury (!!) again the only thing between them and the nether-region of nil. Joey Votto, who entered play owning the worst ISO and SLG in all of baseball, is 0 for 2 with another K already.

On top of all that, both Jonathan India (again) and Jake Fraley hit the IL this morning.

It’s a 9-1 game at the moment, as my phone’s box score tells me, and this is a series of events that led the Reds to that score:

My god.

This can, if need be, turn into a living document, one that could be updated should the Reds do anything in the next hour to change the etched-in-stone narrative about them these days. I’m not holding my breath, though.

I should probably add that when today’s loss goes final, their 3-19 record will be the worst ever start to a season for the Reds.

Tony Graphanino