Lasts nights game got rained out. Possible make up date right now is August 18th, but thats still pending players association approval. If you want to call the series agains the Marlins a 3 game series, then the Reds have completed the sweep. Interesting note about the rain out though, is that the Reds are going to elect to skip Matt Belisle's next start. Belisle for lack of a better term has sucked lately. His control has been off and he has yet to give up less than 3 runs in a start since getting called up. Belisle will be throwing some bullpen sessions during his extended rest period. Belisle, if he wants to remain in this rotation, has to have a good showing on his next outing. I was actually present at his first start agains the Dodgers when he was called up. He couldnt locate his pitches and left alot of them hanging. Bailey is now on the same rest schedule as Belisle, so you have to believe if he has anything less than a quality start, Homer could be on his way back up from Louiseville.
Interleague play starts today. We get a 3 game series with the Cleveland Indians. Unfortunatley, the Reds hold the honor of having the toughest interleague play schedule. We get 2 series with the Indians, and then we get to play the AL East. Toronto, Yankees, and the defending champion Boston Red Sox. If we come out above .500 I will consider it a success. Johnny C. is pitching tonight, which as long as the hitters keep it up, and Cueto brings a decent game, we should win. Cueto has been told by Dusty to not shake off any signs from Bako. Lets see if he will obey it. Volquez hardly shakes any off and we all know how thats turned out. Interleague play brings alot of debates though. Some people love it, some people hate it. I for one am impartial. Its a good chance to see some different team each year, and judge how the talent is on each side. I for one though think the DH rule needs to be abolished. If you can hit, you can field, and if you can field, you can hit. I would love to see MLB add a little spice to interleague play though. Take away from the All-Star game the home field, and make that the reward for whichever league does the best during Interleague play. I leave this topic on this note, should we be playing in the same division as the Yankees, we would only be 2 games behind them in the standings. Were not as bad as youve been led to believe.
On Wednesday, the attendence for the Reds game was 12,756. At first glance you probably think thats a pretty low number. But to put it into perspective, the Louiseville Riverbats drew 13,131 fans. It should be no more obvious to the Reds brass that changes need to be made than this. Your minor league team is outdrawing your big league team. There is a number of reasons this is happening. But i think first and foremost is "Bang for you Buck". If you go to a Reds game, chances are its gonna cost you a good chunk of money. Good seats are around 30 bucks, parking around 10, beers around 7, hot dogs around 4. Thats not even including gas to get there and back, but that just depends on where you live. With the Reds though, fans have soured after 7 straigh losing seasons. When you continue to put out the same boring product year after year, you have to find other ways to draw the fans. Bring Bruce up, an exciting young player like him could energize the crowd, and imagine the money youll make in jersey sales. Think about lowering the prices of stuff. The economy is getting bad and so has the quality of this team, but you continue to keep prices the same. Run dollar beer nights, dollar food days, hell, you have thousands of empty seats each game, why not put them on sale for 5-15 bucks a piece on the day of the game? Some profit is better than none considering an empty seat yields you nothing. You might also want to try marketing the team a little. Outside of Fox Sports net, I never see any TV spots promoting the Reds, and outside of WLW I never hear a radio spot. If your AAA team is out drawing you, see what they are doing right, and adjust to it.
I am a frequent reader of anything Reds/Bengals associated. John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer has a blog that he is consistantly updating. I dont know if anybody else reads it here, its a very good read. Him and Hal McCoy for the Dayton Dailey News do an incredible job keeping everybody up on whats happening with the Reds. One thing I notice though on John's blog is that the people there, all Reds fans, constantly attack eachother. I know the team has been bad, but its not bad enough where the difference in opinions deserve attacked. I can for one say that every fan on the boards has been farely nice. There are those fans on the other teams that want to talk stuff all the time, but people from the same team are often agreeable and can hold civilized conversations. One thing I notice though is they have two people on that blog that constantly mention the Volquez/Hamilton trade, and the Jorge Cantu release. I have two questions to that. 1. Do you redo the trade, knowing that both players end up where they are now? Without Volquez wins and era, this team would really be in the dumps, but then again, how much does Hamiltons AL leading RBI's help you? 2. If you keep Cantu, where does he play? Hes an infielder, which last I checked we had Votto, Phillips, Keppinger(when healthy) and Encarnacion holding it down very well. If there is a bright spot on this team right now its been the play of the infield, both offensively and defensively.
On an outside note, Spygate is coming to an end.....or is it? I for one despise the Patriots. They disgraced the name of football. You can give me the line that all the teams cheat, or they didnt get an advantage or one of the other thousand BS excuses patriot fans come up with to make there team look golden. It comes down to this. Did the Patriots get caught? Yes. Has any other team got caught? No. Can you prove to me that the footage taken was not used to gain an advantage? No. The pats have a very talented team, but the dynasty, whether they like it or not, will forever be tainted. Their coach is the prime example of a human being who lacks class. What the pats have done of the past few years, in the playoffs, and general lack of respect to the game and its players, is sad. Brady is the best QB in the league no doubt, ill give him credit. I for one hope Sen. Spector delves deeper into this. Steroids tainted what otherwise would have been a golden era in baseball, and now this has tainted the NFL. LaDainian Tomlinson spoke out about the Pats and said that he was glad justice was served. Pats fans didnt hesitate to show the lack of class and trying to make him look like a bad person. I for one have followed L.T.'s career since he came out of TCU. You will never see a bigger class act than he is. He is outspoken, but who around the NFL isnt glad that New England was served justice for cheating? I have nothing against Red Sox or Celtics fans, but I think Patriot fans need to be knocked off their high horse and brought back down to earth, what do you think?