Reds End One Streak, Continue Another

Sure is nice to win close ones. A 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers late last night saw Cincy break the streak of losing their last 12 in L.A. The Reds also extended their current winning streak to 7.

Nice. Actually, excellent. Chavez Ravine has a way with the Reds. A bad one. Just can’t seem to go into Dodger Stadium and get a win. Well, much less play decent baseball. Such was not the case last evening, especially for Brandon Phillips. By the way, why did the Dodger fans boo BP? Even if he had said something about the Dodgers, it wasn’t like it would mean anything to them.

Back to BP. 3-5 with 3 RBI. That’s right. He drove in all of teh Reds runs last night. Two of those runs were Ryan Hanigan. Honestly, did anyone see Hanigan having this type of season offensively? Be honest. You know you didn’t.

But the real story belongs to Homer Bailey.

Homer (he’s still a kid at 23 years young) has pressure on him. Why? Bailey was essentially a suspension fill-in for Johnny Cueto and then perceived as one of a few reasons Mike Leake was moved to the bullpen. Bailey’s star was bright last evening. 7 IP, 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks and 6 whiffs. Total for his two starts since returning from the DL and his rehab assignment: 13 IP, 7 hits, 1 run, 2 walks and 10 K’s. That’s the Homer Bailey we thought we drafted.

But this still needs a little perspective on how Dodger Stadium has been the House of Horrors for the Reds.

Here we go. Bailey was in A ball. The winning pitcher was the can’t miss Brandon Claussen. But leave it to Reds skipper Dusty Baker to deliver.

"“It’s a new year,” Baker said. “We have a different team and a better team. They were banged up some. A couple of their key players were out.”"

Those key players are Manny Ramirez (I don’t think he’ll ever be the same), Rafael Furcal, Russell Martin and Vicente Padilla. Padilla was to pitch last night, but he was placed on the DL a couple of days ago.

But it is a new year. A year in which the Reds are a team starting to attract national attention. Almost all of it good except for the Brandon Phillips verbal gaffe…and ESPN’s Colin Cowherd.

Earlier last week, Cowherd referred to the Reds as frauds. He was called out by Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer and the war of word was on. Not going into it, but do check out Doc’s take here.

My only take on the deal? A man that fully admits to only care about all that which is big at the World Wide Leader (you know, New York, Boston, L.A., Chicago, the Dallas Cowboys, Brett Favre and their newest crush, Tim Tebow.), his employer, has the audacity to claim the Reds are frauds. A man that lists as his credits as being a co-host of SportsNation, one of the worst “sports” shows ever conceived claims the Reds are frauds (nice post, Justin).

Just sayin’.

In other words, the real fraud is Cowherd and I’m sure he revels in every last piece of hate mail (written or electronic) he’s receiving from Reds fans.