Reds Win 10,000th Game, Receive Little Love

It was a milestone that grabbed little attention, little fanfare. Yesterday, the Cincinnati Reds franchise netted its 10,000th win. In the process, hardly a mention from the masses.

I suppose we can only chalk that up to being in a small market.

The Reds became the 6th MLB franchise to achieve 10,000 wins. The other five are the San Francisco Giants (10,529), the Chicago Cubs (10,314), the Los Angeles Dodgers (10,228), the St. Louis Cardinals (10,205), and the Atlanta Braves (10,043). All six franchises also own winning records. Of the six, only the Cubs, Cards and Reds have accomplished the feat while claiming one city as its home.

Ironically, those three all reside in the now-configured National League Central division. Maybe that’s so ironic…

The main theme of baseball world revolved around Fenway Park which was celebrating its 100th birthday and the game between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Throughout the game, the MLB Twitter feed was more obsessed with giving away money than recognizing accomplishments…except for Alex Rodriguez cracking a home run to break the tie with Ken Griffey, Jr. on the all-time home run list. Or was it was Derek Jeter passing Dave Winfield on the all-time hit list?

The only mention on that Twitter feed of the Reds game was a link to the highlight of Chris Heisey laying out to snag a shot off the bat of Ian Stewart. On the MLB website was a headline off to the right that read “Red-letter day: Cincy reaches 10,000 wins”. There is also a mention of the feat in the slideshow…but it’s part of a daily wrap. Click on that and it’s a list of the day’s top individual performances.

Daily wraps? Check out our friends over at Call to the Pen, Joe Soriano gave the Reds top billing his wrap of yesterday’s game. That’s why Joe is a BRM fave.

Or was that too much?

But we Reds fans will not only remember the Heisey catch (and forget the non-catch) as part of the game, but we will also remember…

Drew Stubbs owning Wrigley Field…again. Stubby was 3-for-5 yesterday. He drove in three, scored a run and swiped a pair of bags. In his 2+ years as a Red, Stubbs performances at Wrigley reveal a slash of .314/.377/.614 with 6 homers, 16 RBI and 7 stolen bases (7-for-7)…in 16 starts. There are only two other parks where Stubbs owns a career batting average over .300: Petco Park (.348 in 6 games) and Safeco Field (.400 in 3 games).

And Stubbs showed something yesterday. He was going oppo. Not all the time, mind you, but the effort to do such should bring a smile to the face of every Reds fan. I believe he is seeing the benefit of hitting in front of Joey Votto. He will see more fastballs as no one in their right mind will want a guy on base with Votto at the dish.

And the cries for more playing time for Devin Mesoraco will surely grow louder. Mes was 2-for-3 while scoring two runs…and drawing two walks. He’s 5-for-8 in his last 10 plate appearances. Small samples have a tendency to produce loud roars.

And speaking of walks, the Reds pitchers (Homer Bailey, Aroldis Chapman and Jose Arredondo) didn’t permit one.

The 9 runs scored was the most for the Reds this season. And Brandon Phillips was held out due to the cold weather. Maybe that was a good thing for more than one reason. Not only is there still an issue with the hammy, but The Friendly Confines have been anything but friendly to BP. Lifetime slash line at Wrigley: .216/.283/.292.

Going for three straight today. Mike Leake (0-1, 5.84 ERA) will square off against Paul Maholm (0-2, 13.50 ERA) in a 1:05 PM EDT start.

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