| 20 April 2010
The good news about Volquez (other than the fact that he's obviously doing everything in his power to come back quickly - I kid, I kid) is that he can serve the suspension while on the disabled list. It's a completely ridiculous rule that MLB has in place (if you are "suspended" you should have to miss games that you might actually play in) but it benefits the Reds in this case so I'm cool with it. Volquez will lose 50 games worth of pay, which means he will have to find a cheaper way to find HGH next time. (Again, just joking. I think.)
As for the Reds' current skid, hopefully they can get things turned around against the Dodgers beginning tonight. I'm not ready to panic, because the pitching is the best it's been in my lifetime. Well, on the nights Aaron Harang is not on the hill. I had hopes that Harang would have a solid year this season - a comeback year of sorts - but it's certainly not started well. The big, goofy righty is 0-2 with an ERA of 7.88 and a WHIP of 1.44. In other words, I have the least-amount of confidence in him of any Reds' starter, including 22-year-old rookie Mike Leake who has been very solid thus far (0-0, 2.63).
Without question, the biggest concern about the 2010 Reds is offensive production and it's not going to get much better anytime soon. At least Jay Bruce is showing signs of life. He hit his first two home runs of the season in the finale against Pittsburgh on Sunday and was hitting into a lot of bad luck before that with several line drives right at defenders. If Bruce comes around, the offense might be passable because you know Joey Votto is going to hit. Also, Brandon Phillips usually starts slow and then heats up. Scott Rolen is not a great hitter - especially at this stage of his career - but he's way better than Edwin Encarnacion ever was. Everyone knew Rolen would be a huge defensive upgrade over Encarnacion, but he also has him trumped as a hitter. The problem with Rolen is that he's very brittle and you never know how many games you're going to get out of him.
Orlando Cabrera is a solid hitting shortstop (not so much defensively) and left fielder Jonny Gomes' bat will never hurt you in the lineup.
That leaves center where Drew Stubbs is becoming a black hole in the lineup. He just doesn't look ready to hit Major League pitching and his minor league numbers were never that good to begin with. And due to the unfortunate fact that manager Dusty Baker believes that the CF must bat leadoff - no matter how miniscule his OPS is - that is a big problem for the Reds.
So, am I still feeling good about my prediction that the Reds are going to have their first winning season in 10 years? No, not exactly. However, I'm not even close to giving up on this season. It's only April and we're only 13 games into a 162-game season. The Reds can't let too many more games get away from them this month, but I still think they have a solid overall team this year and will keep things interesting all summer.
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