I gotta get some stuff of my chest. I'm as big a Reds fan as the next guy but there are always things that annoy the crap out of me. There are some things that have occured recently that have angered me. They might be Dusty Baker induced or they might not, either way here they are:
William Taveras---Run...run as much as you can, as often as you can. I'm sick of watching Jerry Hairston take fastball after fastball waiting for Willie to steal. Let's take last night for example. Willie works a walk late in the game, good job Willie. Hairston then proceeds to take a few pitches expecting Taveras to steal 2nd. What does he do?...he sits on his thumb over at 1st while Hairston gets behind in the count. Finally, late in the count he steals 2nd easily which he could have done on the first pitch. By this time, Hairston has already seen a few good pitches to hit but didn't swing because Taveras should be stealing. Hairston grounds out to end the inning. This isn't the first time this has happened and I fear it won't be the last. If you ran a 3.8 forty yard dash wouldn't you steal every pitch? I would.
Darnell Mcdonald---Why is he still on this team and not in Louisville or Dayton or Florence? He's brutal. He's hitting a buck 74 and brings nothing to the table. Send his ass down and bring up Jonny Gomes or Drew Stubbs to take his spot. Gomes is on fire recently and has some major league experience. Stubbs has been on fire the entire year down in Louisville and brings some more speed to this team. McDonald might be a great guy and a great story but he's useless on this team.
Matt Maloney---Some of you might not know who this guy is but he is apparently the only left handed starter in the reds organization. I don't know what this guy has to do to get a shot up here. They called up Ramon Ramirez (0-3, 5.08 ERA, 28 K's, 17 BB's) and supposedly he was going to start tonight for Owings who threw 6 innings in that extra inning game against the Padres. As of now they have Harang moving up to throw tonight and Owings throwing Thursday. If they were going to start Ramirez, why him and not Maloney. Maloney (3-2, 2.64 ERA, 38 K's, 6 BB's) would be a perfect fit against the Phillies. All the Phillies dominate hitters are lefties(Rollins is better as a lefty, Utley, Ibanez, Howard) and the reds have no lefty starter currently in the rotation. Wouldn't this make sense? Am I alone here? Give the guy a shot up here, I think he has earned it. This would only be a spot start and he would go back down immediately after because our rotation is dominating but I'd still like to see him get his shot.
I still love the REDS.
"CHOO CHOO"
Maloney deserves a start. He has always ended his seasons strong. Typically his ERA suffers damage from a few stray starts early and he spends the rest of the season fighting his way back.
ReplyDeleteMicah Owings performance today seems to be a worst case scenario that Maloney would have bested.