[Stardust]

There are occasions, in a long baseball season, when nothing will do but a shot of Cubs. Treading water, spinning your wheels, loving .500? Cubs.
Down 3-0 in the 9th inning, bats as dozy as the hot afternoon? Cubs.
The difference between an indifferent 4-4 homestand and a decent 5-3 stay? Cubs.
Thank goodness for the Cubs and their eternal Cub-ness. They’re better for their opponents than a shot of B-12.
The Reds should remain relevant all summer, for a few reasons: Great bullpen, decent starting pitching, Joey Votto. Also, they play the Cubs, Pirates and Astros 54 times. That’s a third of their games, against what could be three of the four worst teams in the league.
Cincinnati scored three times in the 9th by hitting one ball out of the infield. The Reds scored three, with only four hitters putting a ball in play. Chicago closer Dr. Jekyll and Mr. (Carlos) Marmol sent them a lovely parting gift of three walks. Marmol is as accurate as a weather forecast. Add an error on a double-play ball, and the Reds go to Pittsburgh happy after winning the game in the 10th, 4-3.
Homer Bailey was happy about it. He celebrated his 26th birthday by allowing three solo homers in six innings. These days, that’s known as “keeping your team in the game.’’ Bailey has one win this year, but four “quality starts:’’ Three or fewer earned runs, in at least six innings.
Bailey is like his team. You keep believing big days are just around the corner. Potential is a gift that keeps on forgiving.
On Thursday, Bailey was Bailey. Not bad. Not good enough to take over a game. Not good enough to still a middling Cubs lineup that ranks 12th in the league in runs and last in home runs. Cubs catcher Geovany Soto was hitting .154 when he lined a Bailey fastball 355 feet for a homer to lead off the fifth. In the first, Bailey had Starlin Castro no balls and two strikes when Castro homered 412 feet to dead centerfield.


The Reds can hang around with a rotation that includes Bailey and Mike Leake. Is hanging around OK with you?

They need Aroldis Chapman in the starting five.

They need a big-time, frightening presence in the Big 5, to go along with Johnny Cueto, Bronson Arroyo and (hopefully) Mat Latos. If the Reds have a crucial three-game series in September and can wheel out Cueto-Arroyo-Chapman, they will mess with hitters' heads for days. Timing is everything to a hitter. Imagine seeing 92-to-95 mph one day, cotton candy curveballs the next, followed by 95-to-99 on Day 3.

You'd want to retire.

Should the Reds find October, they'll have at least two fear-of-God starters, Cueto and Chapman. Most serious contenders have two. Some have three. The Phillies haven’t won the Series with Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee. But they’ve been in the photo.

The only question with Chapman is when.

The Reds are noncommital. They're playing things by ear, just like the rest of us. No Nick Masset or Bill Bray means Chapman is needed more doing what he's doing now than he is in the rotation. Let's hope it's temporary.

An educated guess is, providing Masset and Bray return and are effective, we'll see the Missile in the Big 5 sometime soon after the All Star Break. That is, unless Leake suddenly makes like Greg Maddux, in which case Chapman will be the best 8th inning weapon in baseball.

The Reds likely haven’t considered this math, so we will:

Walt Jocketty has said they would not give Chapman more than 150 innings this year. The first game after the break comes with 77 games to play. If the Reds put Chapman in the rotation then, and he starts every fifth day, that’s 16 starts, give or take. Figuring six innings per start, that’s 96 innings. With his work load now, Chapman would be well under the magic 150, and conceivably able to go in October.

He needs a dependable third pitch. He uses a two-seam, sinking fastball now that has been effective, to go along with a straight fastball and a vicious slider. He needs to build stamina, he needs to keep throwing strikes. But the man is meant for the rotation. Especially considering how good Jose Arredondo and Logan Ondrusek have been.

Ryan Hanigan said there’s no denying Chapman’s top-of-the-rotation stuff: “Anybody that tries to swing at his fastball anywhere from mid-thigh up is going to have a tough time getting on top of the baseball, because of his velocity. He gets a lot of foul balls and misses.
“We’re going to avoid walks, because how often do you see anyone string together one, two, three hits off him?’’

Hanigan also noted Chapman’s new maturity. “He’s getting the ball and getting right back on the mound. I see a lot of development in his ability to shake off failure.’’

Homer Bailey kept the Reds in the game Thursday. They got a win because of it. You need wins over the Cubs in May to be playing well into October. Come October, the need changes. It becomes more urgent and entirely dynamic. Let’s hope the Reds begin feeding that need in a few short months.http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120...|text|Reds

[Stardust]

The Reds won it in the 10th. Zack Cozart led off with a single. Chris Heisey sacrificed. Heisey reached and Cozart went to on pitcher Rafael Dolis’ throwing error.

That brought up Scott Rolen, who like Cozart entered in the 10th as a defensive replacement.

Rolen lined a sac fly to right win it.

The win was difference between a 4-4 and 5-3 homestand.

The Reds rallied in the ninth against Cub closer Carlos Marmol. Willie Harris, hitting .088, started the inning with a walk. Joey Votto walked on four pitches — none close.

Brandon Phillips, 2-for-22 against Marmol, hit one that third baseman Ian Stewart swiped his glove at and missed.

Harris scored on the error. Jay Bruce followed with a single to load the bases for Ryan Ludwick. Ludwick went up 3-0 count. He took two strikes. He thought the second one was Ball 4. The next one was.

The walk forced in Votto make it 3-2.

That was it for Marmol. The Cubs brought in rookie Dolis to face Devin Mesoraco.

Mesoraco hit into a 6-4-3 double play. Votto scored to tie it. Wilson Valdez struck out to end the inning.

It was the birthday of both starting pitchers — Homer Bailey turned 26, Ryan Dempster 35 — according to Elias Sport Bureau that’s the first time that’s happen in major league history.

The Cubs came into the series with a total of nine home runs — least in the majors — hit three Thursday after hitting two in the 3-1 win Wednesday night.

Starlin Castro got it started in the first with a shot to dead center for his first of the year. It came on an 0-2. The pitch was low but right over the plate. Homer Bailey knew as soon as he let it go that it was in a bad spot.

Bryan LaHair made it 2-0 with his second of the series. He hit it out the opposite way to left in fourth inning.

Geovany Soto pushed the lead to 3-0 by hitting the first pitch of the fifth inning out to left for his second of the year.

The Reds, meanwhile, were doing nothing against former Red Dempster. Joey Votto single with tow outs in the first. Dempster retired the next eight in a row before Votto doubled with one out in the fourth. An out later, Jay Bruce walked. But Ryan Ludwick struck out to strand them.

Bailey got in big trouble in the sixth. Alfonso Soriano singled and Ian Stewart doubled with out out. The Reds intentionally walked Reed Johnson. Bailey got Soto on a called third strike and got Dempster to ground out to keep it at 3-0.

Bailey that was it for Bailey. He went six innings and allowed three runs on nine hits. He walked one (intentionally) and struck out four. He threw 98 pitches, 69 strikes.

Dempster won the battle of the birthday boys. He went eight ininngs and allowed three hits. He walked one and struck out six

[Mr. Pike Central]

Carlos MarmLOL, he's the best player on our team!