Not a great time to be a Reds fan.

I really dislike what the ownership has done with firing Wayne Krivsky as General Manager of the team in favor of Walk Jocketty. Sure, Jocketty has experience and a ring. I also believe he had a little clout in bringing in Dusty Baker as the teams Manager before the season.

Baker is a totally wrong fit for this team and organization that has been built over the past two years. I really liked Pete Mackenan and the job he was doing the second half of the year.

I was a fan of the hiring of Wayne Krivsky because of his ability to find under valued players in the AAA of other teams and bring them to the team. He had that “knack” when he was an Assistant GM in Minnesota and immediately proved it was not dumb luck when he came to Cincinnati. He immediately traded from our strength to fill our weakness trading Wily Mo Pena for Bronson Arroyo. Arroyo was signed to a sweetheart deal by the Red Sox for three years/$11million…not too bad for a league average pitcher. He came to Cincinnati and pitched LIGHTS OUT, won the fans over and immediately when our workhorse pitcher, Aaron Harang was due his contract extension, the team also extended Arroyo’s deal…I would suppose that that was the doing of ownership, chiefly Bob Castellini.

Bob, I understand you own the team and you are a huge baseball fan but please STAY OUT OF THE TEAMS KITCHEN! Your over-enthusiasm has done more harm than good and you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Until this post I have defended “Mr. C” to other Reds fans but after firing Wayne “Special K” Krivsky I have lost all confidence in his ability to deliver a winning team to the fans of the Cincinnati Reds any time soon.

The Front Office is in a total flux since he took over, Walt Jocketty is the Third GM and Dusty Backer the second manager but lets not forget there was an interim manager in there as well…PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. You have “your man” in as GM now and frankly, I think he is too old school to be effective any longer, that aside, let the guy do his job and simply sit there and write the checks.

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Ok, sorry, I missed a couple days of posting on MY CINCINNATI REDS.

The rookie phenom is legit…at least for his first game, With 10 K’s and only one hit, a HR to Justin Upton, Johnny Cueto arrived as promised in Cincinnati!

WOW!

The good guys won 3-2 over the Dbacks!

And all is right in the world.

Aaron Harang pitched well but didn’t get the win as the Offense seems to be getting off to a slow start….still the Reds won!

Josh Fogg started against the Phillies yesterday and lets just say he seemed to pitch like he was in one…UGH Reds lost this one.

Today, Edinson Volquez who was picked up from the Rangers in the off season in exchange for Josh Hamilton started…He did an excellent job going 5.1 innings, walking 2, striking out 8 and giving up 1 run…the bullpen came in to hold the Phillies to just one more run while the bats got going…Jeff Keppinger continued to CLOBBER the ball going three for 5 including a HR!

Ken Griffey Jr got his first HR of the season raising his career total to an astonishing 594 HR’s.

I love Junior, he never looks at those stats all the fans go crazy for, he is a total team player. He is on the cusp of hitting his 600th homer and he is still more excited when his team wins.

Keep in mind that Junior would have easily held the HR record instead of Mr. Bonds if he would have been healthy the prior 6 years…just unfortunate and it would be so easy to look back and say “what if” but I have never heard or read anything from him that speaks that sort of thing at all. That is really admirable.

I think the team is good, how good remains to be seen but if the pitching holds up and the bats start to click, this could be a fun year to be a fan of MY CINCINNATI REDS!

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Cincinnati Reds Third Baseman, Edwin Encarnacion got to play the hero and shut down the criticism by Reds Broadcaster, Jeff Brantley by hitting a 3 run home run in the bottom of the 9th inning off of the Dbacks closer, Brandon Lyon. Brantly who is incredibly OVER OPINIONATED was remarking during Edwins at bat that he was “NOT A CLUTCH PLAYER”…Thom Brennaman, the other guy in the broadcast booth called the shot and asked “IS IT CLUTCH?”

Earlier in the game Encarnacion had once again screwed up a routine ground ball play which he fielded good enough but he threw the ball wide of catcher, Paul Bako for his second error in the first two games of the 2008 season.

OK, so at the end of the day, the good guys win and all is right in the world.

Tip of the hat to Corey Patterson and Brandon Phillips for hitting a couple out earlier in the game.

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I grew up in Central-Ohio in the 70’s and 80’s. Like a lot of kids in this area, I wanted to grow up to be the shortstop of the Cincinnati Reds and I WOULD HAVE DONE IT TOO, if I just could have hit the ball a little better, ran the bases faster, fielded more efficiently and IF the Reds wouldn’t have signed a local guy who betrayed OHIO to go to the U of M named Barry Larkin.

So, with my baseball career hopes dashed, I have always been a fan of the Cincinnati Reds. I was even able to lay aside my resentment of Barry Larkin over the course of his 19 years in Cincinnati and today I am able to admit that the Reds did the right thing, picking him up as he was only SLIGHTLY better than I was…I still have an ego, ya know?

Anyway, the season kicked off On Monday with a loss to the Diamondbacks from Arizona…I wasn’t happy with the loss as I thought the Reds should have won that game, it was the home opener for crying out loud!

The team looks good this year and I am more hopeful about our chances in 2008 than I have been in several years. I know the Reds traded Josh Hamilton to the Texas Rangers and Josh is an incredible athlete and an incredible story but the team did the right thing. The Reds needed, and still need more, pitching help in the rotation and the guy we picked up from the Rangers Edinson Volquez is as much of a pitching stud as Josh is a hitting stud, the thing is, both are just POTENTIAL and now they each have to prove it.

Dusty Bakerr came in as the new manager of the team and I like Dusty because he is old school baseball. I am not sold on the charges that he blew out the arms of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior while managing the Chicago Cubs. regardless, the guy has a command from the top down and that is to WIN.

This year I am going to blog about “My Cincinnati Reds” not because I am a baseball expert but because I am a guy that all the stat geeks who dominate in fantasy leagues totally write off…I am a FAN…I can see the virtual rolling of the eyes right now, that’s ok, I know deep down that even stat geeks didn’t always check PECOTA to see what the VORP on a player like Corey Patterson is in CF to Josh Hamilton…I know they didn’t always check the GB to FB ratio on a pitcher and instead at one time liked those players just because they were pitching for their favorite team.

Sort of sad how calculated everything in life has become, even a game like baseball.

Here’s to the Reds going 161 - 1 this years and KILLING the hated New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox in the World Series!

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It’s no secret that I am a HUGE fan of the Cincinnati Reds. I grew up in Columbus, OH in the mid 1970’s and to a 9 year old kid there was no other dream to have then playing for the Big Red Machine. A big part of that dream was crystallized by the radio voices of Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brennaman.