I think a little background on me might be appropriate as I write my first post for the Cincinnati Reds blog on this site.  I’m somewhat of a blogging “virgin”, typically I have limited my online efforts to commenting on other’s work but I am a sports fanatic.  So bear with me as I get my feet wet and hopefully we all have some fun.  I was born a Red’s fan, that is to say when you are lucky enough to grow up in Cincinnati, witness and root for the Big Red Machine of the 1970’s you really have no choice but become a lifelong fan of the team.  This has been both a blessing and a curse as that team of guys with Bench, Rose and Morgan set the bar very high, and over the past 30 years or so we haven’t had a whole lot to get excited about.

I spent some time this morning looking at the MLB standings and a couple of things jumped out at me very quickly.  First off the guys in red have lost an impressive eight in a row and are just 1 and 9 in their last 10.  And that officially makes us the coldest team in all of baseball at the moment.  Next for some more self inflicted punishment, I took a look at last night’s box score and the one bright spot was a 2-run big fly by a guy named Wladimir Balentien!  Who??  It looks like we picked the kid up in a trade with Seattle, whopping .208 lifetime average in 2 big league seasons.  I think we can now declare the season over and officially a bust.  The sad thing is when this season started I think we all had high hopes but in reality this year’s team will probably finish well behind last year’s win total.

Over the next month or two I’d like to take a look at some of the strategic moves that the Reds organization made before this season started and give you my thought on what did or didn’t work and why.   There have actually been a few bright spots, the play of Ryan Hanigan and Joey Votto come to mind.  I can’t wait to hear and respond to your thoughts and comments as well.  We’ll also keep an eye on some of the young talent in the organization and their potential to help bring the team back to a being a consistent winner.

One more qucik personal note, I now call Los Angeles home, can someone please send me a Skyline care package?Next up, the Willy Taveras experiment, I bet management wishes they had a mulligan on that brilliant move!  Until then, be well!