Bailey Rebounds & Freel is Irritating

The most important story from tonight's game, except perhaps for Josh Hamilton severely(?) spraining his wrist in the on-deck circle (dangit!!), is that Homer Bailey rebounded from two consecutive disastrous outings to pitch quite well. He could have pitched the sixth, as he'd only thrown 87 pitches to that point, but it seemed as though they wanted to pull him before anything negative could happen. That might have been disappointing to the guy, but I think he has to be feeling pretty good after tonight's outing--nice way to finish the first half. Hopefully he can build on this and put together another good one after the All-star break.

The other thing I'm feeling right now is a lot of frustration with Ryan Freel. Sure, the guy has a lot of energy, which he showcased tonight by stealing third in back to back innings (good thing he made it...). But he's also a guy who just does stupid things, like trying to score on a ground ball to the pitcher (see picture for end result of that decision) and, of course, getting himself thrown out of the game after failing to bunt his way on base with two outs in the 7th. I'm not feeling a lot of love for the guy right now.

A few other brief comments:

• The Reds' approach against Webb seemed to be to swing early in the count, as they were far less patient with him than with Owings last night. Seemed to work for them too, this time anyway.
  
• I won't apologize for the pitch that Coffey threw to Byrnes, but the previous two hits were pretty bad luck. Push bunt attempt that was just hit far enough to not get caught in the air, plus a deflected hit that could have been a double playing.
  
• Valentin wasn't looking very good behind the plate tonight...couldn't come up with the ball on the first Byrnes steal, and didn't even seem to try to block a few pitches in the dirt.
• Gonzalez looked pretty clueless.
• Nice to see Eddie come through with that homer today--perhaps his power is starting to come back? :)
• The D-backs announcers were floored when Dunn did his little poke single in the 4th. Did the Reds' announcers give him any credit for that at all?
• Stanton was pretty darn impressive tonight. He threw fewer pitches in his two innings of work (17) than Weathers threw in his 9th inning adventure.
• Why was Hatteberg sent home in the 9th? I know Conine was the last guy left on the bench (thanks to Freel), but Salazar was already throwing home by the time Hatteberg touched the third base bag. It wasn't even remotely close. Couldn't you pinch hit with Lohse or something?
  
• Finally, the unintentional-intentional walk of Salazar in the 9th had my freaking out--why on earth would you put the lead runner on so that you can face Tony Clark? But Weathers got out of it, and showed some great energy at the end.