Scorecard - 5/29/11 Braves over Reds

Kept score.  It was a fun game to watch, except that the Reds didn't win it.  I don't know if Janish was safe either.

The general state of the Reds fan right now seems to be one of anger and frustration, with a tad of hopelessness.  I feel a bit of that, though at the same time I feel like the team is still showing signs of quality.  They still play good defense.  Their offense is still at least average.  And their pitching, I think, is better than the on-field results indicate.  It doesn't help that 2/5 of the expected rotation is injured (and roughly that ratio has been injured all year), and they're in the middle of this this streak of...what, 34 games in 35 days?  The team still has resiliency, and has good pieces all over the place.  The might just not have enough great pieces.

But all's not lost.  They're only (as I write this) 4.5 games out.  If Arroyo's back is ok, and if Volquez can indeed get at least back to competency, their rotation might finally start to stabilize.  Really, one good winning streak, and the Reds are right back with there with the Cardinals.  Right now, BPro's PECOTA projects the Reds to finish with 82 wins.  THT's Oliver has them at 88 wins.  I think that represents the most likely range of possibilities from here on out...though if they're out of that range, I think they're more likely to miss low than high.

As for me and this site, I think I may try to post here a bit more often for now.  It's fun to have my own place to ramble again, even if no one reads it.  But my main outlets will continue to be at Red Reporter and Rotographs.  Speaking of which, I have started doing series previews at RR.  Last week's was on the Braves, while today's is on the Brew Crew.  I also appeared in FanGraphs Audio last week.  Havin' fun...

Horst promoted to Reds

Lefty reliever Jeremy Horst was promoted to the Reds today, the latest in a musical chair sequence of pitchers to arrive on this long road trip. Horst was converted back to relief last year after a one-year stay as a starter. He has posted good to solid k-rates, solid walk rates, and roughly average ground ball rates.

Perhaps the most important thing is that he's a lefty. As the lone left-hander in the pen, Bill Bray has gotten a ton of use lately, and might not be available tonight. And even if he is, this gives the Reds more options in the middle innings. We'll see how long he's here!

Changes I'd like to see in baseball

Wishlist for the next CBA, in bullet form:

• No more home plate collisions.
• Bats should be equipped with something like the batglove to prevent spears from flying around the field (or stands).  No more Tyler Colvin incidents.  Next time, somebody is going to die.
• Add a second wild card team and the wild card series, but structure it so that the winning wild card team will have a disrupted pitching rotation for the division series.  The easiest way is to do a 1-game wild card series.
• (this isn't actually a change, but...) Do not implement a hard slotting system for the draft.  Its main effect will be to send players to other sports.
• Allow for the trading of draft picks, though no more than two drafts in advance.

Home Plate Collisions

Buster Posey broke his leg last night in a collision with Scott Cousins. The play was deemed "clean," but it nevertheless means that Posey will likely miss the rest of the season.

Last year, Carlos Santana injured his knee on a similar play. He missed the rest of his rookie season.

I just don't get why this has to continue: there is no obvious reason to me why collisions at home plate should continue be permitted. If they did not exist, would they be invented? No, I don't think they would. And it isn't like they remove all excitement from the game. Rather than a collision, wouldn't you instead want to see something like this?

Players are getting hurt. Beyond this being a workplace issue for them, their injuries means that we don't get to see exciting players play. Let's fix this.

It's an easy solution too.  The play is already illegal.  Catchers shouldn't block the plate without the ball, and baserunners should never be permitted to crush the opposing team's catcher.

Follow-ups
After writing this, I discovered I was not the only one having these same thoughts:

• Rob Neyer talks about it, and he's right. 
• Tom Tango talks about it, and proposes and an even more extreme solution.  I don't think force-outs are necessary.  Let's just enforce the rules that are already on the books and keep baserunners from knocking over catchers.
• Also, Dave Cameron.  Nice quote from Kevin Millar.

Scorecard - 5/9/11 Reds over Astros

No, probably not starting up with the blog again. But I wanted to post this scorecard from the Reds/Astros game on May 9th. 'Cause there's no way you could get this info by opening up MLBAM Gameday, nosir.