3 In A Row For The Reds

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The Reds defeated the Chicago Cubs today to win their 3rd straight game. The final score was 5-4. They jumped out to an early lead due to Jay Bruce's 3 run home run in the fourth inning. Don't look now but Jay Bruce's bat is starting to come to life. If Jay Bruce is hitting the ball well the Reds lineup becomes awfully tough to get through. When he isn't hitting it doesn't seem very tough. That's the difference one player can make, especially if that player is supposed to be one of the corner stones of your team.

That puts the Reds two games over .500. I like the comments Dusty Baker made yesterday. That was even if you aren't playing your best ball, if you hang around the .500 mark when you finally do start to make your push you distance yourself from that mark. If you allow the less than stellar play to get you down and you drop below that mark then when you finally do make that push you are doing it just to get back to the .500 mark. I think 92 wins or close to it will be enough to win the division this year, or at least get a wild card spot. There aren't really any dominant teams in the National League other than maybe the Phillies. So I don't think there's going to be any division in which the 2nd place team wins 97/98 games.

True the Reds aren't playing that good right now, but they are hanging around and this is a resilant team that if you let them stay in the race for the playoffs, I think they'll get the job done in the end and get in. Their play is going to get better. The starting pitching is going to get it's era back to where it was last year, these things always tend to even out so likely we'll see a period where they are lights out on the mound that is as long as their mediocre to bad start has been.

It doesn't even seem like the offense has been playing very well either and they are 2nd in the NL in runs scored. I think once this offense gets going like they are capable of you will see them as the top hitting team in the league.

Anyway the Reds have one 3 in a row and it all started with a 9th inning rally 2 days ago against Houston. They only had recorded one hit the entire game against someone making their major league debut. The last time the Reds had that kind of rally was opening day against the Brewers and that lead to a five game winning streak to start the season. Hopefully the Reds are in the midst of an even longer winning streak right now. The key is once a winning streak comes to a close to consistently play winning baseball. The goal should be to take the season by series and to go out and win two of three in every series.