with opening day fast approaching the Reds are showing that they are indeed in mid-season, melt down mode.
In the last 5 games the Cincinnati “Deads” as they shall be affectionately referred to until they post a winning record are
1-4.
Last week on the radio I predicted the Reds would have their annual meltdown in May, it’s looking like that was generous.
I know some of you may be saying, it’s only pre-season and it doesn’t count. Uh yeah; whatever. Opening day is less than a week away, do you honeslty think the Reds are going to magically turn things around? If you do, then you’ve been watching too many Disney movies.
Get ready “Deads” fans. It’s going to be a long, brutal summer.

So far the smartest thing Dusty Baker has said in spring training is not to think too highly of the $30 million dollar man, Aroldis Chapman. It’s been said that Chapman won’t make the 25 man roster if he isn’t ready, but judging from the past pitchers the Reds have drafted or stumbled across, none of them are ready yet either.

During his last outing against the Dodgers, which the Reds won 3-2, Chapman allowed two infield hits over two innings and struck out two. He threw 35 pitches, 20 for strikes, and demonstrated less command than he showed in Monday’s first outing against the Royals. In his post game interview, Chapman said “Personally, I felt good, I just missed a couple of pitches out of the zone. I was trying to put them in a place, but they went the other way.” Uhhh news flash slick, up where the big boys play, those pitches that “just missed” or “went the other way” usually end up as souvenirs for the fans in the outfield seats because MLB hitters rarely miss a mistake pitch. Just ask the so-called #1 starter Aaron Harang who went 6-14 last year with an ERA of 4.21 in 162.1 innings of work. Not to mention that he gave up 82 runs, 76 of them were EARNED . Or maybe you should ask the previous golden child Homer Bailey what happens when you just miss your spots. The word was he wouldn’t pitch in the bigs until was ready as well, but the front office in its infinite stupidity rushed him anyway and in three seasons Bailey is 12-13 with an ERA of 5.45.

As for the rest of the staff, there’s the wanna be rocker Bronson Arroyo who went 15-13 and an ERA of 3.84. Johnny Cueto 11-11 with a 4.41 ERA, Micha Owings 7-12 and a an ERA of 5.34. Homer Bailey went 8-5 with a 4.53 ERA and Justin Lehr who was 5-3 and ERA of 5.37. That kids come up to a mind numbing record of 52-58 by the starting pitchers with a staff ERA of 4.61. The NL ERA average for 2009 was 4.19. Want to guess why the Reds starters were 52-58?Forget about a World Series Championship this year, the Reds need to be concerned with trying to post a record above .500.  But for that to happen the pitching staff needs to find mental toughness, physical toughness and heart. In those categories, the Reds staff is 0-3.

Remember the old belief that pitching wins championships and the Reds don’t have it and that’s the sad, cold, hard truth.

I’m not one who really follows basketball much at any level. Still, I’ll watch the Buckeyes when they’re on TV and nothing else is.

Thank God that was the case today.

Evan Turner hit a 40-foot jumper as time expired to ruin the day for Michigan fans everywhere. Not only did they lose a game they thought they were going to win, their season is almost certainly over. And it couldn’t happen to a bigger group of dooshbags.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I’m going to start regaling you all with cool facts about Evan Turner.

Evan Turner is Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris, and Superman’s consensus choice for National Player of the Year.

Kobe Bryant was God’s first draft. The finished product? Evan Turner.

Evan Turner is like a more athletic, darker skinned version of Christian Laettner, except that Turner also has a promising NBA career in front of him and far fewer people who want to see him get hit by a train.

Michael Jordan looks at Evan Turner and says, “Man, I’m glad I didn’t have to play against him.”

Most people call a day where you make a game-winning shot against your arch-rival to stay alive in your conference tournament and knock your rival out for the season the greatest day in their playing career. Evan Turner calls it “Friday.”

Americans are frequently criticized (usually by Europeans and American liberals) for being insular people who don’t have any knowledge of the outside world. Well of course we are! If you lived here you wouldn’t see any reason to learn anything about your inferiors either, Frenchy.

Nevertheless, as a public service and a means of handing an olive branch to my esteemed colleagues across the pond, I’m now presenting a primer on geographical anthropology to you, my three readers.

Next up: Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. All entries in this series can be found here.

I don’t really know what these countries bring to the table. As far as I can tell it’s waffles, hookers, and a place you can go to legally blaze up the reefer. Oh yes, and a convenient route to use for an invasion if someone has fortified only part of its eastern border.

In other words, they’re like the French only without the history of importance on the world stage. A lot of their land is below sea level, so in another way they’re like New Orleans without the Cajun food. And the successful athletes. Let’s face it, if your national sport is speed skating, you might want to rethink your nation’s athletic future.

But they’re really good at pretending they’re important. The international criminal court – such as it is – can be found here, as can the headquarters of NATO. Although why we’d put the NATO headquarters in the middle of Belgium escapes me. I’m pretty sure the Smurfs were invented here too.

Which leads me to digress. Why is the plural of “Smurf” Smurfs? Shouldn’t it be Smurves? Stupid Belgians. Add in the fact that Michael Caine, as Austin Powers’ father, absolutely hated the Dutch, and I think we can pretty much write off the Low Countries except for the fact that George S. Patton’s most glorious moment occurred there. Sixty-five years ago.

Luxembourg? I’m not sure they actually exist. I think they’re a joke played by France and Belgium on the rest of the world, just waiting to see if anyone would be brave enough to call them on it. I see it going something like this.

Canada: We’re aboot to go on vacation, eh? Whereaboots you think you wanna go, eh? (because all Canadians end every single sentence with “eh”)

Great Britain: I say, dear boy, let’s tarry ourselves away to Luxembourg, I hear they have the most phenomenal tea and crumpets. (because all Brits crave tea and crumpets the way zombies crave brains)

France: Ahhh ha ha, English pig-dogs! Zere ees no Luxembourg! Ahhh ha ha! (because Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the most accurate depiction of the French ever made)

The Netherlands and Belgium are the kids who sit next to the Scandinavians and pretend they’re really important. They’re a member of every single extracurricular activity (not counting, you know, sports) and are in charge of the school yearbook. They do the announcements on the closed-circuit school television every morning and they go out of their way to make life uncomfortable for the kid who sits in the back of the class and gets A’s despite not studying or doing homework. You know, they try to socially ostracize them and tell the teachers about their less-than-studious ways. In other words, no one would miss them if sea levels went up a couple dozen feet and they had to grow gills.

Americans are frequently criticized (usually by Europeans and American liberals) for being insular people who don’t have any knowledge of the outside world. Well of course we are! If you lived here you wouldn’t see any reason to learn anything about your inferiors either, Frenchy.

Nevertheless, as a public service and a means of handing an olive branch to my esteemed colleagues across the pond, I’m now presenting a primer on geographical anthropology to you, my three readers.

Next up: Scandinavia. All entries in this series can be found here.

Let’s face it, when most people think of Scandinavia they think of blonde-haired people riding on reindeer or skiing, possibly with a horned helmet on their heads. And they’re right. That is all they do. But there’s a little more people could learn if they wanted to. For example, did you know that the captain of Sweden’s women’s curling team looks kind of like a blonde and female version of my father? I bet you didn’t.

Also, Scandinavia is where they give out Nobel Peace Prizes to people who haven’t really done anything in the pursuit of peace. For example, someone won one for making apocalyptic predictions that the weather is going to get warmer in the future, and it’s all our fault. Even if he was right, how does that promote peace? But Scandinavians are funny in their own way, else they’d call it the Nobel Druidism Prize or something.

Scandinavians are one of a very select group of people to have inspired the name of an American football team.  Wow. On second thought that’s not all that select a group, is it? Well, I tried. They did give us the band Hammerfall, which in turn gave us the awesome song “Hearts on Fire” from Rocky IV. Upon further reflection, this is probably the most awesome thing Scandinavians have ever done.

To fit the Scandis in with our analogy from a prior post, they’re like the kid who sits up at the front of the class and studies really hard. They suck up to the teacher all the time and everyone sees right through it but no one really cares all that much because they’re nice enough. Plus they tell good stories, even if they’re aimed at a bit of a younger audience. Weirdly, their bikes are missing parts and fall apart occasionally. Plus their sisters are pretty hot. They get along with pretty much everybody which is good because they’re kind of wusses so they wouldn’t bring a lot to the table if a huge fight broke out.

Feel free to comment at this time.