Currently the Reds are in the midst of struggling to get wins. The team has won only two games in their last ten. Losing three series match ups to the Pirates, Indians, and Phillies. The pitching is getting beat, the bats are somewhat cold, and the outlook for wins has some serious questions.
The one bright spot for the Reds has been Jay Bruce through this whole losing issue. JB, over his last ten games, has hit for the following stat line: 19 of 43 for .442 BA, 6HR, 15RBI, 9R, 3BB, only and 7Ks. His season stats are OBP .353, SLG .556, and OPS .909. Since May 16th, the rest of the outfield has only accounted for 4RBIs during the recent skid. One thing you can readily see, no team is not going to win many games when only one outfielder is producing out of five.
Jonny Gomes has been benched, Fred Lewis and Chris Heisey only get spot starts, Drew Stubbs is a lead off hitter on pace to strike out 188 times this season, and Jeremy Hermida is in AAA Louisville. Some one needs to step up to help fill the outfield production void soon or this season is going to be long and monotonous. (I have not even talked about the issue at Short Stop) Reds fans, we need to keep the faith and do our best to give these guys support to turn the corner.
If you are a baseball fan, you already know about the injury to Buster Posey, an outstanding young catcher for the San Francisco Giants. He has been lost for the season to a horrific broken leg and torn legitimate damage. Buster was blocking the plate to try to stop Scott Cousins, of the Florida Marlins, from scoring and as Posey tried to field the throw to home Cousins collided with him. During the collision, Posey's Left ankle was stuck under him and twisted violently to cause the season ending injury.
The collision/injury has sparked a huge debate within the Baseball community calling for changes to the current blocking the plate, runner catcher collision topic. Some are calling for drastic measures from not allowing catchers to block the plate, all the way to not allowing runners to crash into catchers for any reason, meaning mandatory sliding. Then on the flip side of the coin there are people that don't want any change to the current rules.
I am one of the people who believes that the rules should not be changed. Every catcher that has ever strapped on shin guards, chest protector, and helmet knows there will come a game where a collision is going to happen. There are also base runners out there that look for the opportunity to make that collision happen and hope they can knock the ball free from the catchers clutches. No matter how the collision occurs, collisions at home plate have always been around.
Here is my thought line as a lifetime catcher in baseball (biased). Home plate is the only base on the diamond that is protected by a player in equipment. You do what it takes to stop a runner from scoring. The catcher(soldier) is protecting the plate(homeland) to stop the other team(enemy) from scoring. Some enemies will hook slide(flank) and some will crash (9/11) into the catcher. Either way, you deal with the outcome, injury or not. So, just because a young up and coming player gets hurt on a play at the plate, doesn't mean rules should immediately be changed.
Post any and all comments, no matter what your opinion is on this subject.
On a personal note - my baseball team, the Devils, won Thursday night by the score of 9 to 3 over the Storm. My Devils scored 9 runs on 12 hits with only 2 strike outs. Our Pitcher, Rick D., threw all 7 innings surrendering 3 runs on 6 hits, striking out 6. My personal stat line - 2-2, 2 singles, 1 BB, 1 SB, 2 Runs, 2RBIs, and threw the only attempted base runner out at 2nd in the fourth inning. Dennis Quaid's character Jim Morris in The Rookie said "You know what we get to do today? We get to play Baseball!"
Thanks all and Cheers from the Cheap Seats.
