Doc's TML: Reds can't contend with inconsistent starters

Before we discuss the J. Beisbol Farewell Tour, a brief thank-you to Anthony DeSclafani, who might yet become a very good pitcher, but whose show last night should have ended any lingering question over whether the Reds are players in the hunt for October.

Their problem is starting pitching consistency . They don't have any. Teams that don't get at least some SP steadiness do not run off the sort of sustained success that gets them back into races they were never in to begin with.

The Club won't win seven in a row and 13 of 15 with what it has now.

Because of circumstances foreseen and not (Latos, Simon dealt, Bailey hurt), BPrice has been creating a starting staff on the fly. It shows.

Since May 30, the Reds are 14-14. All year, they've won as many as four in a row twice, including the four to start the season. They get up and down results from everyone but Cueto, mostly because, other than Leake, they're kids, and that's what kids do.

DeSclafani has followed up three credible starts with two suspect ones. Last night, he was in constant trouble, even though his line suffered because of Badenhop. What it all means is, the Reds are banking on potential, and potential was Cueto, in 2007.

There was no question what the course should be before last night's L. Last night only made it more obvious.

AS FOR JOHNNY . . . If I'm a pitching connoisseur, I blow off the afternoon grind and go see him throw today. Reds fans have had the pleasure of watching Cueto grow up on the mound. He has learned how to pitch and how to control his emotions. On any given day, he is capable of being the best pitcher in the game.

Lord knows what might have happened in 2012, had Cueto not hurt himself in Game 1 v. the Giants. Even though that game and the next represented the team's highwater mark since 1990, how might it have been had the Reds had J. Beisbol starting Game 5 at GASP?

In and out, up and down, changing speeds and arm angles, quick pitching. Competing. I'm not sure he ever takes a pitch off.

Maybe the Reds can't trade him. They ask for too much, his impending free agency scares off teams, MLB's universal tendency now to value prospects makes dealing them too painful. Maybe Cueto finishes the year here. Let's hope not. The Reds have too much riding on his departure.

Meantime, check him out today. He's one of the best the Reds have ever produced.

BECAUSE TV IS MY LIFE. . . True Detective has taken center screen. I have a couple issues: (1) Everyone whispers or mumbles or seems to whisper and mumble. I'm constantly cranking the volume, then getting my ears blown off by a car vroom or a musical interlude. I think Colin Farrell is actually dead. And (A), my brain hurts from following the plot twists.

Neither is a big issue. This is another example how TV has surpassed movies as the best entertainment on screen. Here's a review from Vanity Fair.

THE US WOMEN ARE IN THE CUP FINALS , and I guess I'm supposed to be all aflutter about that. Are you?

I can't get entirely past the pass Hope Solo has been given . Given she's the goalie and the US hasn't been scored on in about three decades, this matters.

Anyway, the US women have been very good for a very long time, in a sport owned by the rest of the world. Five-Thirty-Eightsays it goes all the way back to to Title IX:

This success didn't come from nowhere. Since almost immediately after the implementation of Title IX (which became law in 1972, with compliance required by 1978) U.S. women's soccer has grown like crazy. Probably the cleanest and easiest venue to see how this has played out is at the high school level; the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has high school athletics participation data going back to the '70s:

In the late '70s, the number of high school women playing soccer was in the low five figures. By the time America won the World Cup in 1991, there were more than 120,000. By the time it won in 1999, there were more than 250,000. Now it is approaching 20 percent of all high school female athletes — about 375,000 — and has surpassed baseball/softball as the third-most-played team sport.

Soccer has grown both by taking women from other sports and by capturing a disproportionate share of "new" female athletes as more young women began to play sports. Note that the percentage decline for basketball — by far themost mature women's sport in the country — looks steep, but the change in total number of players is fairly small (there were more women playing high school basketball in 2013-14 than in 1976-77.) Soccer, though, has still been adding numbers to its ranks rapidly, despite a bit of a slowdown in its growth shortly after 1999.

THE END OF DAYS . Today is supposed to be nice, which is unusual. Anyone else recall a summer where rain was a possibility EVERY SINGLE DAY? I don't know whether to play nine holes or seek shelter in the basement.

THE WORST CONTRACT OF ALL TIME: From ESPN.com:

Back near the end of Bobby Bonilla's playing days, the New York Mets agreed to pay him $1,193,248.20 annually on July 1 for 25 years, beginning in 2011.

Bonilla was owed $5.9 million when the Mets agreed to that buyout.

The agreement called for deferred payments at an 8 percent annual interest rate. At the time, Mets ownership did not mind that interest rate because their investments with Bernie Madoff were returning comfortably more than that figure.

Meanwhile, believe it or not, the Mets annually make a second payment to Bonilla, too.

CBSSports.com reported in 2013 that Bonilla receives a separate payment for 25 years, which is the shared responsibility of the Mets and Baltimore Orioles and runs through 2028. The Mets reportedly are required to pay slightly more than half of the annual $500,000 sum, which stems from Bonilla's original tour of duty with the Mets.

THE AGE OF THE BULLPEN . . . Typically good stuff from SI.com's T. Verducci on the exploding importance of bullpens:

This note from the Elias Sports Bureau caught my attention at the end of last week: The team that scores first wins 71.6% of games this year. We know scoring first is important in baseball, but this … this is crazy important now. In the past 109 seasons, there has been only one season in which the conversion rate of turning the first run into a win was even 70%: 1968 (71.8%), which was essentially the worst year ever for hitting.

Not since Teddy Roosevelt began his full term as president in 1905 has it been so difficult to mount a comeback in baseball.

Want to know the quickest, cheapest way to become a winning team? Build a monster bullpen. The in-game race in baseball no longer is to take pitches, grind out at-bats to wear down the starting pitcher to drive him from the game and get into the opposing bullpen. The race is to get an early lead. Getting into a bullpen—where the ERA drops by more than half a run and the batting average drops by almost 20 points—is not preferable.

ONE MORE CHANCE FOR YOU TO BOO PUJOLS:

Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols said he would participate in the Home Run Derby if voted into the All-Star Game.

Pujols said he would participate in the event for a final time so his two sons and father can watch.

"And I think it would be the last one," Pujols said, according to MLB.com. "Like I told you last year, I won't do it if I'm not at the [All-Star] Game. If that happens, I think I'm all for it."

And finally. . .

I WOULD DO THIS, YES I WOULD . . . From Reddit.

TUNE O' THE DAY . A favorite of mine, from The Band, off a highly overlooked album.