Doc: Reds slog toward fire sale
There comes a point in any baseball season when everyone just knows. Inside the clubhouse and out. Seasons require 162 games, but they don't need them all to assume a stink or a shine, no matter how many games are left to play.
"It's a long season,'' Mike Leake noted hopefully, after Wednesday's 6-4 loss to the Colorado Rockies, the latest in a coma-inducing stretch of Ls.
You can say that again, brother.
The 2015 Reds have set the path for themselves. They can call a team meeting, as they did after the game. They can snap a skid, maybe even go on a nice run. They can tell themselves they're Better Than This, because (1) with four months to play, they need to believe that, and (2) it's true.
They can do all that, and their 2015 won't change course. It'd be easier to turn the Queen Mary in a duck pond.
The Reds had a chance Wednesday to seize a spark and see if it would ignite a candle. They'd snapped a nine-game losing streak Tuesday, celebrating that event on the field like '60s groupies at a Beatles concert. A pulse existed, and they'd take it from there.
They waited until the 8th inning Wednesday. Behind 6-2, the Reds rallied to within 6-4. Bases loaded, one out. If the season had anything to offer, from here on, it would show itself now. A chance to change the script, and laugh a little.
Bases loaded, one out. Marlon Byrd flied to right, Zack Cozart flied to left.
"We're trying to create a culture of a will to win,'' Bryan Price allowed afterward. That sounded ridiculous in the current situation. A winning culture? How 'bout winning a game?
But Price's point is well taken. He's searching for his team's spine.
"I think our preparation is excellent. I don't think there's a guy who comes to the ballpark that hasn't prepared to play. But we need to find a fight to this ballclub. We do. I love our players. Sometimes I wonder where our fight is.''
In March, Joey Votto assured us there was a clubhouse full of leaders on his team. Where are they now? If ever a team needed players standing tall and showing the way, this one does. "We just haven't got to the point where that message of aggression has paid any real dividends,'' Price said.
Price said he'd get confrontational, if he thought it would help. "If that was something I felt was a difference maker, the intimidation card, I'd use it,'' he said. "I've yelled at our guys before. Confrontation is not an issue for me.''
He said he has showed faith in players who thudded early. "Jay (Bruce). "Marlon. I could have sat each guy for a week and sent the subliminal message, 'Look, I need more from you.' That wasn't the most productive way. I put credibility into guys who have been there and done that. That onus of performance is on them.''
That's where we are right now. Fans spend an inordinate amount of time flaying Price and GM Walt Jocketty. Neither plays the game. This was an 84- or 85-win team that left Arizona seven weeks ago. It has become less than that, owing to the injuries to Devin Mesoraco and Homer Bailey.
But it ain't this bad.
Time for the players to fight. Because right now, morgues are livelier than this team's collective psyche. "Go out there and play for somebody,'' suggested Todd Frazier. "Your family, your city, your team. Something. Go out and play against the other guy. Not only battling against yourself at the plate or on the mound. How about your battle against somebody on the other team?''
Here is what happened the last three days: The Reds lost two of three at home, to a last-place team. Colorado arrived in town at 3 a.m. Monday, and won Monday night. Colorado took the swing game Wednesday afternoon, on getaway day. Two wins of three, from a team that already had an 11-game losing streak of its own. Maybe the Rockies, as below average as they are, have a little of what Bryan Price was talking about.
"When you're losing and you're down early in games, it's kinda like here we go again. It's on us to get back in the game,'' Frazier said.
Literally and metaphorically, before the yard sale commences.