Shutout Deja Vu for Bronson Arroyo

The crafty, innings-eater Bronson Arroyo showed up tonight, thankfully. Arroyo went eight innings, gave up four hits, and allowed no runs against his former club. He improves his record to 4-1. Francisco Cordero finished the game even though it was a non-save situation. That makes back-to-back shutouts for the Reds and their fourth of the season. They only had six total in 2008.

Adam Rosales had another nice game: 1-2 with 2 walks. He made an excellent play falling into the stands to grab a Nate McClouth foul ball. It’s usually a good thing when you can minimize the number of pitches that guy sees.

The oft-meligned Brandon Phillips hit his third homer of the season and also put up a sac fly to score a run. Phillips actually accounted for 50% of the Reds scoring tonight. I’m still not fully confident that BP is back and should be batting cleanup.

Ryan Hanigan had another great night behind and at the dish: 2-3 with a walk and run scored. He’s batting .412 and I’m 96% sure he won’t play tomorrow. What about that makes sense to you?

Just when you think Joey Votto might be starting to slump, he goes 2-4 with a walk and an RBI. Joey’s walk was intentional, only the second time this year he’s been handed first base.

I’ve been saying this for a while now: with Brandon Phillips being all but impressive at the plate thus far, pitchers should walk Joey Votto. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them to, but that’s what I would do.

As mentioned in Wednesday’s game recap, the Reds are going to have to keep a lot of games tight and low scoring in order to give themselves a chance to win. That’s how it has to be when you’re rounding out the bottom five in nearly every statistical batting category.

Tomorrow night we’ll see Micah “Bambino” Owings versus Ross Ohlendorf (2-2, ). Ohlendorf came over to the Buccos with Jeff Karstens in the big Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady deal with the Yankees. Who cares right? Maybe Dusty Baker will get a wild hair up his butt and bat Owings somewhere other than ninth. It’s doubtful.

Stuff and Things…

This should be retitled, “my pissed off rant about things that don’t matter.”

The Pirates new alternate uniforms are stupid. They might look halfway decent without the numbers on the front. At least they’re much better than their old alternates (notice the stupidly placed numbers on the far right uni).

I stumbled Bronson Arroyo’s website tonight looking for a good photo. Apparently that butthole just can’t cut ties with Boston as his banner shows him in a Red Sox uniform with Fenway Park in the background.

As I sit here watching MLB Network, I’m reminded of how annoying Dan Plesac is. When he calls games, he almost makes me thankful for George Grande. Almost.