Behind The Box Score

Brewers. “Mannywood.” Wrigley.

Only two-fifths of the way done with the brutal schedule to begin the second half of the baseball season, the Reds (44-47) are 5 1/2 games outside of first place. They are heading into a difficult next 6 games, all on the road, 3 with the Dodgers (58-34), and another 3 with the Cubs (47-43), who swept the lowly Washington Nationals in 4 games over last weekend. The Dodgers have the second best home record in the NL, at 30-15. The Reds have had much difficulty in LA, with their last win against the Dodgers out in Dodger Stadium coming on July 28, 2005, when Brandon Claussen earned a 6-1 victory. In the past four years, the Reds are 11-28 on the west coast. However, Dusty is trying to stay positive. “I haven’t many fond memories there as a manager of the Reds,” Baker said. “We’re going to try and recapture some of those memories when I was there as a player. I played there a long time. It’s always fun to go back home. We just have to rise to the occasion. They beat us pretty good last year. We have some work to do when we get out there.”

Tonight, Micah Owings (6-9, 4.94 ERA) is going to try and improve his record against callup Jason Schmidt, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since June 16th, 2007, when he went 4 2/3 innings, 5 H, 3 ER. He went on the DL after that and had surgery on his right shoulder, and was expected to return at the end of 2008, but never did.

Overall, this series should say a lot about the Reds ability to stay with the upper half of the National League as a whole. If the Reds can sneak out two of three, they could be in prime position to have a great road trip, and come back after going to Chicago with some duds on the schedule and could really get hot before the dog days of August so to speak.