I know its early to say any game is a big game, but the Reds are in the mist of battling many of their NL central foes in the current roadtrip. They can’t afford to get behind early in the division. After a rainout and a thrashing from the Pirates, the Reds got a great pitching performance from Harang to split the shortened series. The Reds then went into Milwakee and pulled out 2 out of 3 behind some heroics by Edwin Encarcion to win a wild first game, and a well pitched second game. Now off to Houston for a 4 game series, the Reds are looking to seek some revenge from the Stro’s who beat them 12 times in 15 games last year! Not to mention they had to face Roy Oswalt who is like 87-1 career against the Reds. A 9th inning homer off the bat of Ramon Hernandez was enough for the Reds to come from behind and sneak out a victory in game one. Now it’s back to the top of the rotation and its looking like it could be a nice roadtrip! How sweet would a four game sweep against the Asstros be.
Harang who lost 20+ pounds in the offseason has looked wonderful in his starts so far. Reds fans can breath a sigh of relief that Harang is back to his old self after his struggles last year. Unfortunalty, the teams best pitcher last year hasn’t performed as well. Volquez was hit hard in his start against the Brewers but was bailed out by a MONSTOROUS GRAND SLAM by Edwin Encarncion. It seems the movement on Volkies fastball isn’t darting as much as it was last year. Plus he hasn’t seemed to throw his cartoon change-up as much. I wonder how much of his struggles are due to the new catcher. Perhaps Hannigan should get a shot at catching Volquez.
