The Nightcap

I'm going to call it the Bryan Price effect. The overall aggressiveness of the Reds seems to be at a higher level this year than the last few years and I do not just mean because the number of stolen bases is higher. That number is typically dictated by the personnel of a team, but rather I mean the style in which these Reds are running the bases. It is much closer to the Reds team of 2010 who led the world in going 1st to 3rd on singles.

In this series alone, we have seen many players going 1st to 3rd on singles and running the bases aggressively but in tonight's game we saw the Reds take control of the game because of their ability and desire to be active on the basepaths. Roger Bernadina stole second early in the game and forced a bad throw which resulted in him ending up at third. The same thing happened with Billy Hamilton stealing second base and resulted in Hamilton going to third and Ramon Santiago scoring. Hamilton and Bruce also took extra bases on what should have been singles to center field but both of them played it aggressive and ended up at second base. Jay Bruce had two stolen bases tonight.

As mentioned above, stolen bases do not always tell a story of running the bases with passion and aggressiveness but it is more important to notice who is stealing the bases.  The Reds do currently rank 3rd in baseball in stolen bases with 20 but more impressive is that 9 players currently have stolen bases this season including the likes of Brayan Pena, Devin Mesoraco and Neftali Soto. These guys are running and running often which not only puts more pressure on the defense and catcher in particular to make plays but makes the game just a little more exciting to watch from home.

It was discussed before this road trip if the Reds could come home at 12-13 then it would have to be a success considering the level of competition they have played to this point, and that record is well within reach. It would take a 2-2 record over the remaining 4 games to make this a reality and with Tony Cingrani pitching against a guy who was scratched from his AAA start tonight, you would hope that tomorrow would result in a W.