Significant Others

Being a Cincinnati sports hasn't exactly been all peaches and cream. Super Bowl 23, Kenyon Martin's broken leg, the embarrassment that is the Cincinnati Bengals, eight straight losing seasons for the Reds... the list goes on and on.

Actually, that's pretty much it.

Listen, I'm not asking for a Boston-type glory run where every single team wins every single championship... but all I ask for every year is meaningful games when the games mean the most. Meaningful Bengals games in December, and meaningful Reds games after Labor Day. It's been a while since I've been fortunate enough to bear witness to either.

But this year, I have a feeling that could change. I'm not quite delusional enough to think the Bengals -- despite a very solid offseason -- can contend in the AFC North this season.

However, I am just delusional enough to think the Reds CAN contend in the NL Central this season.

I'm not sure I thought this two weeks ago when I labeled this team a .500 ballclub, and I'm still not entirely secure in deviating from that just 1/5 of the way through the season. But the thing you keep hearing and reading all over the place, especially after the Reds gave the division-leading Cardinals all they could handle over the weekend, is that the Reds will certainly be in the conversation all year long in the National League.

Like I said, that's all I ever ask for.

Tonight's trouncing of the D-Backs should be taken with a grain of salt -- Arizona is a bad team already in a rebuilding mode and fresh off a managerial change. That said, it is noteworthy anytime you score 13 runs in a game, especially when it hasn't happened since June of 2006. And it's never a bad thing to record single-game season highs in runs (13), hits (18), and extra-base hits (8).

The Reds are now 7-4 in the month of May and are hitting .308 (1st in MLB) since turning the calendar page. They've also shown a ton of resilliency, most notably a 7-0 blanking of the Marlins the day after losing a 14-inning heartbreaker... a hard-fought one-run win over Milwaukee the day after a 15-3 beatdown by the Brewers... two solid victories over the Cardinals with what was effectively a 22-man roster... and a dramatic 9th inning comeback on Sunday capped off by an epic at-bat by Micah Owings, who tied the game with a two-out, two-strike solo home run off Cards' closer Ryan Franklin.

Just what kind of series was it for the Reds over the weekend? St. Louis came in having allowed just 11 home runs the entire season. The Reds hit seven in three days. Message sent.

Then they back it up with tonight's easy win on the west coast -- a time zone which has haunted the Reds in recent years -- to move four games above .500. Before Saturday, the last time that had happened was August 25, 2006 (387 games).

And we haven't even mentioned the pitching staff, which has allowed just 15 earned runs in the Reds' seven wins this month.

Here are some other things to get giddy about, in no particular order.

-- Willy Taveras's 12-game hitting streak, during which he's batting .408 (20-49)
-- Laynce Nix starting and producing. I'm not sold just yet, simply because he doesn't have the track to record to suggest this isn't simply a fluke, but he's clearly a better option than Chris Dickerson
-- Brandon Phillips batting .476 (10-21) over his last seven games with 2 HR and 9 RBI
-- Joey Votto going yard in his first at-bat since missing almost all of the Cardinals series with the flu. Oh by the way, he leading the National League in hitting at .381 (He's bonafide, what are you?)
-- Johnny Cueto's 1.59 ERA (2nd in NL) and 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (32/11)
-- The prospect of the Reds facing any team in a short series with Harang, Volquez, and Cueto staring you in the face
-- Jay Bruce's improved plate discipline. Doesn't it seem like every at-bat he's had the last 10 days ends up in a full count?
-- Ramon Hernandez and Ryan Hanigan batting a combined .295 (And no, the Reds don't miss Ryan Freel or Paul Bako one bit)
-- Adam Rosales. You can't argue with 13 hits in 12 games since being called up...

What you can argue about, however, is his hilarious home run sprint (we saw it again tonight) which has gotten serious national media attention the last 48 hours. Some people say it's just an exuberant kid being exuberant... others think it's somehwat unprofessional and could be construed as showing up the pitcher.

Everyone needs to settle down about this, incluidng Rosales probably (although that isn't likely to happen). That's just the way this kid is. He runs to first base on a walk. He runs in and out of the dugout. He runs everywhere. Isn't that the way we all played little league, and the way we want our kids to play little league?

Incidentally, he's also remarkably consistent -- Sunday's home run dash was 15.5 seconds, compared to tonight's scamper which was 15.7 seconds. Impressive.

So are the Reds these days. Let's hope I'm saying this when it really counts -- in September.