We're off today before the Colorado series, and with no game to talk about, here's a bunch of other crap!
The Sun has a story on Steve Reed maintaining his confidence, which is nice, I guess. Reed has been rather awful but he did get us out of a big jam the other night, and if he delivers the rest of the season I'm sure we'll all forgive him for his rough start. The article also covers Chris Ray now carring the candy bag to the bullpen instead of The Todd.
There's also mention that Luis Matos may be activated for the Colorado series. We haven't missed his defense as much as I feared, as Newhan has turned out to be adequate and Marrero did an OK job in his couple of starts in center, but Matos is better than both and was swinging far better than either of them have this season at the time he went down with the injury. If he can come off the DL and contribute with his bat the way Bigbie has done, that's a big help. I'm still shaky on Matos because he's never hit over a full season in his pro career, but he honestly cannot be worse than the center fielders we've been trotting out in his absence.
If Matos is back, who goes? You could drop the 12th pitcher (Baldwin), because it's pretty useless anyway, or if they absolutely want to carry 12 of them, Newhan has got to go. We all loved the Newhan story for a while last year, but let's face facts. The guy isn't a good ballplayer.
I wish he was because he seems like a nice guy and the type of player that works hard, and he's got some abilities that are nice to have around (speed, defensive flexibility, and from my view he's a good baserunner in addition to just being fast), but he's just not helping. Marrero presents a possible nice platoon option for Raffy and can play outfield and catch in an emergency, plus if his bat gets going he's got more power than Newhan.
If it were up to me, though, I'd just dump Baldwin. There is no need to carry 12 pitchers unless you're going to Coors Field, and we aren't. He's been effective thus far, but four of the games he's pitched in were losses (two of them blowouts), and the other was a 9-3 win. The two non-blowout losses, Baldwin came in after someone in our bullpen had blown the game for us. He's not exactly been used in pressure situations. He's been used when the time wasn't right for anyone else.
Who to drop will also come up again when Javy Lopez returns from the DL. To me, the decision is a complete and utter no-brainer: Da Chief has to go. Babe Fasano has been a good game-caller and put up a .929 OPS. Fasano's slugging percentage (.596) is 111 points higher than Gil's OPS. Gil has never hit. He's not going to start. With a better backup available, any loyalty to Gil must be ignored. He's another nice guy, but the numbers don't add up, and someone will be squeezed out. With Fasano producing more than enough for a backup role, there is no excuse to deal with Gil any longer.
Anyhow, use the comments for this post to bring up anything that crosses your mind today. We'll just make this the off-day open thread.