{"id":1259,"date":"2009-04-06T16:30:43","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T21:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/?p=1259"},"modified":"2017-06-20T09:56:56","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T14:56:56","slug":"mustavoid-for-the-cincinnati-reds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2009\/04\/06\/mustavoid-for-the-cincinnati-reds\/","title":{"rendered":"Must\/Avoid for the Cincinnati Reds"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"Edinson<\/a><\/p>\n

Edinson Volquez (left) and Johnny Cueto must avoid sophomore slumps if the Reds look to improve in <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first pitch of the 2009 Major League Baseball season was thrown Sunday, April 5. The sound of Jon Miller\u2019s voice turned baseball fans across the country into butter.<\/p>\n

Baseball is finally back.<\/p>\n

The Cincinnati Reds posted a familiar and disappointing record of 74-88 in 2008. New general manager Walt Jocketty made a handful of moves\u2014signing centerfielder Willy Taveras and trading for catcher Ramon Hernandez\u2014that shouldn\u2019t inch the Reds any closer to their first postseason appearance since 1995.<\/p>\n

If Cincinnati is going to make a push, a lot of good needs to happen.<\/p>\n

Must<\/strong> \u2014 Pitcher Edinson Volquez has to dominate like he portrayed before last year\u2019s All-Star break. Volquez rode a 2.29 ERA into the midsummer classic, then saw the number double to 4.60 after the break and his batting average against jumped 38 points. Volquez has to avoid the sophomore slump in order for the Reds to reach respectability.<\/p>\n

Avoid<\/strong> \u2014 Edwin Encarnacion needs to stay away from locking in on left field. The third baseman has the tools to be an elite corner infielder. Can he become a great middle-of-the-order bat? He\u2019s got to learn to hit the ball to all fields. Encarnacion hasn\u2019t put it all together and, depending on 2009, his time in Cincinnati may be running out.<\/p>\n

Must<\/strong> \u2014 The Reds bullpen spent 2008 near the top of the National League in bullpen ERA. It might prove tough to match last season\u2019s performance. Closer Francisco Cordero is coming off ankle surgery and had a rough spring. David Weathers is 39 years old and continues to shrink the average lifespan of every Reds fan in America. Cincinnati\u2019s bullpen needs to match its number from last year if it has any hope of making a splash in the National League.<\/p>\n

Avoid<\/strong> \u2014 The sophomore slump seems to be hovering around Great American Ball Park. Volquez shouldn\u2019t be the only mentioned. The Reds have potential victims up and down the clubhouse. Likely candidates to endure the season-killing slump are first baseman Joey Votto and outfielder Jay Bruce. Pitcher Johnny Cueto is at risk, as well.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati\u2019s postseason hopes ride predominately on the shoulders of its young, talented core. Can the young men respond and improve on their impressive first seasons? It\u2019s a must.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first pitch of the 2009 Major League Baseball season was thrown Sunday, April 5. The sound of Jon Miller\u2019s voice turned baseball fans across the country into butter. Baseball is finally back. The Cincinnati Reds posted a familiar and disappointing record of 74-88 in 2008. New general manager Walt Jocketty made a handful of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,295,1272,296],"class_list":["post-1259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-reds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-kj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1259"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15379,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259\/revisions\/15379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}