Stick a fork in it....
 

They're done kaput, finished, finito-benito, Gandhi, outta here, a ghost, a vapor, Nyet, nein, no, non, nicht,Adios, ciao, sayanora, -- Deee-nied. The fat lady's singing, Elvis has left the building, the train has left the station.

Unless......

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

1964 comes back and the St. Louis Cardinals are disguised as the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cincinnati Reds are the St. Louis Cardinals.

Chico Ruiz stole home against the Phillies to win 1-0 and to start the Phils slide. When I heard Freel was at third today, I saw people type that Freel should steal home. I immediately thought of Chico Ruiz.

Who knows. The schedule sure looks easy.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

Unless......

We get hire a Ukrainian spy to add a "special something" to the Cardinals food during a team meal. The entire team falls ill for the remaining of the season and is regulated to bed rest.

More realistically and legally, it's going to take a collapse of epic proportions by the Cardinals since there are too many teams between the Reds and the Wild Card.



This reminds me of a personal favorite golf quote.

Reporter: "What will you have to shoot to win tomorrow?"
Golfer: "The rest of the field."

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

We probably are, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities that we win the W/C. Sure beats watching Josh Hall and Brian Reith pitching this time of year and being 18 gb.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

Yeah we get Jason Johnson, Sun Woo Kim, and Chris Mihalak.

:D

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

You're right - 6 in one hand, a half dozen in the other - only diff is that the half dozen is older than the 6 in this circumstance.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

It is still quite a close race in the wild card. We can't afford to lose too many games, but the rest of the teams in that race are in the exact same position.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

Sadly, there is no "unless". It's over.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

It was over when the Reds headed to Milwaukee at 54-48 on July 28th and proceded to lose early and often after winning the first game. In fact, that's the watermark as they have gone 18-26 since. Death rattle stuff.

Before the AS break, the Reds were scoring 5.11 runs per game and allowing 5.33, a difference of 0.22 runs. They were one game over .500. Since the AS break they have averaged 4.35 runs and allowed an average of 4.79, a difference of 0.44 runs. In both cases the opponents were scoring more than us, but we've lost 0.76 runs per game of offensive production while reducing the runs allowed by 0.54. Pretty much a draw, but the bad part is if we could have maintained our 5.11 scoring average while holding the opposition to 4.79, we would have a runs per game advantage of 0.32 runs.

I'll leave it up to you to decide where the loss of runs came from, but (and beating a dead horse here) you might find it in Washington. A lot of pitchers have contiributed to allowing the opposition to score less runs, but no one from Washington can claim that.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

But, the end started on June 28th. No doubt about that.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

Yep. Sorry, I just don't believe anymore. I think it's over.:cry:

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

If I had to pick a moment when the wheels came off, it was that looooong game in Philly. EZ took two losses in less than 24 hours and hasn't seen daylight since. His demise hurt. For a stretch Elizardo was the bridge between Harang/Arroyo and the roster fodder pulling up the end of the rotation.

But no matter the parsing, its a .500 team, pre- and post-. We were running against the odds the whole way. I'm still curious as to why this team doesn't score more runs.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

I'd agree with you on this Rojo. Philly is when the wind really started to come out of their sails.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

The Cardinals fall apart and the Reds go on a tear.

The Wildcard isn't happening.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

I disagree with this. I don't think we were a .500 team before Wayne came aboard. .500 for this team is major improvement IMO... sadly.

Re: Stick a fork in it....
 

I'm excited to see what happens this offseason. This season isn't ending the way we were hoping after the Reds spent 113 or so days atop the Wild Card and actually had tied St. Louis for the division lead. I think some still don't want to give up hope.. but its hard to think their will be a post season with this offense/defense and with Narrons famous line-ups.