I like the promotions. I think you keep pushing Jay Bruce to face better pitching. Hopefully as the pitching gets better, his eye will improve. His gaudy numbers and ability to rake at single-A really de-incitivizes selectivity. I imagine everything thrown at him looked hittable -- working the count will be key to the next stage in his development.
The Gardner promotion really strikes me as a bit of baseball savvy, and I'm not just saying that because I've been calling for him to be on an aggressive promotion schedule around here for a while. It makes perfect sense to put him against the best competition he can handle. He's not young anymore by prospect standards -- so see what he can give you now and give him a chance to learn how to retire quality hitters with the stuff he currently has. Success at AAA will be a very good indicator for him, because I imagine he's still got at least 2-3 MPH left to recover on his fastball as he completes his recovery from surgery.
Good news from the farm makes up for another lackluster day in the show.