Reds with/without Hamilton

It's early, but here's a key stat:

The Reds are 4-1 when Hamilton starts and 4-5 when he doesn't.

Chew on that for a bit.

Mock Draft

#8 from Pat Kirwan sticks with Russell:

The Raiders have lots of needs, but as long as quarterback is one of them, they have to respond by selecting the guy with the great deep ball, JaMarcus Russell. As I said previously, the Raiders are pushing forward to trade for Josh McCown. The compensation the Lions rejected was a fifth-round pick, but it appears they could move up a pick in the first round to close the deal. The Lions aren't going to give McCown away, but a quarterback that has one year left on his deal and didn't play a down last year can't be worth more than a fourth-round pick. I'm sure the Raiders would love to have McCown in a Raiders uniform to start the season until Russell is ready. The biggest point about the Raiders' intentions to use the mobile McCown until Russell is ready and then make the switch is that Oakland is not looking to renegotiate McCown's $2 million salary to make the trade happen.

Warriors 111, Mavericks 82

What did you expect? No Nowitzki, Howard, Stackhouse (or Dampier). Avery was resigned to lose this game, which is sad in a way. I am not so sure it's wise to take the Golden State Warriors lightly. They swept the regular season series, although this game doesn't really count. But this is the team that can give the Mavs problems. I wouldn't much want to see the Lakers in the #8 seed either, but the Warriors are scary and have lights-out shooters that when they get hot are hard to stop. The Warriors could be the #8, that's the most likely case. The Lakers could fall to #8 and the Clippers could rise to #8. We'll know soon enough.

Hard to draw much from this game, though. When the leading floor players are Buckner, George, Ager, and Barea, you know that's not the usual Mavs out there. Moe Ager actually didn't perform all that poorly and ended up with a team-high 20 points, along with 6 rebounds. He made all of his free throws, too. Harris & Barea got 13 points apiece, and little Barea got 10 rebounds somehow. Must have come right to him. Devean George had 12 points.

For the Warriors, just like the Mavs, only one guy scored 20 or more. That guy was Mickael Pietrus of all people, with 22 points. Superstars Richardson & Davis had only 14 and 12, respectively. Barnes got 19. Weird game.

What did it was the poor shooting. The Warriors were consistently better on overall shooting, 3's, and free throws. They also killed on assists and had far fewere turnovers. Nothing to get excited about here.

Reds 11, Brewers 5

NOTABLE THINGS

Pitching: Belisle started and wasn't terribly effective, starting and getting the first out in the 6th before sitting down. He left with 8 hits, 2 walks, 1 wild pitch, and 2 K's for 5 earned runs and the Brewers lead. He would not end up with the loss on the day, however. The day after the bullpen was the goat, the bullpen was the saving grace. That's how it goes sometimes in baseball, but this was good to watch. Excluding Rheal Cormier, who hit the only batter he faced, the bullpen was quite solid. Saarloos came in and got two groundball outs, one of which scored a runner, but that was attributed to Belisle. Not much Kirk could have done in that situation. It was lights out from there. Stanton pitched the 7th and 8th and was simply the man. Only one man was allowed on base and that was due to error. Stanton had 3 K's. And a good turnaround from Todd Coffey as well, pitching a clean 9th with a strikeout mixed in for effect.

Hitting: Well, it's about dang time. This is what it was supposed to be, let's put it that way. The big story was Freel signing a new 2-year deal with the Reds and how the focus of his press conference wasn't himself but Hamilton as Freel keeps gushing over how incredible Hamilton is and says that he, Freel, needs to play less. So Narron wants to play them both, doesn't want to play EdE, so he moves Freel over to third base for the first time in a while and Hamilton goes to center field. Aside from Freel's error at third, the move works out masterfully as they batted in the top two spots in the order. Freel & Hamilton led off the first inning with singles and scored, and led off the 7th inning with singles and scored. Well done from those lads. Freel ended up being 4/5 with 3 runs scored and his first RBI of the year, clearly one of his best games in a long time. Hamilton followed him with a 2/4 evening, 2 runs scored. Dunn was 1/5, getting an RBI on a fielder's choice and scoring on Griffey's double. Griffey had another double, making him go 2/5 on the day with 2 RBI's. Phillips was also 2/5 with 3 RBI's, one of the hits was a sweet triple, the first of the year for the Redlegs. Gonzo, who everybody counted out because he would be too emotional, was smart enough to go 1/2 along with drawing 2 walks, including an RBI walk. Valentin was 2/4 with a bases-clearing single in the 7th. 15 hits on the day. Great stuff to watch.

Fielding & such: Mentioned in the first two sections is the error on Freel on a routine groundball. It's bound to happen, especially since the guy is new. He made some stops out there as well. Adam Dunn, newschool baserunning phenom, stole his 4th of the year in the 5th inning.