Luddy fuddy duddy

[JohnU]

Good old Dusty ... gonna put Luddy right back in there to get him going.
Don't you wish we had Willie Harris too?

Ryan Ludwick could begin rehab assignment next week
-- CBSSports.com
Reds outfielder Ryan Ludwick could begin a rehab assignment next week, MLB.com reports. He has been out since opening day due to shoulder surgery.

"He looked real good," Reds manager Dusty Baker told MLB.com Friday. "These other guys are four months ahead of him and he’s kind of a slow starter anyway. … We have to give him enough at-bats so when he comes back, it’s not Spring Training."

Ludwick hit .276/.345/.531 with 26 home runs and 80 RBI in 422 at-bats last season.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Hey, I hope he's Roy Hobbs in disguise. So far, Ludwick has been used as the primary excuse for underperforming this season, ahead of Cueto. I think it's utterly ridiculous.

Careful what you ask for, sometimes you get it. Unless Ludwick has rediscovered his swing from a couple of seasons a long long time ago, or a magic elixir Buds boys won't test for, he's 3 years past prime and 3 months good out of 4 years of bad. Dusty obviously doesn't care about looking stupid, he just wants an excuse out of his control, I guess. What happens if Ludwick comes back for the last 6 weeks if the season, and he looks like he looked in the first 6 weeks of last season ? People forget the guy was very Patterson-esc until mid season, and the back of the baseball card, and his age, point to a real possibility the guy really is a .240 hitter with small park only power.

That said, I agree Ludwick can only help... if for no other reason, than he might induce Dusty to put him in the 4 hole, and take Phillips somewhere closer to the top of the lineup, where he might start lightening up the black hole in the lineup between Choo and Votto...a primary cause of untimely run support, IMO.

As Bill Cunningham said yesterday, among a dozen other scathing truths about this "excuse ridden losing team" ( over the last 60 games)," you can't tell me you are doing all you can if you hit Cozart in the 2 hole"..."a guy that hits into double plays swinging at 2-0 pitches with the MVP on deck behind him".

 

[Redsfan1507]

I don't want to sound like a Cozart badger, he's a fine shortstop with a little power... But he's not a hitter I want coming to the plate more than he has to. He's a screwdriver, not a hammer...I am a Dusty basher, because the man acts like he doesn't know the difference, and he's the contractor in charge of building the house.

 

[JohnU]

Cozart seemed last night like he was trying to end all the problems with 3 line drive doubles and ended up making a series of U-turns at home plate back to the dugout. Honestly, if he just put together a few decent at-bats, his confidence would soar.

I can assume that Jacoby doesn't work with him.
Or
anybody
else.

For the moment, I gotta leave Heisey in left field, knowing he will trend downward in the Jacoby school of bad hitting. I figured Ludwick would not be ready till September and could come in with the callups. Now we have Soto instead of Lutz.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Look at the back of the baseball cards. You don't have to be a Vegas handicapper to predict the ultimate reduction to "normalcy" of the typical Reds LF.

When your best hitting pitcher can't get a bunt down in 2 at bats, someone needs to ask why.

How can a team that makes as many outs on the base paths as they do, without trying to steal, still leave so many LOB ?

With the swing Cozart had last night, the only pitch he could make contact with would have hit a beer vendor in the 45th row of foul ground behind the 3b dugout. That's not where they were pitching him. If they start throwing at his elbow, he'll start making contact. It will be foul, but contact is an improvement. Jacoby should be eligible for unemployment compensation, cause he damned sure isn't working.

 

[JohnU]

Leake's failure to bunt sucked on a couple of levels but the idea that he could butcher boy a fake bunt was a total joke. If you are going to bunt, bunt. If you are going to hit, hit. If you are going to screw it up, at least have an adventure and do a double-steal. The worst that can happen is a triple play. Don't see those often.

If the Reds sent Leake up to bunt and then gave him the butcher boy signal, it didn't fool even me. Leake is not a good hitter despite his reputation. He might be a better hitter with coaching but the regular players don't get that, so ... why bother?

In the future, he's up there to bunt -- not fake it. That had to have Clint Hurdle laughing his ass off.

 

[Redsfan1507]

It's not a very closely held secret that Dusty raises a few chuckles in opposing dugouts. Bill Cunningham expressed my exact response to Dusty "an embarrassment as a manager".

 

[redsfan03]

Problem with Cozart is that he refuses to go opposite field with anything. Somehow Jacoby has turned him into a dead-pull hitter who can really only hit fastballs and mistakes with any degree of regularity. That's not a prototypical 2 hitter. Hell, that's not even a prototypical HITTER.

 

[JohnU]

I'd hope that after last night's disaster, Cozart will at least consider working on it. It seems fairly obvious that he was embarrassed by looking so bad. It's not like he doesn't notice.

 

[Ryanballa]

Ludwick is gonna need a lot of AB in his rehab. It has been said that without any setbacks he will be back around mid August. But hopefully sooner, Ludwick in this lineup will help.

 

[JohnU]

Ludwick is gonna need a lot of AB in his rehab. It has been said that without any setbacks he will be back around mid August. But hopefully sooner, Ludwick in this lineup will help.

Alleging the team is in contention for anything by then, maybe.
I am not seeing that, after all the bullshit about the team getting right after the break, that much changed. A double with the bases loaded is not really an offense to brag about.

 

[Cincy the Red]

I am excited Luddy is coming back soon, providing he is similar to the Luddy from last year. He was off to a good start this year before that slide and besides, he will duo with Heisey it appears in LF (not too shabby a combo in my opinion) and it appears, upon his return, no more Cozart batting 2nd. Heisey will when he plays, and when Luddy plays, Phillips should move into the 2-slot.

Luddy looked pretty good/comfortable the other day when they showed him taking batting practice. We need him if we are gonna make a run at it....