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Reds make final weekend a winning weekend

By on October 4, 2010

[Box Score Saturday] [Box Score Sunday]
[Cincinnati.com]

The Reds finished their regular season with a couple of really nice victories to arrive at a 91 wins and 71 losses. This was probably the final game of Aaron Harang’s Cincinnati Reds career. Harang threw two pretty decent innings for the team that had outgrown him. And this had to happen if the Reds were ever going to progress and evolve. It’s sad, but it’s not. They had to outgrow the days where Aaron Harang was their best pitcher. I like the gesture to give Harang the ball in the regular season finale in front of a 37,582 capacity crowd.

“I wanted to give him the ball today, for what he’s meant to the organization,” Baker said.

It’s a classy move by a classy manager. And the Reds played classy to close out their season.

Jay Bruce homered with the game tied at 2; the home run was a majestic blast to center field, and the follow through or ‘dismount’ as a friend of mine calls it was different than any I’ve ever seen with Bruce. It was a confident one. It’s pictured above. It was a power hitter’s dismount. Jay Bruce looks like a new ballplayer. He is the guy who we all were hoping he’d be. He finishes the season at .281, 25 home runs, 70 RBI. He OPS’d .846 while playing the best right field in all of baseball. When you consider those things and that he wasn’t able to hit much for six weeks; it’s a great season.

On Saturday the story was Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce. Bailey struck out a career high 10 in five innings. Jay Bruce homered twice to set a new career high of 24 home runs on the season (but as we said he wasn’t done there).

I listened to the post game last night on 700 WLW rather than watch NFL football. For one of the first times in my adult life the Reds aren’t packing up shop after game 162 and I; like so many of my fellow fans wasn’t ready to let go of the magic just yet.

This season was magical from start to finish and I can’t wait to see the next chapter written.

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