BY EVAN WANSBROUGH – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
The 2013 Major League Baseball is set to open on March 31, so it’s time to get you caught up on your favourite team. As the players continue to get ready in spring training, I look at one burning question for each team. The Cincinnati Reds are up to the plate.
For my money, the Cincinnati Reds are the best team in baseball, and high in the running for most exciting, too. Last year’s Division Series implosion versus the better-in-that-series-but-worse-overall San Francisco Giants should be regarded only as an anomaly and the club should keep doing whatever it did last year to win 97 ball games, which was play baseball the way you need to play baseball when you want to win 97 baseball games.
They ran, they hit, they hit for power, they rallied and they [read: Brandon Phillips] dazzled in the field as part of their nightly routine of making the other guys look like a miserable co-ed softball team that just lost their consolation game.
So, looking ahead at the Redlegs’ next 162 games and iron clad case for a playoff berth, the only concern the club is likely having – besides the status of Joey Votto’s knee injury recovery, which currently, is A-OK – is what to do with all their talent. Currently, Aroldis Chapman and Mike Leake are battling it out for fifth spot in the starting rotation, and that’s the big news on the Reds’ website. Reds finish first place in the NL Central.