Reds on Road to Restoring Their Glory

The Cincinnati Reds have to play 46 more road games, which makes them a definite contender in the National League Central.

The Reds are 25-10 as travelers compared to 15-21 at home, prompting longtime beat writer Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News to label them the Big Road Machine, which General Manager Jim Bowden liked so much that he has adopted it on talk shows.

The Reds even won the first three games of a four-game series at the Houston Astrodome, where they had lost seven in a row before this season. A sweep would put them in a virtual tie with the Astros for the Central lead.

Three young players are fueling the Reds’ resurgence: first baseman Sean Casey, who is hitting .383; reliever Scott Williamson, who leads major league rookies with nine saves, six victories and a 1.65 earned-run average while throwing a legitimate 100 mph, and second baseman Pokey Reese, who leads NL second baseman in fielding percentage based on only one error in 309 chances through Thursday.

Reese is a converted shortstop who is also batting .298 and has forced shortstop Barry Larkin to eat his words.

“I’ve been around a long time, but I’m still a player and I’m not ready to be a coach and break in a new second baseman,” Larkin said after the Reds traded Bret Boone and said Reese would move over to replace him.

Now? “It’s a beautiful thing,” Larkin said. “It’s great to see him and Casey do so well. Both work hard and are great guys. You like to see good things happen to good people, especially Pokey, who had to make a change in positions.”

No big thing. Reese said he would play anywhere. Even pitch?

“Don’t know about that,” he replied. “I only pitched once in my life. I got a save in Little League. I threw heat.”

How much do the Atlanta Braves miss Andres Galarraga?

They are 14th in the league in hitting and their first basemen have made nine errors--the last three resulting in defeats.

Galarraga made 14 errors last season and batted .305 with 44 homers and 121 runs batted in.

Tony Gwynn’s return to the disabled list may deprive him of the opportunity to get his 3,000th hit in San Diego. He is eligible to return to the roster July 5 and would need 18 hits in six home dates before the All-Star break--after which the Padres play 11 straight games on the road.

It hasn’t been announced, but it appears that the Dodgers will be the appropriate opponent when the San Francisco Giants open Pac Bell Park next April.

The current weekend series between the Giants and Dodgers is their first of a year in which the Giants have already hosted the Astros twice and the Dodgers have already hosted the St. Louis Cardinals twice. “I don’t understand the schedule,” Giant Manager Dusty Baker said, “but I also think people put too much stock in Dodgers vs. Giants. Everybody says, ‘Beat L.A.,’ but you’ve got to beat everybody else who’s in the way.”

Said owner Peter Magowan: “I’d rather play the Dodgers much more often, but we have 18 interleague games. If we had just six interleague games--three against the [Oakland] A’s and three against another American League team--we could play 12 more against our division rivals.”

Should it matter, the Dodgers and Giants do play seven times in the last two weeks of the season.