All Things Bubba

Janish makes the stop
Reds GM Walt Jocketty defended Paul Janish today.

"Everybody has a spot on the club that may not be [getting] all the production they want," Jocketty said. "But we're still getting good defense from those guys. That is as critical as the offense for us, because of our pitching staff and the way we've built our club, defense is extremely important."

The Janish-Renteria combination came into Sunday batting .230 for the season, with zero home runs and 14 errors in the field. At Triple-A Louisville, Cozart was batting .318 with seven homers, 29 RBIs and eight errors entering Sunday.

Despite his six errors as the primary shortstop, Janish generally has an exceptional glove and is probably better defensively than Cozart. Janish came into the day batting .232 in 61 games, with 19 RBIs.

"We're willing to wait for a while," Jocketty said. "We still have faith in Janish. Right now, he's probably putting a lot of pressure on himself. He just needs to relax and play the type of game he's capable of playing."

Dusty Baker is getting a bit annoyed at being asked about it.

It sounds like the Reds will try to turn it around with the current roster. Baker bristled at the mention of a personnel change.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Baker said. “It seems like everyone knows what we need. Let them keep saying that.”

Dusty feels the Reds are really close to turning it around. He could be right. The numbers suggest the Reds have been very unlucky.

And then there's Hal McCoy's Q&A from Saturday.

Q Isn’t it about time that Edgar Renteria strained his hamstring so the Reds could put him on the DL to see if Zach Cozart is the answer at shortstop? — Kyle, Dayton

A Answer at shortstop? What’s the question? Paul Janish is the shortstop (for the most part) and he is in there to save runs, which he does almost daily with his glue glove and whip-lash arm. Just because Cozart is hitting .320 doesn’t mean he’ll hit .320 in the majors. If the Reds bring up everybody hitting .300 at Class AAA Louisville, they’d bring up Cozart, Dave Sappelt, Devin Mesoraco, Jeremy Hermida and Yonder Alonso. Some fans think the Reds should call up the entire Louisville team and send all the Reds to Triple-A.

Janish did make some very nice defensive plays today. He was 0 for 4 at the plate, though.

Hopefully he'll get some hits tomorrow night against the Rays. (If he gets to play.) The Reds will be on national TV - Monday Night Baseball.

Labels: Paul Janish