From McCoy's blog:

This is why anybody who knows baseball (and I should know better after 36 years) shouldn’t make rash judgments and harsh criticisms on the short term. And it is also why baseball is such a great game.

In the ninth inning of Wednesday’s game, BEFORE Edwin Encarnacion missed two sacrifice bunt attempts with the Reds down by two runs with no outs and two on, I wrote what you can read just below.

Fortunately, I didn’t post it until I watched Encarnacion bat. After failing on his bunt attempts, he crashed a three-run game-winning walk-off home run.

Here is what I wrote up until then:

It’s only two games into the 2008 season, but isn’t it time for a benching?

For the second straight game - and they’ve only played two games - third baseman Edwin Encarnacion made a costly throwing error, something that is seemingly inbreded into his psyche. Catch the ball, throw it away. Catch the ball, throw it away.

The Cincinnati Reds finish the three-game series against Arizona Thursday afternoon and if Ryan Freel isn’t at third base, then Jeff Keppinger better be there with Juan Castro at shortstop.

Encarnacion needs to sit and watch and pontificate. He needs to take extra ground balls and make extra throws before batting practice - the way former manager Jerry Narron did with him before every home game.

Offensively, he walked his first two times up on Opening Day, but has gone 0 for 5 since then, striking out his last two times.

(Insert here a rather large, important home run) My bad.

So Dusty Baker called for a sacrifice bunt, and then told one of his coaches that he hoped the bunt didn't work?

While I realize it wasn't quite that straightforward, that still sounds like the completely insane man we all know and love.

The Cincinnati mediots are off to another boffo start. Jeff Brantley was just killing Encarnacion on the TV broadcast tonight. Brantley said that Encarnacion needs to be benched (remember, this is game 2) and that “he’s NOT a clutch player," right around when the broadcast flashes Encarnacion's RISP figures from last year (.360 AVG, 3 HR, 59 RBI). Then Encarnacion misses the bunt attempts and socks the walk-off.

Sometimes Brantley and Brennaman (doesn't matter which one) really suck the joy out of baseball. Thankfully Encarnacion gave it back tonight.

Jeff Brantley was just killing Encarnacion

Right after Encar's tater...Brantley (the world's worst announcer until I pick up an Angels game) started bellowing how happy he is for once being wrong about a player, as if HE had something to do with the outcome.

And when there was a healthy smat of booing for Adam Dunn during the home opener...that goes directly to the shiit in the Cincy booth.

And when there was a healthy smat of booing for Adam Dunn during the home opener...that goes directly to the shiit in the Cincy booth.

Yes, it certainly does. I've heard my whole life what a great baseball town Cincinnati is (I'm sure many others have heard the same about their own) but over and over again I'm reminded that so many fans just echo the blitherings of local media. They wail on Dunn, EdE, and Votto while praising Castro's glove and Freel's grit. The Mount Rushmore of Cincinnati sports buffoonery is decorated with the faces of Paul Daugherty, SMarty and tHom, and the Cowperson. All the while, John Fay, Hal McCoy, Chris Welch (mustachioed plumb-smuggler), and the irritatingly clean and clearly insane George Grande all feel like curators at the Creation Museum.

“I said to (coach) Chris Speier, ‘I hope he doesn’t get the bunt down so he can hit a game-winning home run,’ “ said Baker.

Do these guys really sit around talking like this? How often, like once a game, or every inning, or what? I like imagining Speier sitting there, only in game 3 of the season, but already gritting his teeth and praying to whatever god smiled on Girardi last winter.

The Cincinnati mediots are off to another boffo start. Jeff Brantley was just killing Encarnacion on the TV broadcast tonight. Brantley said that Encarnacion needs to be benched (remember, this is game 2) and that “he’s NOT a clutch player," right around when the broadcast flashes Encarnacion's RISP figures from last year (.360 AVG, 3 HR, 59 RBI). Then Encarnacion misses the bunt attempts and socks the walk-off.

Sometimes Brantley and Brennaman (doesn't matter which one) really suck the joy out of baseball. Thankfully Encarnacion gave it back tonight.

I think you should re listen to THIS CLIP with a little objectivity and detachment. After arguing with Brantley, listen to the HR call and how Thom sticks it in his face. Funny ####.

Brantley is indeed a world class idiot. They just don't come much stupider. But Brennaman was defending Encarnacion all the way there, and fighting off Brantley's stupidity the best he could. Brennaman is a pro who definitely does not deserve to be lumped together with Brantley. I'd shoot myself if I had to work with that moron every night.

I've heard my whole life what a great baseball town Cincinnati is

It's not.
Maybe at one point it was. It has lots of history. And a really good team in the Big Red Machine that they can continually run up the flagpole. They still skip work every Opening Day, and have a parade through downtown, which is pretty cool. But Opening Day is their only sellout, and they spend the rest of the season screaming at their best players.

Aside from the local media, who are about the worst I've seen, management of the team has not improved much under Krivsky. And I don't mean player management, I mean day-to-day management of a ballclub. I mean promising season-ticket holders first crack at buying extra single-game tickets (such as for the Red Sox series this year), but then opening the sales to everyone, and letting the scalpers take them all.

I mean holding a special "come watch batting practice at GABP" the Sunday before Opening Day, but then not allowing anyone to sit in the outfield. Seriously, ushers prevented anyone from going into the bleachers and catching homeruns. They didn't sell beer. They gave away hot dogs for free, and cans of pop, but all they had was Diet Pepsi and they had nowhere to recycle the cans.

Speaking of groaning at bunting, the decorative bunting in the stadium was pathetic. It consisted of about 20 half-moons, each about 6 feet long. That's all. For the entire stadium. When I saw it during the BP fiasco, I said "that can't be the decorations for tomorrow. That looks like the remains of whatever survived the winter, whatever is still up from the last day of the season." Nope. Came back the next day, that's all there was, 20 pieces of bunting.

The bunting may a fitting metaphor for the team. Whether it's Encarnacion or the decorations, the end result is a half-ashed effort and poor execution in just about everything they do.

As a Cincy guy I hate to say this, but you're right Snowboy, on all counts, esp the media & the ownership. What saddens me is that it could be a great baseball town again with better management.

The bunting may a fitting metaphor for the team. Whether it's Encarnacion or the decorations, the end result is a half-ashed effort and poor execution in just about everything they do.

that's more a condemnation of the owners, not really saying much about the town.

I don't know obviously, but there is plenty of passion there for the Big Red Machine, Larkin was (to my knowledge) appropriately appreciated there, many of the hometown favorites are overloved(which is a compliment) the fans generally seem to have a clue(except when it comes to Dunn). You did mention the lack of sell outs(but again, winning is the best answer to that problem) Do fans routinely leave the game early(in St Louis last night, by the end of the game there were probably less than 6000 people in the stands, an unusual situation but it happens) Do fans inappropriately respond to visiting players? Do they know when a guy gets his first major league hit and show respect? if so then they are still a good baseball town, just having crappy idiotic ownership.

But Brennaman was defending Encarnacion all the way there, and fighting off Brantley's stupidity the best he could. Brennaman is a pro who definitely does not deserve to be lumped together with Brantley.

Brennaman did a good job last night, you're right. There were several times last year where he borrowed his dad's high horse for a joyride, but if he cuts that down he can be one of the good ones. By mediots I was referring to the print guys - esp. Paul Daugherty.