Daugherty: This is reality for Reds

It’s a disgusting Gyorgy of bendable stats!

Baseball rewards patience and offers it in return. Two weeks ago, the Reds were a scrappy club, just a big hitter away from being players in the NL Central. Now, they’ve lost seven of 10 and are one bad stretch from trying to trade players who make lots of money.

Ten days from now, who knows? Snap judgments are always wrong in a sport where they play 162 times. But this year has neither the look nor the feel of anything special for the Cincinnati Reds. Baseball allows for patience. But its supply isn’t bottomless. Around here, optimism is close to being designated for assignment.

You can gobble statistics, or you can form impressions. Stats offer a flexible truth. Take “run differential.’’ This is the difference between the runs you score and the runs you give up. It’s a decent, obvious barometer for success or failure. But on July 6, the Reds lost a game 22-1. So much for that stat.

Give me impressions. Allow me to watch a team for 87 games, then apply some back-of-the-baseball-card wisdom. I trust that more than numbers that bend.