Dusty And Arroyo Still Positive After Reds Fourth Straight Loss

Bronson Arroyo said this after the Reds swept the Milwaukee Brewers to open the season,"How many times have you seen on team sweep another then get swept by them a week later."

Arroyo's mood never changes.  He's been the same after those awful games when he's given up 10 runs in the first inning.  (He did that twice in one year.)  He is the same when he throws a complete game shutout.

Fans don't get it but Baker does.

"Bad times are temporary," Baker said.  "When you're going through a tough time whether its in baseball or not, its the worst time of your life.  Then you forget it until the next "worst time" comes along."

Baker and Arroyo have been through losing streaks like this many, many times before.

"The shining light is Bronson pitched a good game.  One run is not that big a deficit.  You want to win big time but bullpen preservation was big tonight.  It put us in a good position," Baker said.

Fans panic when their team goes through struggles.

"You keep plugging away but you be more positive with the guys.  There are people that want you to yell at them, kick.  That only makes it worse.  Nobody feels worse than those guys in that room out there.  Nobody is trying harder than those guys in that room out there.  You can't do anything about what fans think.  Everybody wrote us off last year when we got swept in Philadelphia.(right before all-star break).  They wrote us off even later when we got swept by the Cardinals. And in April last year when we got swept by the Pirates.  There is a whole bunch of ball left.  I'm not making excuses or anything but we're missing Cueto and Bailey.  That's forty percent of your starting pitching.  We lost Brandon (Phillips) for a week.  Even when we were winning we weren't playing as well as we can play.  You have sleepless nights when you're losing but our best days as a team are ahead.  As long as we don't listen to people.  As long as we don't panic.  We continue to work hard things are going to be great.  I'm as positive as I ever was.  I'm not as happy.  But I'm positive."

Arroyo said, "It's the ebb and flow of the game.  Early on we were getting the big hit.  Now we're not.  We were making the big pitch. We're giving up a couple big runs on the pitching side.  It's such a long season.  You cherish every win you get.  It seem like they are going to keep coming but you know you're going to go to the other side of the mountain.  Those are the times you keep coming.  You try to simplify things."

"It is probably our fault for raising expectations in the first place," Baker said.