Bryan Price Says He Doesn't Know What He's Talking About

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The Reds over the past few seasons have bullied teams under .500 and struggled against teams over .500.

Most people would see that as common sense.  Whenever, I here a fan complain, "They can't beat the good teams," I shake my head because it stands to reason that a team will have a harder time beating a better team.

This season the Reds seem to have reversed the trend.

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The Reds are 31-30 against teams that are currently above .500 and 20-20 against teams currently below .500.

The Reds went into the recently finished Milwaukee series with a 7-3 advantage over the Central Division leaders but were swept in three games.  Even with that disaster the Reds are still above water against winning teams.

Why Mr. Price? Why?

“I don’t know," Bryan Price said on Friday afternoon.  "I try to explain these things and then I reflect back and I realize that I don’t know what I’m talking about. You get to the point where you start making stuff up to say something. I’m not going to do that. I don’t know why. I have no answer for you.”

As indicators go it is completely irrelevant.  The rulebook says that having more wins than any other team wins the division.  It doesn't specify how good the teams are that you defeated or those that defeated you.  The list will change anyway. A plus .500 team today may be under .500 later in the season.

What is more disturbing is the post-All-Star Game losing streak of six straight games.  This comes after the Reds' 8-3 homestand before the break put the team 1 1/2 games behind Milwaukee.  Now that separation has grown to six games.

What does the first-year manager do to turn his team around?

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"Other than the early part of the year, I haven’t had to do anything at all. I don’t make a lot of trips though the clubhouse to pick up the spirits of the guys. What’s happening isn’t uncommon," Price said. "This is standard practice in a major league baseball season. You have periods where you play very well. You have periods where you tread water, like we did in the first couple of months, and then periods where you struggle to win games. The last six have been a real struggle for us. That being said, it’s a stretch in the season. We’re going to have a stretch where we get back and play much better than we have here. What we need is to play well enough to get ourselves to the top of the division and into the playoffs and hopefully be one of the hotter teams going into the playoffs so we can do more than we’ve done in the past few opportunities.”