A Big Win

   The Cincinnati Reds had a tough challenge on this Saturday afternoon. The team would be facing the San Francisco Giants on Fox's Game of the Week (Cincy's second week in a row) against the Giants' ace; Tim Lincecum.
   I honestly did not know how the Reds would handle this task, but not only did they handle it well, Cincinnati handled it with complete ease. Winning 10-2, the Reds are proving that it can play with the best of them.
   The big surprise of the day was how Cincinnati handled former NL Cy Young winner Lincecum. Lincecum lasted only four innings, giving up seven runs on seven hits, with one strike out. This was another disappointing outing for Lincecum who has an ERA of 9.22 in his last three starts. For the Giants to win key games, Lincecum has to pitch to his "freakish" potential.
   On the other side of the mound, it was a completely different story. 
   Mike Leake looked outstanding.
   Leake now has a tolerable ERA of 4.06 by pitching eight innings, giving up just four hits and no runs, while striking out eight. He always been a great hitter for a pitcher and showed that again today by having two hits.
   Leake has the weapons to be a star, and if he keeps his head on straight, he could certainly do it.
    Speaking of the Reds' pitching, once again Carlos Fisher showed that he deserves to be a player for Louisville Bats by giving up a two run homer against Pat Burrell. Fisher needs to go back to the minors and re-focus on his pitching because it has been terrible. How can Dusty Baker depend on Fisher when he chokes late in the game? (the Dodgers game of last week shows this). Fisher can be a solid pitcher for Cincinnati but lately he has so not showed it.
 Cincinnati's batting was the real focus of the game however, because it looked unbeatable.  The Reds had 12 hits with five of them being doubles (Stubbs, Phillips, Votto, Leake, and Janish). 
Joey Votto had to have the best batting performance today for the team going 3-5 with an RBI.
Ryan Hanigan also looked good going 2-3 with an RBI.
The four game series ends tomorrow with San Francisco at 8 pm on ESPN for Sunday Night Baseball.  By winning tomorrow, Cincinnati could be just three games back behind St. Louis for the lead in the NL Central and win the series against the Giants.
   What is better than beating the reigning World Series Champions in a regular season series? Being able to beat them back to back days on national television to show that this team from Cincinnati is for real.