Follow-up

Here is what Christina Kahrl at Baseball Prospectus had to say, in part, about the Reds game yesterday:

[T]he Reds shouldn't feel too badly about their place in history. Operating from an obvious initial disadvantage as far as the two rotations in their NLDS are concerned, damned and doomed to face baseball's best starting pitcher, they played their unhappy part and lost just the one ballgame for all that. You can talk about the virtue of short-term memory when it comes to closers, but the entire Reds team may as well walk away from Wednesday night's game and remember they could have lost this 12-11 in the bottom of the ninth, or 12-0. That they lost 4-0 and will forever be associated with history, with Don Larsen, should simply be ditched in the nearest dumpster and forgotten.

Instead, the Reds can take away a few positives while looking for ways to keep themselves in this series. Hooking Edinson Volquez might have been hard on him, but against Halladay—or Roy Oswalt, and perhaps Cole Hamels as well—demands aggressive action early in-game. The fact that Travis Wood shut down the Phillies across four separate innings should be taken as suggestive, not just about who starts a fourth or fifth game if the Reds get that far, but also for how Dusty Baker should skipper the series from here on out—with desperation. Down 1-0 with a day off until Game Two, and yet another before Game Three, there is no such thing as a strategic picture.