Thinking about Dusty Baker

Some things I was just wondering about… Dusty Baker continuing to lead off Willy Taveras and building the lineups he does — is that the single worst thing any recent Reds manager has done to hurt the team’s chances of winning? Usually lineup construction doesn’t have a big impact, but the Reds are close to being a good team, their offense is terrible, and they lose a lot of close games because they can’t score. In other words, having players ahead of Votto and Phillips could have a bigger impact on the Reds winning or losing than it might for, say, a really bad team like Washington. It could be that small thing that pushes the team over the hump. For example, I posted the numbers in last night’s game thread that Taveras had led off 16 games where he has failed to get on base even a single time. The Reds are not only 3-13 in those games, but 5 of those 13 losses are by 2 runs or less. Sure, 3 of those 13 losses were blowouts, so it probably doesn’t matter if ...