Homer brings it on home

I was at Great America Ballpark the other day to see Homer Bailey's first major league start. And as you can probably determine from the article title, he won his first start.

He wasnt amazing, but he was pretty damn good. He made a lot of mistakes, but he also made a bunch of good plays. He threw around 120 pitches in just five innings, mostly because he didn't have a lot of control on the first two pitches and he was behind on most counts. The first inning was a little rocky after he gave up a single to Travis Hafner and then a rbi double to Victor Martinez due to the lethargy of Adam Dunn. But Brandon Phillips hit a solo homer in the bottom of the inning and Homer was back on steady ground.

There were two real bright spots in his starts beyond the little things like how Homer remained pretty calm and collected throughout his start, showing suprising composure and maturity. The first spot was Homer's domination of Grady Sizemore, who Homer struck out twice. The second bright spot was right after Homer seemed to be slipping, allowing a single and then back to back walks to load the bases with two outs. Dellucci stepped up to the plate, and with his pitch count already very high, Homer burned Dellucci with a few fastballs to get out of the crunch he had created, and become eligible for a win.

After Stanton pitched two suprisingly strong inning and the rest of the bullpen managed to scrape together a few outs, Weathers earned the save and Homer got his first win.

What does this mean though? I think it means the Reds have another piece to begin their crawl up through the central. While I would be shocked if Homer's call up would spark the reds to a playoff berth this season, I think Homer can alleviate some of the stress on the Reds weak (at best) final two rotation spots. Being only 21, Homer has a bright future, and so to do the Reds.