Over the course of six days, the Reds went from being tied for first place and having a marginal lead for the Wild Card to 4 1/2 games back and having two teams blow by them.  For the first time in a long time, the Reds are on the outside looking in.  I guess I’ve been expecting this to happen for a while (i.e. the slide) but for it to happen this late is, well, disconcerting.

This time it was all at the expense of the Dodgers.  Todd Hollandsworth and Brandon Phillips were our offense on Monday.  Phillips homered and drove in two runs while Hollandsworth had two hits and three RBIs.  Chris Michalak was the starter and he was pegged for four runs over four innings.  Todd Coffey didn’t help when he gave up two runs in the seventh.

On Tuesday, the Reds took the lead in the sixth on Brandon Phillips RBI single and then Mark Belisle gave up a run in the bottom half of the inning and the game was tied.  Then neither team scored for ten innings as the game went well into extra frames.  The death blow was Ramon Martinez’s solo homerun off of Ryan Franklin.

Yesterday, the Reds ran into a pretty good Greg Maddux and while Aaron Harang was only okay, it was a collapse by the bullpen that put this game out of reach.  Jason LaRue homered and Ken Griffey, Jr. and Edwin Encarncion both had two hits and one run.

Where are you Adam Dunn?

Next up is a huge three game series with the Padres, who now currently lead the Wild Card race.  There’s no better way to make up ground then to beat that top team.  It’s put up or shut the F up time.

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