Scott Rolen

Scott Rolen has that look of a veteran. The third basemen sports a scruffy beard, receding hairline and an experienced look in his eyes.

That experience is exactly what the Cincinnati Reds have needed since his arrival late last season. On top of that, Rolen has given the Reds an unexpected boost on the offensive end with 11 home runs this season.

Ouch.

The tires are flat just a few days after the Reds bandwagon was getting full.

After holding a commanding 9-1 lead, the Reds end up losing 10-9 in stomach punching fashion to the Atlanta Braves.

The Reds jumped out to a eight run lead in the second inning and everything seemed juuuust fine. Rookie Mike Leake had his seventh quality start in eight appearances, going six innings giving up five hits and three runs (one earned).

As anyone who has read examples of my past writing can attest, I tend to focus a lot of my historical analysis pieces on the Hall of Fame. Today, I will divert myself from that path a little bit to argue my Hall of Fame case for a great in our generation whose contributions have been highly underrated: Scott Rolen.

You see plenty of moves like this in football, but contract restructuring is not nearly as common in baseball. But yesterday, the Reds and Scott Rolen agreed to a restructured deal that will keep him in Cincinnati for the next three seasons:

While Scott Rolen is still in the "honeymoon" stage with the Reds, I will be evaluating him on a 40-game season.

His hitting is better than average, which should be expected for a .284 lifetime hitter. He didn't exhibit the power that I was so hopeful he would. Three home runs in a quarter of the season make it elementary enough to do the math; 12 home runs would not cut it for a corner infielder. He had a decent OBP as well at .364.

This is a subject that is very close to my heart.

When the Toronto Blue Jays traded Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen, I had to be talked down off the ledge of the .500 level.

Troy Glaus was my favourite player. He was just a guy you would watch step to the plate with a mouthful of Skoal and take hacks that could turn baseballs to dust—and who would give me cause to learn lip reading when he would pop out.

I loved it. Losing Glaus meant losing the best part of the Jays for me, I thought we'd rue the day.

Well, I was wrong.

Much like the scene at the OK Corral, Roy "Doc" Halladay stood victorious. He allowed only a single run over nine innings and defeated his one time protégée A.J. Burnett 5–1 at the Rogers Centre.

It was the Jays’ first true test of the season. After going up against the likes of the Cleveland Indians and the Baltimore Orioles, they had yet to meet a team of any importance, specifically the Yanks or the Sox.

More than a month into the season the Blue Jays have seen 3 pitchers make their MLB debut and are still on top of the AL East, the toughest division in baseball. How have they done it? The Jays came off a terrible offensive year in 2008, and the line-up did not change that much.
What did change is Cito Gaston is back, and so is hitting coach Gene Tenace. With them they brought an approach that the entire team has bought into, going to every at bat with a plan. It sounds simple enough but the proof is there, the Jays averaged a run more under Gaston than Gibbons in 2008.

For a game that started off based around the small ball the ending was much more powerful and much more dramatic.

Lyle Overbay came up to bat with two outs and Jose Bautista on first. He then sent the 1-0 pitch Dan Giese threw to deep right-centre to seal the game. The homerun came in the 12 inning to give the Jays a 4-2 win Saturday.

“I was either going to pop that straight up or hit a homer,” Overbay said. “I was glad it went the way it did.”