Out With A Whimper

Wow. That's all I can say about Cole Hamels performance in Game 3 tonight at Cincinnati as the Phillies lefty went the distance with nine punch outs as Philadelphia put the Reds out of their misery 2-0. Hamels looked like he did in 2008.
First the Reds get no-hit by Roy Halladay. Then they cough up a 4-0 lead in Game 2 with shoddy fielding (4 errors). Finally, they get shut down by Hamels.
Three games for the Reds, 10 total hits and shut out twice.
Not a good showing in Cincy's first post-season in 15-years.
I'm not surprised though. The Reds were in Colorado, September 6-9, and dropped all four games to the Rockies. I remember Ed Henderson and I agreeing in the press box at Coors Field that the Reds aren't that good. Granted, every team goes through a bad four game stretch at one point or another during the season. But since it was September and not May it was alarming that the Reds played so poorly. There was nothing really impressive about Cincinnati then and nothing impressive about them against the Phillies.
While I credit the Reds for making it to the playoffs, I have to say they took advantage of a playing in a rancid division with the favored Cardinals underachieving. The fact that they had a losing record against every team that had a winning record this season was also a red flag (no pun intended) that the Reds were not a great team by any stretch.
Still, it was nice to see the Reds in the post-season after such a long layoff. Too bad they couldn't have stayed around a bit longer.