After a brief hiatus from all things related to the Cincinnati Reds–and can you blame a guy after the brutal ending to 2012 and the wasted 2013–I delved back into Reds news this week.

As is so often the case with the Reds under General Manager Walt Jocketty, nothing happens until it’s happened. No one saw the Mat Latos and Shin-S00 Choo trades coming. And just like both of those trades, there’s nothing of substance in any pending trade rumors.

However, a few minor things have happened while I was ignoring baseball. The Reds signed catcher Brayan Pena. What this means for Ryan Hanigan or Devin Mesoraco isn’t known, but it seems likely that Hanigan will be shopped around.

Also, Jocketty dipped into the ex-Cardinal bucket and signed Skip Schumaker to a $5 million, 2-year deal. Schumaker has versatility in the number of positions he can play badly, but assuming he’s used as a backup and not a starter, he could prove useful. I don’t see the need for 2 years of him, though.

And most recently, last night the Reds chose not to offer contracts to outfielders Xavier Paul and Derrick Robinson. Last night was the deadline when teams had to offer contracts to players on the 40-man roster without them. This doesn’t mean Paul and Robinson won’t be Reds in 2014, but it does mean they’re free agents and can sign anywhere. In particular, it might be worth bringing Robinson back. He was valuable in his playing time in 2013, and at 25, could have room to improve.

In about 15 minutes, we’ll get to hear from the Reds’ new manager:

FOX Sports Ohio will carry today’s Cincinnati Reds press conference live from Great American Ball Park. Reds broadcasters Jim Day and Chris Welsh will report live starting at 3:00pm.

Reds President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Castellini and President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Walt Jocketty will introduce Bryan Price as the club’s new field manager.

I imagine I won’t be the only one recording it. It could be a new era for Cincinnati. I wonder whether he’ll say all the right things. If he can manage to avoid saying, “no pressure” and “status quo” he’ll be on the right track.

The Reds could have won last night. The spark they would have needed is something we have seen from time-to-time all throughout the season. There was a chance it would reappear last night–when better?–but it was clear after just a couple innings it just wasn’t there.

Oh well.

Oh well.

Oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well oh well.

Starts to sound like “LOL” after a while, but we certainly haven’t been doing much of that. You know, when we started RHM back in 2005, I’d never seen a winning team. I quite gleefully tripped along enjoying year after year of really crummy baseball. There wasn’t much worth talking about on the field, so I talked about personalities and hair styles and never missed what I’d never seen.

In a way, I pity Pirates fans. Now that they, too, have tasted fruit from the tree of winning, goofing on the team’s choice of hats and mascots will never be the same.

To be clear, though, in most ways, I do not pity Pirates fans.

For the first time, I can maybe understand why people follow the Cubs. The glorious victories a Cub fan imagines are never muddied with the painful shortcomings of actually happening. Much easier to enjoy that baseball that comes after you’ve made the shift to “maybe next year” when that shift happens before October.

Still, I wish the Major League affiliate of the Indianapolis Indians the best of luck in their upcoming series. I’d rather see them take it than anyone else. May their spark continue to shine bright.

Not quite done mourning yet? The Reds actually made a video embeddable. It’s a little group therapy for us all.

Here we are already, here we are at last: the last series of the season. And Shakespere himself couldn’t have written it any more dramatically, with the two teams fighting for home field advantage in the Wild Card play-in game going head-to-head.

Well, I guess it would be a little more dramatic if the Cardinals hadn’t already sewn up the division title, but I can’t take any more drama with St. Louis anyway. Drama, drama, drama.

The Reds trail the Pirates by a game. The possible resulting records of this game are:

Pirates	Reds
94-68	90-72
93-69	91-71
92-70	92-70
91-71	93-69

Actually, I guess if the Pirates sweep and the Cards lose out, then there would be a tie for first. I guess we can take that as a consolation prize if the Reds get swept and the Cardinals lose out. Hell, the Cardinals losing out would be good enough on its own.

So, the only way for the Reds to win HFA outright would be to sweep the series. I don’t know what happens if they tie. Do they still flip coins?

(Side note: that story I just linked to is sort of fascinating. Not because of the fake news writing by yours truly, but because of the moment in 2006 history. The Pirates and Cubs were vying for last place in the division and Dusty Baker was still with the Cubs. My, how times have changed…well, parts of them.)

Oddly, I’ve sort of given up on caring too much about the HFA and I’ve settled in to just being glad they’re in the post-season. I’ll save up all my hoping and heartbreak for October.