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By Hal McCoy, Staff Writer 9:10 PM Saturday, August 29, 2009

CINCINNATI — From 98 to 94 and back to 98 in one easy lesson — only it was slightly more than one lesson.

Homer Bailey, though, said it was an easy process relocating his misplaced 98-mph fastball, but he couldn’t do it himself.

“Last offseason, when I first started to get on the mound, my agent told me, ‘Go see Skip Johnson, he is the pitching coach at the University of Texas,’ ” Bailey said. “I thought, ‘I ain’t got nothing to lose, because things aren’t looking so good.’ ”

Bailey was 0-6 with a 7.93 ERA in eight starts with the Reds and the kid who reputedly threw 98 miles an hour couldn’t crack 94.

“So I went for one bullpen (session) and he was telling me try this and try that,” said Bailey, who tossed eight scoreless innings Friday, Aug. 28, in beating the Dodgers. “The whole time I’m kind of like, ‘All right, Homer, keep doing it. It feels funny and it feels different.’ So he told me to come back in a couple of days and throw another bullpen.

“And he gave me some drills to do at home before I went back and I kept doing them,” Bailey continued. “I went back for the next bullpen and the ball just jumped out of my hand and I just stared at it. I threw three pitches and said to myself, ‘It’s back.’ ”

Bailey still talks often with Johnson and told him, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but it’s working. Everything is coming out hotter.”

And what happened before, when he threw 98 and it sunk to 94?

“I have no clue where it went,” he said. “I thought there was something wrong with my shoulder or elbow. My groin bugged me and I thought maybe that was it. But it really wasn’t. Just a little mechanical change. If you look at it on video it’s not that different. You have to have somebody who is there right on you to see the difference.

“It’s the tempo, the way everything loads,” Bailey said. “I knew after that second bullpen and said to myself, ‘This is going to be fun again.’ After that, I had eight or nine sessions before spring training and every time it got just a little better and a little better.”

Barker optioned

To make room for Matt Maloney, Saturday’s starting pitcher, the Reds optioned first baseman Kevin Barker back to Louisville.

“He did a good job off the bench for us, but we have a couple of guys with more versatility,” said manager Dusty Baker. “He’ll be back after the minor-league playoffs, unless we need him sooner.”

That could happen if Laynce Nix’s neck treatment doesn’t work. He had an MRI which showed a couple of bulging disks. “But they think they can take care of that with two or three days of rehab,” Nix said.

“I collided in the outfield a few years ago with Geoff Jenkins and it has bothered me ever since,” Nix said. “I never really had it checked but I’m tired of waking up with a stiff neck. The reaction is similar to whiplash, but I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

Quote of the day

“The only good thing about a 1 p.m. game (today) is that Manny Ramirez may not want to get his butt out of bed.” — Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo, who hates pitching day games and faces the Dodgers this afternoon.

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It tells us that it's not his belly or his head that D-ick Pole is scratchin' in the dugout ... it's his D-ick Pole! He's terrible and so is Jacoby and so is Baker (the worst and dumbest there is). They need a mass firing. Get some college coaches in there. I mean, could they possibly be worse that this trio?

BrarHopper
4:02 PM, 8/30/2009

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So Homer has to go to a college coach to get straightened out in two bullpen sessions? What does this tell us about the Reds so called professional coaches who have had years to work with him?

Jerry, Venice, Fl.
2:24 PM, 8/30/2009

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