Although he admits he isn't a natural No. 4 hitter, second baseman Brandon Phillips accepts manager Dusty Baker's desire for him to bat cleanup for the second consecutive year.
"The way the lineup looks now, yeah, he'll be our cleanup hitter," Baker said. "He'll be better. Brandon is going to have a good year." Phillips, 27, hit .261 with 21 homers, 78 RBIs and 23 stolen bases last season, scaled down numbers from 2007, when he batted .288 with 30 homers, 94 RBIs and 32 stolen bases.
Phillips batted cleanup 114 times last season and is ready to do it again.
"I love hitting fourth, even though I'm not the prototypical No. 4 hitter," he said. "I do have some power, but I'm not that guy you think of as a home run hitter.
"I'm going to do my best, and I do think I've been doing good in that four-hole. If you look at our team, I'm probably the only player qualified to hit there, if you pay attention to it. We have a lot of left-handers, and we have to break 'em up."
WHERE, WHEN: Ed Smith Stadium, Sarasota, Fla. First exhibition game is Feb. 26 against Minnesota.
TOP CANDIDATE TO SURPRISE: SS Alex Gonzalez missed all of last season after fracturing his knee early in spring training. The club used stopgaps all of last season, but team physician Tim Kremchek recently gave Gonzalez a clean bill of health and pronounced him 100 percent ready for spring training. Manager Dusty Baker said Gonzalez is "one of the finest shortstops in the game, and we expect him to return and have a great season."
TOP CANDIDATE TO DISAPPOINT: 3B Edwin Encarnacion has been a player the Reds expected to blossom, ever since they traded for him with the Rangers in 2001. The highly talented 26-year-old has never become the star he was expected to become, although every year the manager du jour has predicted big things for him. Encarnacion remains an enigma, showing flashes of brilliance that usually quickly flame out. He hit only .251 last year and made 23 errors, and he shows no signs of finding the consistency he needs.
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Manager Dusty Baker returns after going 74-88 in his first season, guiding the Reds to a fifth-place finish. Baker, with a career mark of 1,236-1,129, said last season was a process of learning his personnel, and he feels he can now better utilize the players' various abilities. Despite talk there might be some changes in the coaching staff, every coach was retained, including pitching coach Dick Pole, a long-time Baker associate, and hitting coach Brook Jacoby.
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