Johnny Almaraz on Homer Bailey

John Fay had this in his recent "Reds Notebook"

HOMER PERFECT: Johnny Almaraz, director of player development, has two reasons why No. 1 prospect Homer Bailey has been better since he was promoted from Single-A Sarasota to Double-A Chattanooga: distorted statistics and rest.

"He made a lot of strides in Sarasota with mechanics," Almaraz said. "Statistically, his numbers weren't great, but he did everything we asked him to.

"We also held him back a start to refresh him."

Bailey, a 20-year-old right-hander, went 3-5 with a 3.31 ERA for Sarasota. He's 3-0 with a 0.00 ERA in three starts for Chattanooga.

Though the Reds don't have the strict limits on pitch counts that they had under Dan O'Brien, they want to keep Bailey to 140-150 innings. He's at 872/3 so far.

"We'll evaluate him," Almaraz said. "If he's still going strong, we might let him keep going. If he shows fatigue, we'll hold him back."

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