First-place Reds coming to Wrigley with Cubs left in the dust

Guess who's coming to town Thursday?

Dusty Baker and his Cincinnati Reds.

Guess where they are in the standings. They're in first place, 9 1/2 games ahead of the fourth-place Cubs in the National League Central.

Surprised? You shouldn't be, according to the Cubs' Ryan Dempster, who pitches against the Reds on Friday.

"No, they've got a good team, a good lineup," Dempster said Wednesday. "They throw and catch the ball well. They've got a good infield, and they've got some good pitching. Their bullpen's been really, really good."

The Reds entered Wednesday leading the National League in batting average, runs scored and hits. It also may come as a shock that this Baker-led team was second in on-base percentage, at .340.

The individual leaderboards also are dotted with Reds:

• Joey Votto was third in batting average (.313) entering Wednesday while Brandon Phillips was tied for fourth (.312).

• Votto and Scott Rolen were 1 home run short of the NL lead, with 17 each.

• Votto was second in OBP (.415), and Rolen led in slugging percentage (.582), with Votto fourth (.567).

• On the pitching side, Franciso Cordero is among the league leaders in saves (20), and Johnny Cueto, who starts Saturday, is 8-2 with a 3.74 ERA. Sunday's starter, Mike Leake, made his professional debut this year (against the Cubs), and he's 5-1 with a 3.30 ERA.

Of course, the man at the helm spent four eventful years with the Cubs, coming within five outs of the World Series in 2003 and being fired after a wretched 2006 season, right before the organization went on an unprecedented spending spree.

As always, opinions about Baker are polarized. Frequent critic Joe Sheehan, formerly a writer for the stats-oriented Baseball Prospectus, recently ripped Baker on SI.com.

"Where they do not have an edge is in the dugout," Sheehan wrote. "Dusty Baker has a long-standing reputation as a leader of men, a baseball manager whose tactical shortcomings are compensated for by his people skills. A closer look, though, shows that Baker's success as a manager seems to have been tied directly to the ability to write Barry Bonds' name on the lineup card every day. Since leaving Bonds and the Giants after 2002, Baker has a 513-531 record and has managed one team, the 2003 Cubs, to a postseason berth, and he burned out two pitchers (Kerry Wood and Mark Prior) in the process.

"In his last seven seasons as a manager, Baker's questionable personnel choices, including an abiding love for veterans, and his refusal to prioritize on-base percentage over other traits, have chipped away at his team's performances."

On the other side, Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy covered the Reds for 37 years before retiring last fall from the Dayton Daily News. McCoy still blogs for the paper and works in other media covering baseball.

"Dusty has a lot of detractors, even Reds fans, some of whom seem to believe the Reds are in first place not because of him but despite him," McCoy said in an e-mail interview with the Daily Herald. "That's nonsense. No manager in the history of baseball, not even Sparky Anderson of The Big Red Machine or Lou Piniella from the 1990 Reds, made correct decisions all the time.

"Dusty has made several good moves this year to help this team, and he is accepted by this team. I fear his detractors in this area have racial overtones, and that's sad. He has used his pitchers well and has adjusted the lineup when necessary. It is amazing how many times this year he has given a player a rest, and his substitute has been the star of the game. His strength this year definitely has been his correct handling of his personnel."

Dempster first pitched for the Cubs in 2004, and he played parts of three seasons for Baker. Like many players, Dempster speaks highly of Baker.

"He always instilled confidence in you and made you believe you're the best out there," Dempster said. "I think that goes a long way. As a player, he believed in you, and he's done that everywhere he's gone. He always got the best players believing in themselves, but I think sometimes even the guys who were doubting themselves, he had them believing they were the best out there."

One of the biggest knocks on Baker has been his handling of pitchers, especially young pitchers. This year, however, you have to go all the way to 27th on Baseball Prospectus' ranking of "pitcher abuse points" to find a Red, and that's veteran Aaron Harang.

Leake's high pitch count for the season is only 108. That came with somewhat of a nod from Sheehan.

"Baker does seem to have changed in one regard: His best starter, rookie Mike Leake, has yet to reach 110 pitches in a start," Sheehan wrote. "So Mark Prior's career didn't die in vain."