The Chase for 20 wins.

As a still relative young kid living in SW Ohio, with the home team only 1 season away from a world series title, the Reds went out and made 2 big pitching moves in the offseason, acquiring Tim Belcher from the Dodgers and Greg Swindell from the Indians. Swindel had lost 16 games the prior season for the craptastic Mistakes by the Lakes, but sported a tidy 3.40ish era along w/ a fantastic 5.1 k/BB ratio. He was basically all the Indians had at that point, just prior to the emergence of Visquel, Manny, Belle, etc... and had won 18, 13 & 12 wins in the 3 years prior. Meanwhile Tim Belcher had a sub 3.00 era in 4 of his 5 prior major league seasons, winning as many 15 games just a few years prior to joining the Reds. These 2 top shelf pitcher were set to join "Mr Perfect" Tom Browning who had won 18 & 15 games the 2 seasons prior and Jose Rijo who had won 14 & 15 wins the 2 prior seasons, and may be the only player to have recieved a Hall of fame vote prior to officially ending his major league career when he returned to the reds in the early 2000s following 5+ seasons of injury/inactivity.

The thought was real that any of these 4 could post 20 wins for the Reds that season, and perhaps the dream of dreams that all 4 would reach the magical 20 win mark. Sure the Reds had to give up this fan's favorite Red, Eric Davis, to acquire Tim Belcher, but they gave up little to nothing for Swindell, and still returned Barry Larkin, Paul O'neill, Spuds Sabo and a dominant back of the bullpen. Sure this boy's dream of (4) 20-win pitcher fell short, but aside from Tom Browning's horrific broken elbow while throwing a screw ball mid-game, the other 3 went on to post 15, 15 & 12 wins a piece.

Fast forward 18 years, and toss in a handful of fake players in cybe space, and the Salem Witch Doctors have the possiblity of taking (4) 20 game winners to the postseason. The Salem staff is balanced by the big 4 of Jesus_Fernandez, Sandy_Murphy, Bronson_Brown, and Keith_Bagwell. Sandy Murphy has set the pace to date, picking up his 17th win this afternoon, while the remaining 4 all have staked 15 wins so far vs 8, 4 & 2 losses respectively. Salem has 41 games remaining, as well as 2 off days, which will allow for some shuffling of the rotation and provide each of these 4 pitchers with 8 to 9 starts should they remain injury free. Additionally, Jesus, Sandy & Bronson are all high durability/stamina pitchers which will allow them to pitch on short rest if needed and a shot at 10, perhaps even 11 starts. Only Keith Bagwell will have trouble getting by on short rest too often, 10 starts will likely be the absolute top number of starts he could make, more likely he'll get 9 more, and perhaps makes him the longest shot at obtaining the 20 win mark.

Offensively, they're going to need at least 1 run, and likely several more a game if they want to reach the 20 win mark. so far, only DH Stan Arnold has shown any signs of fatigue, but a few others are probably getting close to the 99 mark. A few off days will need to be mixed in amongst the position players, but with a 1st round bye likely for the playoffs, there shouldn't be any "sunday specials" thrown out there. Additionally, the schedule is favorable with 4 series remaining vs likely playoff teams, and 8 series vs teams likely to miss the playoffs.