By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer

This story was supposed to look at what the Reds needed to do in the second half of the season to contend.

But given their recent collapse, what the Reds need to contend is clearly beyond their means.

Getting Sidney Ponson at this point is like buying new deck chairs for the Titanic.

With the National League Central all but lost, the Reds go into the All-Star break facing decisions that go far beyond the scope of typical player transactions.

When they return from the break Thursday, 14 of their first 17 games are at home. They must find a way to keep fans interested and buying tickets. They also must think about 2004. What happens from here to the season's end will go a long way toward persuading season-ticket holders to renew - or not.

Right now, the Reds look like they are following the Pittsburgh Pirates/Milwaukee Brewers business model after moving into a new stadium.

So the Reds, namely chief executive officer Carl Lindner and chief operating officer John Allen, have to consider doing something to appease the fans, because it's apparent that the buildup to being competitive when Great American Ball Park opened has failed.

The Reds appear to be headed for their third straight losing season. Their playoff drought, barring a miracle, will go to eight years. They've had only two winning seasons in the past eight years.

Fans want someone to pay for that statistic with his job, be it general manager Jim Bowden or field manager Bob Boone or both.

Bowden put together this club. The Reds were looking forward to 2003 as early as 1997.

So does he take the fall?

Allen, through a spokesman, said he would not comment for this story.

One can make a strong argument that if the Reds aren't going to bring back Bowden, he should be fired or re-assigned now.

And if they are going to bring him back, they should announce the renewal now.

The roster obviously needs revisions. If Bowden's tenure as GM is about to end, should he - as a lame duck - be making decisions that could affect the franchise for years down the road?

Reds insiders say Bowden cannot make major moves, such as firing Boone or trading top-name players, without approval from Allen and Lindner.

But the Reds need retooling. As the July 31 trading deadline approaches, contending teams are willing to give up future stars for established players. The best long-term strategy for the Reds at this point is to become sellers at the trading deadline. Aaron Boone, Sean Casey or Scott Williamson might be enough to land the next Dontrelle Willis. Remember, the Florida Marlins got him in a trading-deadline deal with the Chicago Cubs.

Whatever the Reds do at the trading deadline, they need the current core of players to play better.

"We have to get better at every facet," Bob Boone said. "We've got to hit better, we've got to pitch better and we've got to field better. It's no secret for us to do well; we can't do it without our players playing up to their potential."

Boone has become the guy fans love to hate. Fans would argue he's the reason players haven't played to their potential.

But Sparky Anderson, with Lou Piniella as his bench coach, would have had trouble pulling the Reds out of the 19-game slide that took them out of contention in the NL Central.

"Something has to change. We can't continue this road," Barry Larkin said. "Hopefully, that does change with players getting healthy and buying into what they have to do. Hopefully, Skip can put the same lineup out there and we'll see consistency."

Larkin wasn't pointing the blame at Boone.

"You know ... you have to have some kind of consistency," Larkin said. "One day we will get pitching, one day we won't. One day we'll get hitting, one day we won't. One day we'll catch the ball, for the next week or two weeks, we won't."

Injuries played a large part in the demise. Austin Kearns, the Reds' most productive hitter the first part of the season, hasn't hit since injuring his shoulder May 21. A shoulder dislocation followed by a couple of nagging injuries have slowed Ken Griffey Jr. He went into the weekend with 11 home runs and 23 RBI. That's not a great month for Griffey when he's playing his best.

Injuries to Gabe White and Kent Mercker weakened the bullpen, long considered the Reds' greatest strength.

Bowden mentioned all those things when he gave Boone a lukewarm vote of confidence last week.

Bowden says he continues to work on deals to make the Reds better.

"We'll continue to try to trade, sign and draft pitching," Bowden said. "That will be the case until the end of the history of this franchise. You need pitching to win."

Failure to obtain or develop pitching in the buildup to 2003 is exactly what got the Reds into this mess.

Bowden has tried. He has traded for 45 pitchers since 1997. He has drafted a pitcher in the first round five times in that period.

Of those 45 players, only Danny Graves, Chris Reitsma, Brian Reith, White and Ryan Dempster are on the roster. And the two in the starting rotation - Graves and Dempster - had a combined record of 6-15 going into the weekend.

The draft has been no more fruitful. The Reds have three pitchers they drafted on the roster - Scott Williamson, Scott Sullivan and John Riedling. None of them is from the last six drafts.

The only trade Bowden has been able to pull off recently was obtaining infielder D'Angelo Jimenez from the Chicago White Sox for minor-league pitcher Scott Dunn last week.

Bowden said at the time of the trade that Jimenez was the 25th man on the roster. That Jimenez started three straight games says something about the state of the Reds.

Pitching is not the only problem, of course. The Reds are the worst fielding team in baseball.

The lineup is made up almost entirely of big swingers who strike out a lot. There is no true leadoff man.

The injuries highlighted the lack of depth.

Two of the top nine position players when the season started - Felipe Lopez and Brandon Larson - had to be sent to the minors after they struggled. They've torn it up at Triple-A, but neither has any extended success in the majors.

They were, along with Kearns and Adam Dunn, supposedly proof that the buildup to 2003 worked.

That was March's "hope springs eternal" talk. The reality in July is a little harder to sell to the fans.

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E-mail jfay@enquirer.com