Here's what I gather from listening and reading...

*The new, temporary, postseason format is so blatantly tilted to the lower-seeded teams in the Division Series that given the fact that winning on the road, which was only accomplished 1,125 times by Major League teams this season (including 46 by the Reds) is such an impossibility that any team having to travel for the first two will most assuredly lose twice, then face such massive collective mental breakdowns that the return trip home for the series' remaining games will be a mere formality.

*The San Francisco Giants have not lost a home game since they were the New York Giants, playing in the Polo Grounds.  In fact, a team from the east coast traveling to the western time zone presents such massive physical difficulties for the road team that many teams suffer mortal casualties during the games.  Who can focusing on hitting, pitching, and catching the ball when actual lives are being lost?

*While not as formidable as AT&T Park, both Busch Stadium and Turner Field are impenetrable fortresses, where an invisible force field keeps opposing homers from leaving the ballpark and where kinetic energy enables home team pitchers to throw close to 220 mph.  Neither the Cardinals or Braves are completely invincible at home, but the fact that any team opening the playoffs in either city would be so fatigued by the travel to such distant outposts as eastern Missouri and central Georgia that simply functioning would be an accomplishment.

*That Major League Baseball needs to go back to the old way, where the teams with the best record could choose first round opponents of their liking.  Everyone remembers the 1998 Marlins handpicked the 54-win Florida Marlins as their Division Series fodder, igniting a run to the World Series.  Who can forget 2002, when a 103-win Yankee team bowed out early because it didn't select a 100-loss Royals club and instead played a far superior Anaheim team in round one?  And fans of a certain vintage will recall the strike year of 1981, when the Dodgers, on the way to Tommy Lasorda's first World Series title, were granted a minor league exemption by Bowie Kuhn and played their AAA Albuquerque team in the playoffs' opening round.

The fact that Bud Selig is using the standings to mandate that teams like the Reds must play higher-echelon teams with winning records is yet another example of how out of touch this commissioner is and how he continues to ignore some of baseball's long-celebrated traditions.

*The NLDS and ALDS are respectively, the toughest rounds of the postseason.  Once there, a team like the Reds, for instance, will have their path to the title paved with opponents from various American Legions.  This year, I'm told that Tokyo Kitasuna, this year's Little League World Series winner, awaits whomever emerges from on National League Division Series, while the other simply gets a bye to the Fall Classic.

We're focusing too much on the where and the who.

This is simple.  Go where they tell you to play, play who they tell you to play, and win games.  It will require 11 wins to lift the horribly outdated World Series trophy.  While it would be mathematically possible for a team with homefield advantage throughout October (and November) to lose everyone of their home games and still be Major League Baseball's champion, I'm betting that somewhere along the way, the team that's the last one standing will have won a postseasonroad game.

Maybe you don't like the first round format (I do), maybe one possible first round opponent presents different challenges than the others, and maybe one of those teams might have a better home record than the others, but if the Reds are a championship-caliber team, these things shouldn't matter all that much.

If winning at AT&T Park (where the Reds won twice this season) is such an impossibility, the Reds should forfeit their division title, pack up their gear, and start pumping RedsFest.  If winning one game of two, or doing the impossible and actually winning two straight away from GABP is such a tall task for this team, then they should close up shop when the regular season ends tomorrow.

Who the Reds play and where the Reds play will not determine their fall fates.

Their pitching will.  Their fielding will.  And their hitting will.

Hitting.  That's a bigger issue right now than any long plane ride they have to make.  It's a bigger problem than any road crowd they have to contend with.  And could torpedo their postseason run a lot more than what most fans are focusing on right now.

After last night's two-run output, the Reds have now scored 11 runs in their last 63 innings.  They've scored two runs or less in 13 of their last 27 games. Bruce, Rolen Hanigan, Stubbs, Phillips, Frazier, and Heisey are each hitting .229 or less in the last 31 days.  They have nine homers from players not named "Jay" in the last month.  The inconsistency of the offense has been a topic all season, but those problems have never been more pressing than now, with the playoffs mere days away, and with the quality of the opposing pitching about to take a drastic jump in quality.

Venue hasn't been the issue. The Reds haven't hit at home recently - in their last 16 games at GABP the Reds have scored five or more runs in two of them.  Nor has player unavailability - Votto has been back for weeks, and he's hitting, though not with much pop. And it's not like a huge roster move is in the works, whomever fills out Dusty's 25 is less likely to have an impact as the hitters I mentioned before.

There's good news...the bullpen remains a strength, the Reds play very, very good defense, and the starting pitching is settled.  I have confidence in Cueto and Latos, Homer Bailey has been very solid since mid-August, and though he struggled last night, we've seen enough of Bronson Arroyo these last seven years to know that his poor starts rarely transfer to the next.  The dude, at the very least, will be prepared.

But at some point, you need to score.  These guys aren't doing enough of that.

Maybe runs won't be an issue.  Maybe this team is on the verge of one of those stretches where everyone gets hot, where hitting gets contagious, and where they knock the ball out of the yard so often that some bored baseball writer will wonder if the Reds spent their flight to their game one destination injecting each other with a little something extra for the playoffs.

Either way, that is a far more pressing issue than what most of us are focusing on. 

Stadium and opponent will factor in how the Reds do this October.  But the Reds themselves will have a lot more to do with deciding their fate than someone or somewhere else.