Doc's Morning Line: Are the Reds at rock bottom? Nope, they have 140 more games.

rock-bot·​tom | \ ˈräk-ˈbä-təm \

being the very lowest

-- Merriam-Webster

Are we there yet?

I’m getting prepared, in the way East Coasters prepare for hurricanes and Auntie Em had the root cellar ready.

Miner’s lamp? Check.

Case of water? Yep.

Flashlight, batteries, generator, pick axe, canned heat, soup, crackers, Keystone Light? All good.

Consider it an extended spelunking vacation. Because if this ain’t rock-bottom, it’s just a couple steps down the mineshaft.

We can’t even celebrate our misery at Rock Bottom Brewery on Fountain Square. It went bankrupt almost exactly a year ago.

Rock bottom looks like Nic Cage in that movie Leaving Las Vegas. Or, for you very OGs, Jack Lemmon in The Days of Wine and Roses. Or the Reds, who this weekend in Colorado looked like anyone who ever fell down a well.

On Saturday and Sunday, Cincinnati’s hitters went 9-for-60 (.150) while working in the wide-open spaces of the Coors Field outfield. In three games, they hit into seven double plays.

Rockies starter Kyle Freeland entered with a 7.71 ERA in four starts. He needed just 80 pitches to get 21 outs yesterday, allowing four hits and a run.

The Reds are last in baseball in these categories: On-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS; ERA, WHIP and walks issued. They’re 29th in batting average and 28th in runs scored.

The Reds have the worst run differential in baseball. They are -65, which is 24 runs worse than their closest competitor, the Pirates. Since April 10th the Reds have won once. This suggests they’re not even competitive.

It has been 19 years since any major-league team started worse than the Reds 3-19.

Yesterday, they couldn’t catch three infield pop-ups. In one Rockie at-bat.

"lowest possible," 1884, from the noun phrase meaning "bedrock" (1815), also figurative, from rock (n.1) + bottom (n.). – etymonline.com.

There would be symbolic value in firing David Bell and GM Nick Krall. I guess.

It would be intended to show fans that ownership won’t put up with abject failure. But we’ve seen enough to know that putting up with abject failure is exactly what they’re doing. At this point, any dismissals would be lipstick on the flying pig.

You wanna bench Joey Votto? And replace him with whom?

This is an organization so lacking in talent, it continued to play Aristides Aquino for two years, because he had one great month. It’s a franchise that no longer has Trevor Bauer, Sonny Gray, Wade Miley, Anthony DeSclafani and Michael Lorenzen, but until Sunday night did have Reiver Sanmartin.

Unless you’re into memorizing minor-league rosters, chances are you’ve never heard of half the guys currently working for the Rock Bottoms. They could save even more money if they stopped chartering airplanes and instead packed the boys in a couple Greyhound buses. It’d be metaphoric and cheap.

When you are asked to do nothing but slash payroll – when that’s the only consideration – you end up with a lopsided roster that starts 3-19 and counting. That’s essentially what ownership has asked Nick Krall to do for two years. Don't think the rest of baseball hasn’t noticed.

It’s why you have to trade a homegrown and inexpensive hitter like Jesse Winker, because the world knows what you really want to do is lose the money you’re paying Eugenio Suarez. It’s why you let Wade Miley go for nothing, to a division rival.

It’s why you’ve let the bullpen devolve into a bus stop for scufflin’ last-chancers and kids on the edges. It’s why you run ads on the GASP scoreboard touting how great the team’s minor leaguers are becoming.

(They’re not, actually. The two pitchers the Reds acquired, Chase Petty and Brandon Williamson? Petty has made two starts for Daytona Beach. He’s some years away from GASP. Williamson is 1-1/6.61 in Chattanooga.)

If something has reached rock bottom, it is at such a low level that it cannot go any lower. – Collins English Dictionary

Are we there yet?

Theoretically, no. The Reds still have 140 games to play.

Realistically, maybe not yet. Three games in Milwaukee, beginning Tuesday, suggest the descent isn’t yet complete. Salvation arrives over the weekend, when the Pirates are in town for four games. Though even the dependably bad Pirates are better than the Rock Bottom Reds at the moment.

Quoting Jim Morrison, “I’ve been down so very damned long that it looks like up to me.’’

Now, then. . .

IF YOU LIKE BUFFALO TRACE BOURBON, good luck to ya. I’m not talking about the flagship hooch, standard Buff Trace. You can get that anywhere. I’m talking the high-end good stuff: EH Taylor, Blanton’s, Elmer T. Lee, Weller etc. Even Eagle Rare. Unless you know someone who knows someone, that stuff barely makes it to the shelves.

Going to the distillery won’t help much, as we’ve discovered. The BT folks try to be helpful, sort of. On their website, they release daily what’s available to buy in the gift shop. Problem is, they’re so tight with what they put out, it’s usually gone in about an hour. And that’s with a rule that you can only buy one bottle per visit. If you’ve bought a bottle of Blanton’s in the previous 90 days, forget about it.

This happens every day. Essentially, if you want a top-shelf bottle, you better be there before the shop opens and you better hope that the booze you want isn’t also what the 100 or so other people want.

I don’t understand why they don’t re-stock the shelves. I mean, I guess they want to create an image of scarcity. But don’t they have that already? Would releasing enough product so everyone who wants it gets it really hurt sales?

When I was young and foolish, my buds and I frequented a bar in Georgetown, DC, called the Third Edition. It was a great spot, but the owners tried to make it seem greater by deliberately making patrons stand in a line outside the door, even if few people were inside. Buff Trace seems to be following the same marketing strategy.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . The Doors come and go for me. The times I enjoy re-listening to them are equaled by the times I’d rather listen to anyone else. This is from their best album and includes the Morrison quote I referenced earlier.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds losing streak: Slashing payroll has consequences