I can see how fans get frustrated when they’re sitting at home every night, watching the team struggle. When you go through it as a player, you can imagine it’s a little more intense and a little more pressure to go out there every night and try to play good baseball.

The thing about Chicago is it’s a really fair town. If you play hard and play the game the right way and you come up short, obviously, there will be disappointment but people will respect you for playing hard. The way we’ve played lately, I can understand why people are upset and have started to boo. People ask me about playing in Chicago, and they say, “If you don’t play well, you’re going to get booed.” At the same time, if you’re the right type of player, you’re harder on yourself than any fan will ever be on you.

I was booing myself when I was 0-for-10. They didn’t start booing until I was 0-for-15 or 0-for-20. They gave me five or 10 at-bats to figure things out. The fans here give you an honest chance.

The thing with us is our expectations were a lot higher for ourselves this year. The fans treat it the same way. They have high expectations, and they should. We’re a better team than what we’ve been playing. When we’re out on the field, at least from a personal standpoint, I don’t ever want to embarrass myself. Things that would embarrass me is not running a ball out and the ball falls and I’m not on second base — more like hustle things. Physical errors are going to happen. When you make mental errors, you embarrass yourself.

Even though we took a bad one Tuesday night, it’s only one game. We lost 15-to-whatever, and it felt like five losses to me, and I’m sure it felt like five or 10 losses to the fans as well, especially in the situation we’re in, coming off a rough road trip.

We can still finish the homestand 9-1. There’s always a possibility of that. That’s what we’re looking forward to now.

When I’m watching the games at home, I don’t throw things at the TV. Sometimes I feel like it. I know how hard the game is to play. It looks a lot easier when you’re watching on TV for sure. I’ll go, “Hey, that ball’s right down the middle — how could you miss that?” When you’re playing, it’s coming a lot faster. It makes it frustrating when you’re not able to help out. You see your teammates struggling through tough times during the season and you’re not there to help.

I saw Sam Fuld’s catch in L.A. That was a super nice catch. I yelled at my wife, “Hey, you’ve got to come in and see this.”

– Reed