"Aaron Harang hopes there aren't too many days like the one Sunday, March 1, in Ed Smith Stadium - the wind blowing out so hard his pants flapped in the breeze and eight baseballs took long rides over outfield fences.

"I felt like I was going to blow over," he said, no small feat for a guy who weighs 253 pounds.

Even so, that's as light as Harang has been since the day he signed his first contract, a weight loss of 25 pounds that he hopes will keep his legs under him through the humidity off the Ohio River in August.

Harang pitched three innings against the New York Yankees and gave up three runs and six hits, but the Reds won 13-11.

The wind helped huff a total of eight home runs over the wall - two by Chris Dickerson, one by Joey Votto, one by Laynce Nix and a game-winning grand slam in the eighth by catcher Craig Tatum for the Reds.

While it looked suspiciously like many of those 17 games he lost last season, Harang says his first exhibition start isn't about numbers.

"I'm just trying to build up pitch counts right now and be efficient through the innings," he said. "You want to build your arm strength up."

It's all the grand plan to reverse his 6-17 record, which Harang tries to shove aside like a pesky gnat.

"One of those fluke years when things didn't go right," he said, a tinge of hopefulness in his voice. "If you look at the back of everybody's baseball card you are bound to have a bad year and it seems last year was it. Nothing went my way at all. I have to keep a positive attitude and let the team play behind me."