When the Chattanooga Lookouts walk into their clubhouse following a game at AT&T Field, most of the time it’s after a victory.

When they turn on the clubhouse televisions and watch their parent club, the Cincinnati Reds usually are losing.

“They’re just having a bad time up there right now,” Lookouts starting pitcher Daryl Thompson said this past week. “I’m sure they’re not up there trying to lose.”

A generation ago, moving up in Cincinnati’s farm system and joining the Big Red Machine was as appealing as any situation in major league baseball. That’s not the case anymore, as the Reds have suffered seven consecutive losing seasons and are on pace for an eighth.

Today’s Lookouts are playing to become tomorrow’s Reds, yet they are wanting to keep Cincinnati’s continuing woes from filtering down to the Double-A ranks.

“When you’re in an organization, you always want to see the big-league club do well,” first-year Lookouts manager Mike Goff said, “because in reality, without the big-league club, none of us are here. The success of the big-league club has a way of trickling down to the minor leagues as far as morale and how the overall organization is functioning at that time. They are off to a shaky start, but Dusty Baker is a great manager.

“I know they’ve had some transition in the general manager position up there, but I think it’s just a matter of time before they get themselves straightened out.”

Goff was Seattle’s minor league coordinator in 2001, when the Mariners won 116 games and their five farm teams qualified for the playoffs. He described that season as “unreal” and does not want this season to be a personal first in which everything went wrong.

Cincinnati fired general manager Wayne Krivsky last month and replaced him with Walt Jocketty, the fourth Reds GM in the past six seasons. The Reds were expecting to improve drastically on last year’s 72-90 finish, yet they own one of the worst records (14-23) in the majors.

It’s with somewhat of a contradictory interest that minor league players keep up with their big-league counterparts, especially when the parent club is losing.

Several Lookouts players were in Cincinnati’s big-league camp and formulated friendships, so the Lookouts naturally want their higher-paid buddies to play well. Reds first baseman Joey Votto played alongside Lookouts second baseman Drew Anderson during the second half of the 2006 season at AT&T, and Thompson exchanges text messages a couple of times each week with Cincinnati second baseman Brandon Phillips.

Yet the more the Reds struggle on the mound, in the field or at the plate, the better opportunity a Lookouts player performing well might have at a big-league promotion.

“It’s a fine line between rooting for them and not,” Anderson said. “I never root against anybody and I definitely don’t want anybody to get hurt, but you want to make it. I cheer for those guys because I want them to do well, and at the same time, I cheer for our team and hope the best for everybody here. It’s a weird situation.

“In Double-A, you’re really closer than you think to the big leagues. Your No. 1 goal is to get to the big leagues, but you never cheer against the big-league team, ever.”

Thompson, based on his 1.45 ERA through seven starts, may have the best chance among this year’s Lookouts of reaching Cincinnati. He admits having to block out the reeling Reds to be at his best in the Southern League.

Hitting coach Jamie Dismuke, who played for the Lookouts in 1995 when the Reds last qualified for the National League playoffs, doesn’t see the need for any such link.

“They’re in Cincinnati, and we’re here in Chattanooga,” Dismuke said. “We go out every day and do what we have to do, and it doesn’t bother them and vice versa. We don’t get asked questions why they are on a 10-game losing streak if we’ve won 15 in a row.

“Now, I’m sure these guys check their computers and the paper every day to make sure what’s going on, but as far as teamwise, it has nothing to do with it.”