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With Laynce Nix ailing and the Reds playing a player short over the weekend, the Reds bench has looked like this the past two nights:

– the backup catcher
– Miguel Cairo
– rookie Chris Heisey
– Paul Janish

You can’t really go with the backup catcher earlier in the game, and Chris Heisey is probably your best choice of the remaining three. As a team, the Reds have just 8 hits in 53 pinch-hit plate appearances, which ranks them 14th in the NL in pinch-hitting AVG and OPS.

The following statistics are through Friday night:

Rk   PA H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA 6 OBP SLG OPS GDP SH SF
1 STL 58 17 2 0 2 4 13 .333 .393 .490 .883 0 2 0
2 SFG 49 13 3 0 2 6 9 .325 .404 .550 .954 1 2 1
3 FLA 61 17 3 0 0 4 12 .304 .361 .357 .718 1 0 0
4 MIL 59 15 3 2 1 6 11 .288 .362 .481 .843 0 1 0
5 PIT 62 16 1 0 1 4 17 .281 .323 .351 .673 1 0 1
6 ARI 58 13 2 0 0 6 16 .255 .333 .294 .627 3 1 0
7 WSN 55 12 4 0 1 5 4 .250 .315 .396 .711 2 1 1
8 ATL 55 12 7 1 0 5 10 .240 .309 .420 .729 1 0 0
9 HOU 62 14 2 2 1 2 12 .233 .258 .383 .641 1 0 0
10 COL 52 9 3 2 1 8 16 .205 .327 .432 .759 1 0 0
11 LAD 61 11 3 0 2 4 15 .204 .267 .370 .637 1 1 1
12 NYM 64 12 3 0 1 3 15 .200 .250 .300 .550 0 0 0
13 CHC 60 9 0 0 2 6 16 .173 .271 .288 .560 1 1 0
14 CIN 53 8 0 1 1 4 16 .163 .226 .265 .492 2 0 0
15 SDP 59 8 2 1 0 5 17 .154 .224 .231 .455 0 1 1
16 PHI 51 6 1 0 1 4 6 .133 .220 .222 .442 0 1 0
  TOT 919 192 39 9 16 76 205 .234 .302 .362 .664 15 11 5 
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/15/2010.

Miguel Cairo is leading the team in pinch hitting appearances, but has just 1 hit to show for it.

Rk   PA 6 H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS GDP SH SF
1 Miguel Cairo 14 1 0 0 0 0 3 .071 .071 .071 .143 0 0 0
2 Laynce Nix 11 2 0 0 1 1 3 .200 .273 .500 .773 1 0 0
3 Chris Dickerson 7 2 0 1 0 0 3 .286 .286 .571 .857 0 0 0
4 Jonny Gomes 6 1 0 0 0 0 3 .167 .167 .167 .333 0 0 0
5 Ryan Hanigan 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 .500 .000 .500 0 0 0
6 Jay Bruce 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
7 Micah Owings 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
8 Ramon Hernandez 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 1 0 0
9 Chris Heisey 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
10 Juan Francisco 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 0
11 Drew Stubbs 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 1.000 1.000 1.000 2.000 0 0 0
12 Joey Votto 1 0 0 0 0 1 0   1.000     0 0 0
  Team Total 53 8 0 1 1 4 16 .163 .226 .265 .492 2 0 0 
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/15/2010.

The other troubling thing about the current Reds bench is that they are the first options to start when a player needs a day off or comes up with the dreaded day-to-day injury. I’d rather see Janish, Heisey or just about anyone in AAA getting more PH opportunities than Miguel Cairo. Perhaps it is time to bring up Chris Valaika to serve as the backup infielder.

4 Responses

  1. nllspc

    Agreed, Cairo MUST GO…NOW. I would rather see Sutton and let Valaika continue get ABs and build confidence, especially after the season he had last year. Sutton’s season numbers stink, but he’s picked it up over his last ten. He also has experience in the utility/bench role.

  2. Tom Diesman

    Yeah, we knew the bench was a weak spot entering the season. LH options were Nix and Dickerson when not playing. RH options were Cairo, Janish, Hanigan/Hernandez, Owings maybe, and Gomes when not playing. They needed to choose either Janish or Cairo as the backup SS, and add a 1B/3B who could hit a little. But you can never have too many sub .700 OPS middle infielders on a team you know. 🙂

  3. pinson343

    It is a serious issue, and makes for a serious depth problem.
    If any one of Votto, Rolen, Stubbs, or BP goes down, we have a big problem.

  4. Steve Price

    I suppose we all thought Owings would PH more…but, I suppose Dusty found it easier to use him as a PH when he was in the rotation. I think Dusty doesn’t want to PH him late in the game in case he’s needed later. But, I would think the spring Lincoln experiment would have stretched him enough to be a long inning reliever if we were to go extra innings.