| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Rangers (38-32) |
4 | 8 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (30-38) |
3 | 4 | 3 |
| W: Minor (6-4) L: Roark (4-6) S: Kelley (8) |
|||
| FanGraphs Win Probability | Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
Another day in June. Another day where the Cincinnati Reds offense struggled to get much going.
The Offense
Yasiel Puig’s 2-run home run in the bottom of the 4th inning got the Reds on the board and cut the Rangers lead in half, making it a 4-2 game. Curt Casali would add a solo home run of his own in the bottom of the 7th. That, however, as all the Reds could come through with on the night. Only Eugenio Suarez and Kyle Farmer would have hits to go with those home runs for the Reds on the night – managing just 4 total hits. Suarez had 2 walks to go with his single, and Casali also walked on the night.
The Pitching
Tanner Roark had his longest outing of the season, throwing 7.0 innings of 4 run baseball. Only 2 of those runs were earned – the Reds had 3 errors in the game. Roark allowed 8 hits and he added in 5 strikeouts as his ERA dropped to 3.63. Amir Garrett and Michael Lorenzen both pitched a hitless inning of relief with 2 strikeouts. For Garrett he dropped his ERA to an absurd 1.50 on the season. Lorenzen saw his ERA lowered to 3.19 on the year.
Notes Worth Noting
Nick Senzel left the game in the 5th inning after a foul ball off of his foot ricocheted up and hit him in the face near the eye.
Yasiel Puig’s home run went 415 feet and was 104.3 MPH off of the bat.
The sweet sound of a @YasielPuig dinger. ?#BornToBaseball pic.twitter.com/ZXI2mEttIN
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) June 16, 2019
Curt Casali’s home run was 402 feet and was 100.3 MPH off of the bat.
? Curt homer alert ? #BornToBaseball pic.twitter.com/aodeU5lMSB
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) June 16, 2019
The Reds are now 3-8 in June and have been outscored 39-27 during the month. For those who aren’t human calculators, that’s 2.45 runs per game for Cincinnati during the month. The pitching staff has allowed just 3.55 runs per game, which usually gets you on the right side of the ledger, but here we are….
The Pittsburgh Pirates also lost 4-3. Both teams entered the day 8 games back and 7 games under .500, but the Reds are in last place if we look at winning percentage. Nothing is right with this world.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Texas Rangers vs Cincinnati Reds
Sunday June 16th, 1:10pm
Ariel Jurado (4-2, 3.02 ERA) vs. Sonny Gray (2-5, 3.65 ERA)
Reds have a better record than 1 team in the NL and the lead on the Marlins is down to 5 games.
The next 9 games provide a significant challenge
Unfortunately, the Reds have no talent to trade to obtain some younger players
The greatest weakness of Jocketty has always been the draft. He did terrible with the Cards and has followed it up with the Reds. All the losing should have resulted in a lot of talent in the system. But it hasn’t.
In the last couple of seasons, I and others on this site have sounded our concern and desire for the Reds to shore up their offense conceding that pitching was a real need as well. That’s the comprehensive problem of a really bad team. Still, the team had opportunities to plug in through trades for young, in their prime players, who would have helped the team now and for the next few years (Yelich, Realmuto, plug in your guy here).
Since the past cannot be changed without infinity stones, let’s hope that the team’s offense will improve with the return of Scooter, a revival of Votto, and a reaping of FA acquisition in the offseason.
We’re approaching the midpoint of the season and here are some key W-L stats:
11-17 within the division
10-4 versus Miami/SF/SD
9-17 versus everyone else outside the division
I think we have 8 more games versus Miami/SD.
The NL Central might not be the best division in MLB. Why? Thus far, more games have been played outside the division than within it and the Cubs/Brewers own the worst record of all division leaders.
How confident is everyone that our pitching will remain this good for the rest of the season?
How large of a sample size will it take to convince us that this current roster (and the lineups our manager continues to stick with) is not going to provide much offense?
I’d love to eat my words but we play half our games in GABP and 68 games seems like enough to know who we are this year.
Take a quick look at the schedule for the rest of this month and next… it’s going to get pretty ugly when you see who we play. I don’t see us winning a series again until August. So we’ll be at least 15-20 games under .500 by the time we play the Pirates again at the end of July…and I think I’m being quite reasonable with that prediction.
Series just won against Astros, who are a really good team. That’s why I hate blanket statements like the one about not winning another series until August. Baseball is weird. The Reds may not be a good team. Maybe they are better than we think. Either way, the nature of baseball dictates that we assume nothing. A game in which the best teams of all time win over 33% of their games and the worst ever lose 33%.
Anything can happen.
Got that backwards. The best ever still lose 33% and the worst ever still win 33%
Reds hitting woes started the last 6 weeks of 2018 and have continued.Puig was to be the difference maker and he hasn’t been so we are back to where we were.Its not a lost season unless the Reds continue to think they can win which is what the battle cry has been for the last few years only to finish with 90+ losses.Never have went all in on the rebuild so they don’t know who can play and who can’t.Just need to let the young guys play and get rid of the vets who aren’t or won’t be a part of the future.Its not rocket science and its what every team does but the Reds are more interested in winning 70 games vs 65 and that can’t be what drives the boat.Untill this changes we will always remain in a rebuild mode.Right now the Marlins are trying to lose but they are finding out about their players.Reds will have money to spend next year and can simply do what they did this year all over again next year but how do you spend it.Is Senzel,Ervin and Winker going to be your outfielders?Play them every day and find out.Lots of other decisions as to who gets signed on this current roster need to be made as well.Just tired of the same players being discussed year after year as to if they can or not.Reds are so scared to release a player that may turn in to a good player somewhere else they just hang on to everybody.
The Reds at this point are sort of stuck. A situation that happens to many teams, and there’s been no one to really step up offensively with the injury to Scooter to lead the Reds in winning close games in late innings. The rebuild has fizzled and it’s not clear how the Reds proceed. Your last sentence is on the mark. Winning teams do not hang on to players for sentimental reasons. The 1-8 start seems to negate reaching the .500 goal. Change, with some big moves, is now up to the front office.
My only beef with Bell last was his not bunting with a RH-hitting Barnhart (or leaving Roark in to do it). Barnhart can’t hit lefties very well, but he can bunt.
Bunting still has a narrow purpose, and Barnhart was the functional equivalent of a pitcher in that situation. The radar showed that hard rain was coming, such that they at least needed to tie the game to get to bring the suspended game into play. It was going to be difficult to score in the 8th and 9th in the rain, so going for one run was a plausible strategy, especially with the equivalent of a pitcher having to pinch-hit.
Instead, they went by the New Dogma -never bunt – and the worst case scenario happened. Whiff on 3 pitches, followed by a GIDP. A (successful) bunt would have given both Peraza and Votto a chance to drive in the tying run with a single, against the 7th inning pitcher, instead of trying to score in the rain against the 8th & 9th inning pitchers.
While the stats show that in the AVERAGE situation bunting is a bad strategy, this was far from the average situation.
Senzel’s injury handcuffed Bell, as did a roster constructed of too many guys who can’t hit lefties.
I did not think about bunting in that situation last night, I was just bummed that Barnhart was sent up to pinch hit, and I don’t like sacrifice bunts but in that situation, I think you are right particularly with one of the weakest hitters in the league following him to the plate. It was a bad situation made worse. At least with the runner on second, Votto would have gotten a shot.
It’s called “banana phone fandom.”
How many years has this team been under the current ownership? The hard truth is that most owners are wealthy men/ women who have gotten where they are by sticking to their way of doing things. And the older we get, the less we embrace new ideas and…change.
The next great stretch for the Reds probably doesn’t come until ownership changes. But only if the new ownership is good at running a baseball organization.