Nick Senzel homered in the top of the 4th inning, extending the Cincinnati Reds lead to 6-1 over the Milwaukee Brewers. But when the bottom of the 4th inning began it was Phillip Ervin heading out to center field and not Nick Senzel. And for the next hour plus the Reds had not provided an update. Social media did what it did best – freaked out. But eventually the news came out that he simply had a headache and wasn’t feeling well.
After the game it was addressed by both manger David Bell, and Nick Senzel himself. Bell noted that Senzel was already feeling better. For his part, Senzel noted to the media in Milwaukee that even before his home run in the 4th inning he wasn’t feeling great.
It wasn’t quite Michael Jordan with the flu, but he did go 2-3 on the night with a homer before exiting the game. That helped push his line on the season to .273/.333/.500 on the season with 11 doubles, 2 triples, and 8 home runs in 42 games. For those keeping track at home, that’s 1 extra-base hit every other game played. That’s pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Curt Casali, Tucker Barnhart to split catching duties more evenly
It was just two days ago that Redleg Nation’s own Ashley Davis wrote about the Cincinnati Reds catching dilemma between Curt Casali and Tucker Barnhart. With Barnhart struggling to hit this season, and Casali hitting fairly well, and absolutely crushing right-handed pitching, the question was fair to be asked if the Reds should be getting more playing time for Casali.
Well, it seems that David Bell reads Redleg Nation, or maybe Ashley Davis has an inside-track to David Bell, but Mark Sheldon reported on Friday evening that Curt Casali and Tucker Barnhart would be splitting the catching duties more moving forward than they had to this point in the season.
“I’ve talked to both guys,” Bell said. “The way I see it, I don’t know how the split is going to turn out. It may still be Tucker ends up getting 60-40, 70-30 or maybe at times it is closer to 50-50. The point I made is we want them to be the best catching corps there is in the game. Between the two of them, we want them to be as great as they can be combined.
The exact plan isn’t laid out and feels like there may be some “play it by feel” going forward. But Curt Casali is going to start seeing more time behind the plate. Of course, with catchers, you can’t always just play them on a set situation. Day games after night games usually means the night game starter is getting a day off for the day game. That scenario takes away a straight platoon situation. And it takes away “personal catchers”, usually, too.
More importantly, Red Legs are 3 games out of the wild card and 4.5 out of the division.
For the record, a knee injury is protected by the same HIPAA laws that vertigo or any other medical issue would be.
In the last month he’s hitting .326/.394/.467….. weird time to make a “he’s hurting the lineup” post.
Senzel not in lineup today. Not a surprise. Cause for concern if he is not playing Sunday.