Search
Home

After last night’s win, the Cincinnati Reds (46-53) have climbed out of the NL Central basement for the second time this season. They will look to earn the three game sweep over the Milwaukee Brewers (53-50) this afternoon at Miller Park. First pitch is at 2:10 EDT.

Starting Pitchers

Name IP ERA FIP xFIP K% BB%
Lucas Sims (AAA stats) 79.0 4.56 4.13 4.95 30.0% 10.6%
Jhoulys Chacin 85.2 5.67 5.67 5.26 19.4% 9.8%

REDS

With Tyler Mahle being sent to the IL on Monday, Lucas Sims makes his second start of the season this afternoon. In his first start on May 28, he faced the Pirates and pitched 7.1 brilliant innings, giving up four runs on six hits, while striking out nine and walking only one.

At Triple-A Louisville this season, Sims’ ERA of 4.56 was a little high in 79.0 innings. But he’s been steadily improving throughout the season and had a 0.75 ERA in two starts in July. What is most impressive is the 30.0% K% that Sims has at Triple-A. He’s been a strikeout machine, including 10 and 13 strikeouts in back-to-back outings in April and an 11 strikeout performance on July 4.

Sims throws four pitches: a four-seamer, curve ball, change up, and sinker. However, I’d expect to see mostly the four-seamer and the curve today. He’s only thrown his change up 9.2% of the time, and he’s thrown the sinker on exactly one pitch thus far this season.

Christian Yelich is 1-for-6 with a double and four walks against Sims. Ben Gamel and Yasmani Grandal are the only other Brewers position players to face Sims. They are each 0-for-2 against him.

BREWERS

In 2018, Jhoulys Chacin had a career year. With a 3.50 ERA and a 4.03 FIP in 192.2 innings, he was one of the leaders of the Brewers rotation last season. He had a career high 156 strikeouts,  allowed only 18 home runs, and was a key reason why the Brewers went to the NLCS. But, oh, how things have changed in 2019. In 85.2 innings this season, his ERA sits at nearly 6.00.

Chacin is still striking out batters at roughly the same rate and his walk total is about the same, but the number of home runs he’s allowed has been a problem. He’s already allowed 18 home runs in 2019, which is the total number he allowed all of last season. It’s not like he’s had a good stretch and has fallen into a rough stretch. He’s been consistently bad this year. However, if you look back at his career, he’s been a very up and down pitcher from season to season. Even when he played for the Rockies at Coors Field, he had an ERA of 3.47 in 2013. The next year in 2014, he had an ERA of 5.40.

There are a couple of Reds players that hit Chacin very well. Yasiel Puig leads the way, with a 1.231 OPS against him.

Lineups

REDS BREWERS
1. Nick Senzel (CF)
2. Joey Votto (1B)
3. Jesse Winker (LF)
4. Yasiel Puig (RF)
5. Josh VanMeter (3B)
6. Scooter Gennett (2B)
7. Jose Iglesias (SS)
8. Juan Graterol (C)
9. Lucas Sims (P)		 1. Lorenzo Cain (CF)
2. Christian Yelich (RF)
3. Yasmani Grandal (C)
4. Ryan Braun (LF)
5. Eric Thames (1B)
6. Keston Hiura (2B)
7. Orlando Arcia (SS)
8. Tyler Saladino (3B)
9. Jhoulys Chacin (P)

 

News and Notes

-Eugenio Suarez is hot right now, so of course, he gets today off. He’s earned it.

-The Louisville Bats and the Billings Mustangs both won via a walk-off last night.

Final Thoughts

Last night, I was driving home listening to the game as I usually do when the Reds are playing and I’m in the car. Marty was just coming back to the mic for the fifth inning. He started talking about the Brewers broadcasters honoring him with gifts and Skyline Chili before the game yesterday.

He talked about how Milwaukee is one of the cities he’s going to miss the most, and then he launched into a story involving himself, Bob Uecker and Tommy Thrall at spring training. He did all of this while continuing to call an inning that was full of Reds scoring. It was very Vin Scully-esque.

Anyway, it got me thinking about how it’s nights like the perfect summer night that was last night that I’m going to miss Marty the most. He has such a way of being able to paint the picture of the game, while still entertaining the audience.

I know that Marty isn’t very popular among some in Reds country and I understand why. I too have not agreed with his past comments about players, namely a certain first baseman. But I find it a little sad that in his swan song summer when we should be enjoying the voice of our childhood for the last time, all I see is complaints about his analysis. How about for one game, instead of worrying and complaining about what advanced stats weren’t mentioned on a broadcast, we all just sit back in our cars or on our back porches and let his voice take us back to when we were kids and all we cared about was listening to baseball?

Copyright RedlegNation.com. All Rights Reserved. RedlegNation.com is an independent news source and is not affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds, Major League Baseball, any of the Cincinnati Reds minor league affiliates or Minor League Baseball.