The Cincinnati Reds season is over. But we all still plan to keep watching and talking about baseball, right? The playoffs are great. Playoff baseball is great. And well, we’re going to keep the daily game threads rolling for the entirety of the playoffs here at Redleg Nation even if the Reds are watching them from home like we are. Today begins the playoffs with the National League Wild Card game.
The Matchup
Milwaukee Brewers (89-73) vs. Washington Nationals (93-69)
The Washington Nationals finished in second place in the National League East and took the top spot in the wild card race. That earns them home field advantage in the 1-game “series” against the Brewers, who as you know, took second place in the National League Central.
Stat Comparison and Rankings
At least among the stats I happened to take a look at, the Washington Nationals were better than the Milwaukee Brewers in every single one of them. Some of them were closer than others, but they always came out ahead.
The Starting Pitching Matchup
With all due respect to Brandon Woodruff, the Nationals have a significant advantage here as they are sending out Max Scherzer. The last time that Scherzer didn’t finish in the top 5 of a Cy Young vote was in 2012. The last three years he’s finished in the top 3, including winning it in 2016 and 2017. This season he led the league in strikeouts per-9 innings and strikeout-to-walk ratio. He did miss some time, making 27 starts this season – the first time since he was a rookie in 2008 that he didn’t start at least 30 games. Scherzer posted a 2.92 ERA this season for the Nationals in 172.2 innings.
Brandon Woodruff had a quality season when he was on the mound. He only made 22 starts this season for Milwaukee and he made the All-Star team. The right-handed pitcher threw 121.2 innings with a 3.62 ERA, 30 walks, and 142 strikeouts on the season. But he has only made two starts since July 21st – both coming in September, and both only lasted 2.0 innings. As we saw last year with the Brewers in the playoffs, they may just go with a full-on bullpen kind of situation as far as they can make it in the playoffs.
The Starting Lineups
Milwaukee Brewers
- Trent Grisham – RF
- Yasmani Grandal – C
- Mike Moustakas – 3B
- Keston Hiura – 2B
- Ryan Braun – LF
- Eric Thames – 1B
- Lorenzo Cain – CF
- Orlando Arcia – SS
- Brandon Woodruff – SP
Washington Nationals
- Trea Turner – SS
- Adam Eaton – RF
- Anthony Rendon – 3B
- Juan Soto – LF
- Howie Kendrick – 1B
- Asdrubal Cabrera – 2B
- Kurt Suzuki – C
- Victor Robles – CF
- Max Scherzer – SP
Game Information
Start time: 8:08pm ET
Television/Radio: TBS | ESPN Radio
Big Time Reds Note
We’ll have more on this one later, and the story is still developing, but the Cincinnati Reds have hired Kyle Boddy of Driveline Baseball to be their director of initiatives/Pitching Coordinator. He will work almost exclusively in the minor leagues.
Moustakas here to possibly blow it open in the 5th… back-to-back Scherzer walks
Holy crap, I’m swept away in post-season bliss. What a fantastic, electric 8th inning for the Nats! Strasburg was on fire too
Hoping I’d get a shot at Nats>LA. They have Corbin for Game 1 and I think their bats will really light up LA pitching. They finally came thru in the clutch as an organization and I think they’ll be an excellent value as a dog in this series. Probably +180 atleast
Woah man so beautiful. Soto getting tackled by his dad after the game- so priceless. His kid brother there too! Psyched for the series in LA
Not to get ahead of things, but I can actually see Cincinnati as a positive destination choice for pitchers looking forward. After a successful season in 2019 with the new pitching coach, and the addition of Kyle Boddy, Cincinnati could become where you go to take your game to the next level. What a change a year can make…
A captivating game, certainly at the end.