The Cincinnati Reds host the San Francisco Giants this afternoon in Goodyear at 3:05pm ET. The game will be available on both television (Fox Sports Ohio) and radio (700 WLW).
Reds (1-4-1) and Giants (1-3-2) Lineups
| Cincinnati | Giants | |||
| 1 | Shogo Akiyama | CF | LaMonte Wade Jr. | 1B |
| 2 | Nick Castellanos | RF | Curt Casali | C |
| 3 | Joey Votto | 1B | Wilmer Flores | 3B |
| 4 | Eugenio Suárez | 3B | Darin Ruf | DH |
| 5 | Mike Moustakas | 2B | Jason Vosler | 2B |
| 6 | Jesse Winker | LF | Mauricio Dubon | CF |
| 7 | Tucker Barnhart | C | Heliot Ramos | LF |
| 8 | Dee Strange-Gordon | SS | Steven Duggar | RF |
| 9 | Max Schrock | DH | Will Wilson | SS |
| 10 | Cionel Pérez | SP | Anthony DeSclafani | SP |
Reserve players on today’s Reds roster:
Where to watch/listen/follow the game
The game will be live on the Reds on Radio Network. In the greater Cincinnati area the game will be available on 700 WLW AM. The game will also be available to view on Fox Sports Ohio in the second of four scheduled games they will air this spring. You can see the entire broadcast schedule of Reds games that will be on Fox Sports Ohio or MLB Network here.
Reds links and news
Luis Castillo set to pitch this week
Monday will be a day for Luis Castillo to throw a live session. Derek Johnson clarified that Castillo may pitch Friday depending on how the live session goes.
Mark Kolozsvary goes deep off of a Cy Young Award winner
In a B-game on the backfields on Saturday, prospect catcher Mark Kolozsvary went deep off of Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber. We got some video of the home run from the Reds, and I wrote a little bit about Kolozsvary and another Reds prospect over at RedsMinorLeagues.com this morning if that’s your kind of thing.
MLB Network adds more Reds games to their spring schedule
MLB Network updated their spring training baseball game schedule through the end of March yesterday and multiple Cincinnati Reds games were added. You can check them all out here so you don’t miss anything.
Final: Giants 9 – Reds 4
Cincinnati fell to 1-4-1 this spring with an 8-inning loss to San Francisco on Sunday afternoon in Goodyear.
The Highlights
Joey Votto went 2-3 with a double off of the center field wall and he scored a run. Alex Blandino went 2-2 and drove in a run. Eugenio Suárez went 1-3 with a double and a run scored. Tyler Naquin, Scott Heineman, Rocky Gale, and Dee Strange-Gordon all had a hit on the day.
On the mound Cionel Pérez tossed a hitless first inning with a walk and a strikeout. But Sean Dootlittle struggled in the 2nd, giving up 3 runs on 2 homers. Shane Carle was the only reliever to not give up a run in a game that featured eight Reds pitchers. Prospect Graham Ashcraft, who has never thrown above rookie-ball, hit 100 MPH on the day according to C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic.
You can see the entire box score for the game here.
In the field there was at least one highlight: Jose Garcia, who was playing second base at the time, made an outstanding diving stop on the other side of second base and gunned out the runner at first base from his knees.
NO WAY, JOSE!!! #RedsST ?? pic.twitter.com/naOqdgI0p9
— FOX Sports Cincinnati (@FOXSportsCincy) March 7, 2021
The play itself, of course, is impressive. But it’s impressive in two ways. First – the diving stop. He covered a lot of ground to get to the ball. Second – the throw he made from his knees, the arm strength shown there is just ridiculous.
The Next Game
The Reds will play on Monday at 3:10pm ET against the Colorado Rockies. Tejay Antone gets the start. Radio broadcast only.
Nice, turned on the game and got to see something I have not seen with this team for quite a while……a sacrifice fly! Remember guys, you have to score to win, RBI’s are good!
Just took a peak and well 3 hits,1 in the infield in 5 innings with almost all the starters playing is well not so good.Yeah I know its spring but gee come on guys.
Three weeks plus to go to get the offense in gear.
When I was a kid, I collected tropical fish. There was a large store in Loveland that sold tropical fish wholesale. This was about 60 years ago, but they had a Parahna and 3 or 4 guppies in a tank for his future meals. I always felt sorry for the guppies. I know this is only a spring training game, but the reds appear to be the guppies.
Wow! A guppy revolt!
i say start Garcia at short. we are only going to score a couple of runs a game anyway, with him or without him so you might as well have an entertaining player out there. the reds have to find a way to get to the 30% capacity somehow and it wont be from an over powering offense. i would pay to see this kid play short stop though
I think the issue with that plan is that you have to then worry about developing his bat when he’s just completely overmatched. Sometimes that can help a guy figure it out quicker. But sometimes it’s also just a complete confidence killer and guys never figure it out.
Very impressive play from Garcia.
That Garcia play reminded me of Brandon Phillips, who I believe also began his career as a SS. Not that I’m suggesting that Garcia move to 2B, but he’s got the chops to play either position and apparently excel, just like BP.
Now if only he could learn to hit like prime BP….
Play Garcia. Play him everyday. His bat will catch up
I have no problem letting Garcia figure out his bat at the major league level…IF….IF….the defense at short turns out to kill the Reds and the pitchers are overly taxed because Blandino, Farmer, Strange-Gordon…can’t field and throw well enough. But…if they are going to platoon him or something then just leave him in AAA or whatever playing every day. When he gets called up at some point because of injury or trade…let him keep playing regularly. If I was going to upset the apple cart of rosters…I’d look real hard at Bedrosian. I think the Reds know what they’re getting on defense already…Farmer may be good enough…but the pen…the pen has to not only be ok… it has to surprise if the Reds are going places. A guy like Doolittle has to have a career rebirth…a guy like DeLeon has to not walk people…Sims can’t regress…Antone has to be what we suspect he might be…Perez has to be better than his baseball card…Hoffman and Ramirez have to be better than Robert Stephenson was…and Miley has to pitch more like Lance Lynn than DeScalafani…not to mention continued consistencey from Gray, Castillo, and Mahle.
I say start Farmer at SS. I think he’s capable of being a good SS and he is bashing the ball. I know it’s early in ST, but he looks ready and focused. Give him a chance at least to own the position and see what he can do on an everyday basis.
Garcia needs to work on his hitting. Do we need another automatic out in the order?
Tomn: No, not without a DH in the lineup this season.
Aquino,1 out and bases juiced, gets rung up looking on a fastball right down the middle. That can’t happen to a guy who’s MO is supposedly a heater destroyer. He’s a 4-5 outfielder at best.
I personally wouldn’t mind Garcia starting at SS and India at 2nd base. Moose needs to get it together I have not seen an impressive AB yet from him yet in any of the spring games, I get it that’s it’s spring though but he didn’t hit very well last season either.
He posted an above-average OPS last season.
Inclined to agree w/ Doug’s statement above about the risk of ultimately killing Garcia’s development by putting him out there over-matched every day. Last season was not a huge sample size, but he sure didn’t look like he was anywhere near ready.
The hype for him was based on about a week and half of torrid spring training AB’s last March, which means he was mostly mashing minor league type stuff. Of course that is what you want to see and also why you don’t make too many roster decisions based on ST.
If it’s really going be a lost year (i.e. not meaningfully trying to compete for a playoff spot), and if he is able to learn on the fly, then sure, ok, let him play. Depends on the team goals.
Agree and add Senzel to that list. He seems to become very frustrated at times? Think Bell needs to watch him closely and give him days off as needed.
I have stated many times to just let Garcia play,alluding to the Reds constant anointing of players as the second coming and then throwing them under the bus almost within two or three months.What is more concerning is the fact they wait until a player is 24 or 25 years old before doing what I just said.They then struggle to be consistent and you look up and they are out of options or they are now 28 or 29 years old and guess what we don’t even know if they can or can’t still.Even if they can they are approaching 30 years of age.Reds are notorius for holding on to good players too long and holding on to prospects too long before giving them a legit chance.Both are a train wreck in trying to insure you can compete on a yearly basis.I can agree that in Garcia’s 60 or so at bats last year he did sometimes look overmatched but if what he does on offense makes that big a difference in our overall record then we are in trouble and will stay that way.I can appreciate the argument on service time and minor league stats but we are a losing franchise and have been for what 15 or so off the last 20 years.Heck I am on board with Rednat and would rather watch Garcia,India and Stephensen play.
Who is the prospect(s) that the Reds have waited too long on before giving them a legit shot? The only one I can really think of is Todd Frazier, and that was a full decade and a year ago.
Senzel will be 26 in June and has 94 career at bats.Winker will be 28 in August and has 900 career at bats.India is now 24 and hasn’t even appeared in the big leagues and Stephensen the catcher is 25.Ervin never appeared in the big leagues until he was 26 years old and Aquino has been in the organization since he was 17 and I believe he is now 27 and got 2 months of playing time in 2019.Other then Wink these guys haven’t even got a cup of coffee and won’t anytime soon.Meanwhile Joey,Moose,Tucker along with Eugenio are right at 30 or older so we have a roster full of older players in decline and older prospects we don’t know about.
Nick Senzel has 492 career plate appearances, not 94 at-bats. And his total numbers, much like Winker’s, are more due to the fact that both guys have been oft-injured (and then the situation last year of a 60-game season).
Senzel, for example, probably winds up in Cincinnati in 2018 as a 23-year-old…. except he got injured in June and missed the rest of the year. Then in 2019 he was injured in spring training and didn’t take the field until the 4th week of the regular season, and was in the big leagues a week later. But he then also missed the final month of the regular season. And then last year he only played half of the season after testing positive.
Winker was called up as a 23-year-old and has never gone back down. He missed significant time in 2018 with injury. Then in 2019 he missed the final seven weeks of the season with an injury. And of course, last year was just a 60-game season.
Those two are bad examples if you ask me. Both of those guys have “limited” plate appearances for their age because of injuries, not because the Reds held them down for too long.
Senzel has 445 ML at bats.
Hi Roger, do you care to share any examples? Only one I can think of is Frazier? Most prospects are not ready until their mid 20’s…only the elite ones are called up 20-21 years old.
Uh Winker and Senzel are two great examples Roger is pointing out.
Doug has a very reasonable answer regarding Senzel and Winker. I think Roger is off base with those two in particular.
Also… let’s be honest. When people think about 21 year olds playing, they are talking about wanting guys to be like Acuna Jr or Tatis Jr. Clearly what the Reds need to do is exploit the market in “juniors.”
The Reds also started Mike Leake with ZERO minor league innings, so there’s that on the other side.
My mistake on Senzel’s at bats.I was looking at some fantasy numbers.Doug is correct in that both have missed at bats because of injuries.I am also wrong in that Winker got called up at age 23 and as Doug said Senzel probably would have been called up at age 23 also but wasn’t called up because of injury until age 24.So to correct myself,Winker did make it up at age 23 while the other 4 players I mentioned are 24 or older.None other then Wink have got more then a cup of coffee but Senzel would have if he hadn’t been injured.I stand corrected on my two bad examples .Just should have stuck with the other 4 examples and not referenced the two guys that actually do play some.