The Milwaukee Brewers came out in front in a back-and-forth game against the Reds on Saturday evening in Cincinnati with a pinch-hit home run by Daniel Robinson in the 7th inning being the difference maker.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee Brewers (22-23) |
4 | 6 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (20-24) | 3 | 7 | 0 |
| W: Suter (3-2) L: Hembree (0-1) SV: Hader (10) |
|||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Offense
After the Brewers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the 3rd inning, the Reds got things back and then some in the bottom half. Scott Heineman crushed a 2-2 pitch into the Milwaukee bullpen to tie the game up. Two batters later it was Jesse Winker homering again – his 12th of the year – to put Cincinnati out front 2-1.
In the 6th inning both teams got on the board again. Milwaukee took a 3-2 lead in the top half In the bottom half Nick Castellanos doubled and scored on a single back up the middle by Tyler Stephenson to tie the game up.
The offense went quiet from there, with only a single by Jonathan India in the hit column in the 7th inning before striking out five times in the next two innings against Devin Williams and Josh Hader as the Brewers held on for a 4-3 win.
The Pitching
Sonny Gray went 1-2-3 in the 1st inning and he struck out the side in the 2nd inning. He struck out Jackie Bradley Jr. to start the 3rd inning, but then things went south. Luis Urias homered to give the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Gray then walked pitcher Brett Anderson and Lorenzo Cain. In both a good and scary scenario, he got Omar Narvaez to hit a comeback that struck Gray in the foot, but he recovered quickly and fired to second base where Kyle Farmer then fired over to first base to complete an inning-ending double play.
It turned out that Sonny Gray was fine and not effected by the the liner that attempted to take his leg off. But eventually the Brewers did get to him. In the 6th inning he loaded the bases with two walks that came after an Omar Narvaez double. Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a scorcher to first base and it got away from Alex Blandino, who then couldn’t find it and it allowed a second run to score on the play and gave Milwaukee a 3-2 lead. Gray rebounded to end the inning with his 8th strikeout of the day, but was going to need help from the offense to get back on the winning side of the scoreboard.
Heath Hembree took over to begin the 7th inning with the game tied up. It stayed that way for one entire pitch before it landed 405 feet away in center field mere inches from the glove of a leaping Scott Heineman. Hembree settled in after that, getting the Brewers 1-2-3, but the damage had been done. Sean Doolittle tossed a hitless 8th, keeping the score 4-3. He returned for the top of the 9th to strike out Christan Yelich before turning things over to Ryan Hendrix. He got a pop up to himself and a lazy fly to right to send the game to the bottom of the 9th and give the Reds one last chance.
Notes Worth Noting
Don’t fact check this, but the Bally Sports Ohio broadcast had the longest old school or new school conversation in the history of baseball game broadcasts. It got weird, folks.
A scary moment in the top of the 6th inning when home plate umpire Ron Kulpa took a fastball nearly directly off of the face mask on a cross up that grazed Tyler Stephenson’s glove before striking Kulpa. After he was checked on by both trainers, he was helped off of the field and replaced behind the plate.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers at Cincinnati Reds
Sunday May 23rd, 1:10pm
Freddy Peralta (4-1, 2.40) vs Luis Castillo (1-6, 7.44 ERA)
I just do not understand Bell
Tie game going into the 7th at home against a division rival after just getting swept and he brings in..*checks roster* Heath Hembree
Not Garrett. Not doolittle. Not sims or Antone. Tight, important game, and first man outta the pen is…Heath Hembree
So we are just pitching guys everyday now? The pen is bad, so this has to happen a lot unfortunately. The pen actually did pretty well today.
Prior to tonight, Antone and Doolittle had thrown twice in the past week; Garrett three times if you count the six (6) pitches from last night
Hardly overused.
Sims? Of the plus 7 ERA?
Hembree is better than doolittle. Today might be the first day Doolittle didnt allow a run.
Well, Garrett and Antone have not gotten the most work recently, especially compared to Hembree. But hey the pitchers gotta do the job
Tough 6th inning sank them unfortunately, that and as others mentioned in the game thread 4-5-6 in the batting order were black holes. Unfortunately with the injuries there isnt much to replace those guys right now, and as much as everyone might think no Votto and Moustakas would be a good thing it looks like the Reds could really use them. Maybe India higher in the order but he’s really only taking more walks compared to them.
Still almost won in spite off all that. (thumbs up emoji)
Right now, IMO, there are 3 just quality hitters in the Reds offense … batted 1-2-3 today, and the third is just finding his way … doing awesome at it, but still very young.
Suarez at 4th right now is insulting to everyone … the player, his teammates, fans … especially those paying to see him whiff a couple of times each game. Do something, anything different.
Win tomorrow, win a series … but their margin of error when other team has decent pitching feels really thin right now.
Are you including the 3 on the IL in Senzel, Votto and Moustakas or does your qualification “right now” exclude them?
Was thinking of only those currently available.
Tough loss
I dont understand why Saurez is hitting 4th. Put anybody in the 4th spot…at least there is some hope…that another reds player will do something. With Suarez you know he’s a dead out. Most likely strike out…but if he does not strikeout, grounds out or pops up. Why don’t Bell put him 7th or 8th. Are the Reds Management and upper Management that ignorant and dumb not to see that. Do they not have a brain? Why is it everybody here on Redlegnation can see this or that, have this insight and that insight, but Reds Management and Upper Management is completely blind to it! We all need to be in the clubhouse and especially in the Reds dugout, and point out different insights to the Reds management!
This franchise has built itself around Suarez. It’s why 3 Third Baseman are playing out of position, two of which are top 5 draft picks. Like it or not this franchise is all in on him. He’ll get as many chances as he wants until they either a) make up some injury to give him some time off and an excuse for a rehab assignment or B) let him tee off on some more mediocre or lesser competition.
I don’t care about the matchups. Naquin should be batting ahead of Saurez and he only had one PA today.
I had to turn it off. Larkin and that incessant “conversation” about what is old-school and what is new-school for three innings. Is he so bored already he can’t talk about the game? It isn’t like it was 14-0 and the game was boring. Stupid discussion that added nothing to the broadcast.
Larkin as a color commentator is easily the most disappointing thing about this team this year.
I actually think the Reds are going to DFA kyle farmer soon or Alex Blandino or both. They just need replacements.
They DFA ‘d Sal Ramano and Carson Fulmer aftwr they pitched them the most.
They just arent doing it with votto and moose and Senzel on the IL
Can’t wait for .230 Joey (I’lll retire when I can no longer compete) to return
I remember that speech as well. Obviously, he didn’t mean it. Really like to see some more roster moves. Blandino, Farmer, Heineman, et. al. aren’t going to change things one bit. As for pitching today, Garrett threw 6 pitches yesterday. Pretty sure he could have gone again.
So you want Votto to retire so we can see more guys like Blandino at 1B? I dont expect many to look deep into Vottos numbers, or any numbers really other than BA, but he’s clearly still producing compared to his replacements if you cared to look.
Say you want Votto to quit, then say the bench needs improving. Ridiculous.
Yep, I’d like to Votto retire and free up some money. And you are correct, I don’t care about the numbers behind the numbers, e.g. BABIP, barrel rates, EV, etc. Listened to that last year, “oh, the Reds are just unlucky”. No, they weren’t unlucky. They were just hitting into the shift too frequently or swinging for the fences and striking out. As for the players, I’d take Stephenson at 1st over Votto. Rodriguez over Blandino.
Arod over Blandino is fine with me.
Whos your back-up catcher if not Stephenson? Ignoring of course that it just feels like a waste of talent to remove him from catching, you’re essentially replacing Votto with likely an even worse hitter. And if its him getting playing time at first, the Reds are doing that.
to clarify what I mean – youre essentially replacing Votto on the roster with a Blandino type, which is basically what we have currently going on.
Votto’s going nowhere, y’all can gripe if you want I guess but it seems pointless when theres not a better solution pushing him out.
Votto had the 2nd highest OPS on the team last year behind Winker (and Casali who didn’t play as much). He’s clearly better than any backup they have. And in case you haven’t noticed, Reds aren’t exactly breaking out the pocketbook when they do cut payroll.
I know many here don’t think Joey is very good defensively…but we’ve seen quite a few misplays at first without him. While he isn’t hitting like he used to, he’s still dangerous and makes pitchers work.
I’ll take Joey anytime over Farmer and Blandino, come on. Get real.
I’m not suggesting Stephenson as a long term 1B solution although some “professional” commentators are suggesting that Stephenson is too tall to be a catcher. Regardless, though Votto has had a sensational career, his numbers have been declining progressively since 2017. He plays everyday because of his legacy not his performance. For the Reds to succeed they need to start looking forward instead of backwards. Organizationally, they are a long way from that.
The next catcher in line at Louisville is Taylor. From what I’ve seen of him, Farmer is the better #3 plus he provides the flexibility of playing virtually every where in the field. However, with an option left and LT 3 years service time, I could see him being sent down under team control, if/ when he does not figure in the SS situation.
And yeah, Blandino could be low hanging DFA fruit.
DFA if they need a roster spot, but he has options, right?
Who do they have better than those two to replace them?
Senzel, Moose and Votto.
As I recall Payton, Schrock, and Heineman are all 3 up plus Akiyama technically was the person activated when Votto when down.
So add Farmer and Blandino to Payton, Schrock and Heineman and that’s 5 guys for 3 spots by NLT mid June as far as we can tell .
And Aquino could be not that far behind. I think he will be the really telling move, especially if they hold at 13 pitchers. I believe 16 June is his earliest possible date but I’d look for them to hold back his rehab till they are absolutely sure he is ready then use the full term (3 weeks if we are back normal I think).
I don’t think the 10 day takes you off the 40 man count, I think you need to be on the 60 day IL to not count against the 40 man.
Well a win tomorrow and they are 7-5-3 in series competition. St. Louis is 6-6-2 going into this weekend. Just keep winning or splitting series and they should be fine. 500 wins the division.
Let’s hope they win it
When are the Reds ever going to address the issue of shortstop? Division rival Brewers addressed their’s. Meanwhile, Nick Krall continues to shuffle players around from Louisville.
Well— Adames line looks a lot like Suárez’s line, with fewer HR. But I guess he can field
The only issue the Reds are trying to fix is their losses from last year, which they’ve done by not hiring a new GM and ostensibly telling him to trim whatever payroll they can. If they were trying to win, half of this team would have been traded by now and you’d have an actual shortstop and a serious manager. They assume most Reds fans find the current roster tolerable to watch, the players familiar enough to root for so they’ll keep running the same kind of product out there until they’re convinced their losing revenue by actually losing games.
Maybe the plan is to address the shortstop situation with Garcia, when he’s ready. They made it clear by cutting payroll that they didn’t expect to be contenders this year. Looks like they were right.
Welp, let’s deal Castellanos, who’s a good bet to opt-out. He’s fielding better, so he marketable to both leagues and if he finishes this campaign like he’s started (age 29 season?), he’s going to get 4 years and $100MM. We can nab a top-100 prospect and change for him.
Deal Gray as well, once he shows he’s healthy and can pitch deep in to games.
Deal Moose if you can find a taker, but temper your expectations on the return you’ll get.
Hold Suarez and Castillo for now. No sense in selling low when we have plenty of control remaining.
Deal Barnhart if you’re blown away. Re-sign him if you’re not. Tyler Stephenson can get plenty of work at C and 1B. He may be the -1B of the future.
Deal Miley for whatever you can get.
Stretch out Antone with the intention of him being a full-go SP next year.
2022:
Castillo
Mahle
Antone
Lodolo
Greene
You’ll have to sign some bullpen guys.
Still have Winker, Naquin, Senzel, India, Stephenson, Suarez plus hopefully some MLB ready guys we can get from the fire sale.
You’ll probably want to fire Bell. He’s still pretty young, so maybe you give him a look with a younger roster, but I dunno. Color me unimpressed.
Of course, this is all assuming we don’t go on a big run. If we’re still hovering ~5 games below .500 at the Break, you execute this plan.
Not sure I’d re-sign Barnhart until I see what he’s done by season’s end
agreed, we arent sure if this is a mirage
I think you’d get a lot more for Castillo than Gray. I agree wait until he comes out of his funk, but even as is, many teams would salivate to get him. If were out by all star break I’d 100% move Castellanos, and Barnhart. Castillo and Gray I’d listen, but would not 100% move. The deal would need to be very good.
Change gears and don’t let this go by. Sell high on Castellanos and perhaps Gray and Barnhart. Build around Winker, India, Senzel, Stephenson, Antone, Castillo, Mahle, Greene and Lodolo.
“He may be the -1B of the future”
Why in the world would we teach him to catch for years in the minors to play him at first?
@2020ball I hear you. But we have no long-term solution at 1B or C. If we can re-sign Barnhart for a relatively cheap price, it may behoove us to move Stephenson to C. He has elite offensive potential. His bat will play at 1B and it might be harder to find an effective 1B from outside the org.
I’m confused, TS is the long-term answer at C. Whomever it is you think they’ll bring in instead of him, I promise you they can bring in a better 1B.
1B is one of the easiest positions to find replacement for, while catcher is likely the hardest. Why in the world would you make a good young catcher into a 1st baseman?
I don’t mind Stephenson to split time at 1B, but like 5 games at C to 1 game at 1B. Votto will need more time off over the next few years, and it keeps Stephenson’s bat in the lineup, as catchers are the most platooned position. It’s hard to squat 9 innings while getting beaned by 95 MPH balls everyday.
Give Shogo away. Not impressed with him at all. No arm, no power and a slap hitter that cant slap.
i think Bell needs to start getting a little more creative with the injury situation. our best Hitters are Winker, Castellanos, Stephenson, Naquin, Shogo, Barnhart. These 6 have to be in the lineup everyday until Votto and Moose get back in the lineup if we are to have any chance of winning.. maybe Bring Castellanos in to play 2b?. we are going to have to sacrifice some defense for more offense if we are going to win enough to stay in the hunt.
the second half schedule is very favorable for the reds but we can’t go on another major losing streak for the rest of the first half
Shogo? The dude is terrible.
Noah Syndergaard pitched 150 innings for the Mets at age 22. Hunter Greene will be 22 in August. Lodolo is 23 already. They’re about the only attractions for me for the rest of this season. I didn’t catch much of Garcia’s struggles last year so I’d like to see more of him too, but thats about it. They just don’t have the horses to hang around this year.
Hell they have Santillan and Gutierrez that they could bring up as well. Move Hoffman to the bullpen and let’s see what one of those guys has.
i had plans to attend the game with my wife today. once she realized Senzel was injured she elected not to go ( she has a crush on him). she has the only smart phone in the family and wouldn’t sell it to me for a million bucks. so, long story short, i decided to take my chances and buy tickets at the gabp box office. turns out you can buy paper tickets for an additional 5 bucks!!! they do accept cash as well interestingly enough. so if you are like me and don’t have a smart phone or if you just like having physical proof with a paper ticket that you were there , it is possible for a small fee
For the record, on Wednesday night I showed my vaccination card at the ticket window and got two paper tickets for 10 bucks apiece–no additional fees. Offer good on Mon-Thur games all season.
There’s not much offense can do when the 4, 5 & 6 spots go 0-12 w/6 SO + 5 LOB. Unfortunately, the line-up has lost just too much with Moose, Votto & Senzel all out at the same time. As long as they’re out, the key bats (Winker, Castellanos, Naquin, Stephenson & Barnhart) shall be in everyday regardless of match-ups. The bullpen continues to be a WIP, some names have already left (Bedrosian, Romano, Fulmer) some are very likely to remain in the minors (Deleon, Perez) and most of the rest, excluding Antone, are on a tightrope. On manager’s favor I’d say that Suarez, Castillo and Sims underperformances so far has been totally unexpected.
Pitching will be good enough but the hitters must hit.Just can’t set guys like Bell did yesterday regardless of matchups.If Naquin is part of the future let him hit against lefties.Went though this with Wink.I know Tucker needs a day hear and there and also know it was a day game after a night game but we are down 3 starters and Suarez hasn’t hit so we are really down 4.You can’t just script everything out and expect it to work out.Its a 5 inning game any way for the most part so then do the match up thing and double switch or whatever.Put the best you have out there to start and after they get a couple of bats then it’s the 5th or 6th then switch up
Sometimes you just have to pull first base out and throw it at the umpire. I actually think Bell is doing a better job than last year (still not great), but you can’t fire all of the players. Bell needs to be gone by July and replaced with someone from outside the organization. Of course the Reds don’t think this way, which is why they are perpetual basement dwellers. Maybe the first step needed is new ownership. The fans need to buy the team. This team needs accountability from top to bottom.
In todays lineup, they have finally dropped Suarez to sixth, behind Winker, Castellano, Naquin, Stevenson and Barnhart. I don’t like Schrock playing second instead of India, but otherwise I like the lineup.
The Reds have a t-ball manager, everyone gets to play. Probably hands out participation trophies at seasons end.
I think this is his best IL lineup yet, the order is great. I would also prefer India instead of Schrock, but it’s more about development than individual game performance.
I would prefer India getting over 400 at bats but I’ll take this lineup. India also needs to hit first so he sees a better selection of pitches. He gives great at bats and has speed that can be utilized with Winker and Castellanos behind him.
TJ Antone is quoted in the Cincinnati Enquirer this morning stating he does not want to be a starter, he’s having success in his current role and wants to stay a reliever. David Bell echoed the same sentiments so it’s time to close the book on Antone as a starter- at least for the 2021 season. It’s time for Tony Santillan.
Apparently he got the same talk that Chapman and Iglesias got. Dont understand it. Money wise he would make alot more in his career as a starter with his stuff , but oh well. Move on like you said.
I have not read the piece yet, but I will chime in and say that I heard the entire answer he gave, and he didn’t quite say that he didn’t want to be a starter. I am going to write about it and have it published in the next 24 hours or so – I just do not have time to get to it right now. That said, it does sound like the part about closing the Antone as a starter in 2021 book is about right.
So just 2021 Doug? He is still open for starting later on?
The closed part was more so not based on his choice as much as it was that he said no one had even talked to him about starting. If they didn’t even broach the subject with needing a spot start on Friday, it seems that they probably aren’t going to.