The Cincinnati Reds will face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers this afternoon with the winner taking the series after the two teams split the first two games. First pitch is set for 1:10pm. The game is available nationwide on TBS – with no blackout restrictions (as well as Bally Sports Ohio).
Starting Lineups
Los Angeles Dodgers
|
Cincinnati Reds
|
| Mookie Betts – RF | Jonathan India – 2B |
| Trea Turner – 2B | Kyle Farmer – SS |
| Justin Turner – 3B | Nick Castellanos – RF |
| Albert Pujols – 1B | Tyler Stephenson – 1B |
| Corey Seager – SS | Eugenio Suárez – 3B |
| Will Smith – C | Aristides Aquino – LF |
| Chris Taylor – CF | Jose Barrero – CF |
| Gavin Lux – LF | Tucker Barnhart – C |
| Clayton Kershaw – SP | Wade Miley – SP |
Starting Pitchers
Wade Miley
It’s been a very good season for Wade Miley, but he’s struggled in two of his last three starts – though he sandwiched an 8-strikeout outing against Chicago in the middle.
Teams haven’t started many lefties against Miley this year and for good reason, too. Even the ones who are deemed good enough to face him have hit just .195/.246/.246 against him on the year in 127 trips to the plate. Righties have had more success. They’ve managed to hit .272/.331/.423 on the year in 545 plate appearances against him. He’s given up a .749 OPS at home (.662 on the road) to go with a 2.87 ERA (3.30 on the road).
Pitch usage from 2021
| 4-Seam | Cutter | Curve | Slider | Change | |
| Velo | 89.7 | 85.3 | 74.9 | 79.0 | 81.6 |
| Usage | 17% | 48% | 4% | 4% | 26% |
Clayton Kershaw
It’s probably not even arguable that Kershaw is the best pitcher of this generation. He’s got a 2.47 ERA in his 14-year career with the Dodgers. He’s having his worst season since his rookie year back in 2008 when he was 20-years-old, and is still dominant for the most part. His ERA this season is 3.33 in 110.2 innings where he’s walked just 20 batters and struck out 132.
Left-handed hitters have next to no shot of success against Kershaw. In 122 plate appearances this year against him they have hit .164/.205/.207 with just three extra-base hits. Right-handed hitters have had more success, hitting .236/.277/.421 against him with 30 extra-base hits. Kershaw has interesting home and road splits. His OPS is just 5 points apart at home versus the road and he’s given up more than twice as many homers at home than the road. But his ERA on the road is 4.10 and at home it’s just 2.74.
Pitch usage from 2021
| 4-Seam | Slider | Change | Curve | |
| Velo | 90.7 | 87.2 | 87.2 | 74.3 |
| Usage | 38% | 48% | 1% | 14% |
When and Where
- Game time: 1:10pm ET
- Where: Great American Ball Park
- Watch: Bally Sports Ohio, MLB.tv, TBS
- Listen: 700 WLW AM (Cincinnati area)
- Forecast: 84°, partly cloudy, 0% chance of rain
Notes Worth Noting
Jose Barrero is getting his first start of his career in center.
NL Central Standings
Playoff odds via Fangraphs
| Team | W | L | GB | Playoff % |
| Brewers | 91 | 57 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Cardinals | 78 | 69 | 12.5 | 58.4% |
| Reds | 77 | 72 | 14.5 | 21.9% |
| Cubs | 66 | 83 | 25.5 | 0.0% |
| Pirates | 56 | 92 | 35.0 | 0.0% |
I usually complain about the lineups, but today I’ll applaud.
Glad to see Joey getting a day off and TySteve playing first.
Glad to see Suarez playing third instead of Moose (wish it happened a day earlier).
Glad to see Barerro in CF instead of DeShields.
TBS seems to be getting the Jump on the wild card game here. Lineup looks…. interesting. if kershaw is on a PC as claimed, Lineup allows for moves to be made if they switch to a righty
Lineup is a step in the right direction. Rather see Suarez on the bench, Farmer at 3rd with Barrero at SS. Lopez has a .375 BA against LH’ers, though small sample. Put him in LF and AA in CF. Geno is hitting .154 against LH’ers.
No Votto..hmmm. I get sitting him against a LHP but then you have LHB Tucker catching so it makes no sense. You are taking Votto’s bat out of the lineup for Tucker? Play Asdrubal at 1B then and catch Tyler at C. More awful lineup construction by this team. At this point I have no idea if it is Bell or Krall. Either way its awful.
Tucker is hitting .265 against LH’ers this year and .263 against RH’ers. JV is hitting is hitting .213 and is older and has about 100 more PAs than TB. And he’s older. Give the guy time off against a LH’er.and hope refreshing him helps close out the season. Though 3 games behind in the loss column with 13 to play isn’t promising, especially with no more games against the Cards.
Yep, aside from winning their own games, the Reds hopes are pretty much in the hands of the Brewers who play 7 with the Cardinals
LDS was kind enough to not point out how well your choice for first base is hitting.
Stephenson is .276 against LH’ers and .281 against RH’ers. Still the right choice.
I meant Cabrera.
Does Cabrera even have a hit as a Red?
No. An RBI, but no hit.
I’m okay with the lineup (not that my voice matters). It’s going to take some magic by the team and an off-day from Kershaw. It’s all possible. Stealing this one from the Trolley Dodgers would be particularly sweet. They have their spot guaranteed and, while they’d prefer to avoid #163, you can’t think it really “scares” them at all. We’re still on the outside looking in at those Dirty Birds for now. But the door isn’t locked. We can engineer something and it could start today.
I wonder if David Bell had to run his line up past Barry Larkin who it would seem has the owner’s ear.
Larkin is making the pre-game point about communication in and from our CF’er of the day. I agree he is athletic enough to do it … but let’s hope we don’t see anything like what sidelined Naquin as a result.
Or Senzel
At least Bell is doing something different, alibi to late.
I’m sorry but it’s insane that the Reds are going to play their shortstop of the future in center field where he’s basically never played instead of moving Kyle Farmer.
The future lies ahead.
I agree it’s a dumb move but just the other day Winker decides himself he is ready to play and gets injured. No one apparently said no, not sure if this is related to the guy who drove him up getting fired.
It’s like when Krall said that Senzel “deemed himself healthy”
So they are consistent at least
Barnhart is Miley Personal catcher
Only way to get RS bat in
Lineup is sit votto or anger Miley or put stephenson in a position hes never played like LF
Basically, that’s the case. It does give JV a little break, so that’s a positive thing given Kershaw is on the bump.
Late comment.
Barney as personal catcher not making much difference this month
The future lies ahead.
Kind of look like the ball caught in Geno’s glove a bit. Nice grab by RoY.
Sadak was saying Kershaw is limited to 75 pitches or 5 innings. That might be a good thing for us.
Somebody should have convinced Kershaw this is actually a playoff game … then he might have choked.
At least Nick put some wood on it.
How in the world could the base ump call interference on RoY given where he was when he got forearm checked???
Good thing they corrected that.
From Will Smith … at least it’s a solo HR. But we’d better start getting these guys out.
Miley is fooling nobody, reminds of other years where by September he was getting rocked.
It’s games like this where the FO will decide NOT to select his option and will let him walk away.
I’d like to see that happen but I very much doubt it will be so. Let’s not forget he is connected and 77 wins are the most since 2013.
I’m done. It’s been a fun season, but this is too painful to watch. Y’all are the very best fans to watch these with, even when we’re getting murdered.
Got both the benglas and reds on tv next to each other at BWW. just saw the two HR. not the reds day
No, it appears it is not.
No, but the bengals have a chance so ill stay and watch
This game may be over, 8 straight series. What a slide.
An avalanche
Dodgers and Bears scoring at roughly the same pace.
What are the chances the Reds don’t score today? I would say better than 50%. When thinking about it being a Reds fan is hard, but some of us just hang in there.
I’m still a fan … just not a fan who will be making a trip to Cincy next week to attend a couple of games. I’ll put that off until next year when we get a reset.
DH or no DH
Reds going to have to make difficult decision this offseason to move on from (1) of Suarez or Moose.
Looking at Moose age and largeness- if there is a labor stoppage in 2022 – his contract at least ends after 2023.
Labor stoppage in 2022 would help reds on shogo/ moose contracts
Truth
Moose looking to be in the shape middle-age church league softball player should be the icon of this miserable end to what at times was a fun season.
At least with Moustakas, he can play multiple positions. And you may bet on him getting healthier from his injury, which he obviously is not recovered from, and getting into better shape over the offseason. Thus, may improve his numbers. Suarez just seems to have lost it.
Moose used to have positional flexibility. I dont think hes anything but a first baseman and DH
Suarez at 3b
Votto 1b
Moose DH
That would continue heinous roster construction and older slower poor defenders in 2022. Time to change that
I hate to see this happen. The entire season is going to be diminished be the nightmare of the last 24 games – 8 and 16.
Reds playing best team in baseball IMO since Scherzer and Turner
Cant really take too much out of this series except senzel/winker/ Naquin out for the year with moose and Suarez both OPS under .675- might be too much to overcome last 2 weeks
Even though there are many to blame for this embarrassment I don’t see how Bell can survive. This is a business and somebody has to take the blame and in this case it is Bell. He is not a good manager and after today he should have 12 games left. Thank God.
Ok so it’s Bells fault that moneybags Bob had a huge off season spree in which he signed Doolittle to the only ml contract.
It’s Bells fault in 15 years of moneybags Bob ownership they’ve had 4 season of over .500 baseball
the 77 wins this year is the most since 2013 but that’s Bells fault
People need to open their eyes and stop feeding Moneybags Bob money
@burt
I agree ownership stinks. Part of why they stink is that they think Bell is manager material and haven’t fired him and may extend him. That stinks too
Yeah, I thought it was really dumb that Bell let Scherzer pitch for the Dodgers yesterday. Lots of things factor into this slide, so picking one person to blame is worse than pointless. There’s a fair chance that the Reds will finish the season exceeding expectations, and that should be the basis for evaluating the manager.
You can’t say he is a good manager when they win, but not when they lose, its not his responsibility. He does have goofy lineup construction, and has more to do with roster the I think we know. He makes terrible in game decisions, and will always play veterans, good or not, over young players, and when he does play young players, good or not, he will always do L/R hitting. His in game decisions are inconsistent to say the least and he never has good reasons, except…”we have to get him going”, or ” he has been good for us all year”, whether they have been or not….just the opinion who has watched games for 45 years, good and bad teams and good an bad managers…
And, of course, that isn’t what I say. What I do say is that the manager has far less influence upon wins and losses than the players do. This team has some good players and played well for part of the season, but it also has serious weaknesses, and people are dreaming if they believe the manager can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse: the season is too long and the competition too good. I think Bell screwed up by leaving Hoffman in today, but the odds were already against them: late in the game, two runs down and the Dodgers’ bullpen to face. Fire Bell and keep the same players, and we’ll still be disappointed.
Putting front office mistakes aside, Bell has also made a lot of mistakes. I don’t keep a ledger, but I estimate his +/- this year has to be around -10 games. Meaning his decisions have cost the Reds around 10 games net this year.
Now, I don’t know who could have done a better job – I don’t study these things, although other possible managers names have been mentioned on this site before – but there has to be a better option than David Bell. His handling of the bullpen this year has been questionable, as has been his lineup constructions, and his in-game substitutions (there have been too many games where he’s used up his bench too quickly and is caught short-handed).
Consecutive bad starts by Miley? The prospects for post season are dimming rapidly. Let’s hope Bell isn’t back. And that the FO moves Suarez, and others this off season. Otherwise, next year is going to another let down.
Good thing he has that personal catcher…
Just tuning in and seeing that the game is essentially lost already, my minds starts to wander:
Has there ever been a situation where an MLB team lost 8 straight 3 game series by winning precisely one game in each series?
That would be something.
My son and I had that discussion last night. I don’t know, but it is a very odd happening. It is really hard to believe that this has occurred.
I don’t know if this has happened or not.
What seems just as rare as the win one, lose two combination is how many times do you see 8 consecutive three game series? How is it that there’s not a 2 or 4 game set somewhere in the mix?
I believe the series with St. Louis or someone had a rainout.
Reds have scored 2 runs in the last 31 innings. There is just not very much offense with the current lineups.
Right now I can’t decide who is worse at the plate Suarez or Moose. Lets just say they are both bad and leave it at that.
Injuries aside. I think everyone agrees major roster reconstruction is in order
More bullpen assets including lefties
More speed
More defense
More players under 30 less players over 30
Good to see Santillan facing the dodgers.
I can’t argue with what the Reds need the issue is the worst ownership and front office in mlb isn’t interested
As bad as the Reds have fell a part the Pads have been much worse, down 3-0 in first all ready. Starter out with injury, Tatis dropped a fly ball that really hurt.
Now 5-0, leaving the Reds 4 GB in the loss column with 12 to play. Not a good place to be. The FO needs to make big changes in the offseason – flush the entire management staff to start.
I don’t even need to watch the game or check the score. I can tell by the comments here it’s not going well.
No one is happy. This from The Athletic:
“What’s wrong with the Padres?
Dennis Lin, Padres beat writer: The Padres began this season with World Series aspirations. Their flaws have since been laid bare at multiple levels of the organization. On Saturday, in one of their worst regular-season losses in years, their frustrations spilled over in a very public way.
Injuries have derailed the Padres, but it goes deeper than that. The team has been hamstrung by bad contracts, consistent underperformance, minimal help from the farm system, and what has felt like a lack of the kind of chemistry that bonds most contending teams. For a club that entered the year with such high expectations, this has been a massive organizational failure.”
It was 1865 and RE Lee had nothing left so he had to surrender. The Reds Civil War reenactor Miley never has anything left in September. The Reds need to move on. We’ve had plenty of Mr Mays around here in the last 30 years. We need Mr September and October. That’ll free up 10 mil
More money in ownerships pockets
It pains me to say it, but the Cards really do deserve to make the playoffs over the Reds. This Reds team has simply looked like a deflated balloon for most of September, while the Cards are playing with purpose and determination.
This is why they consistently win, and the Reds fall flat. The Cards know how to make that final push across the finish line, while the Reds simply run out of steam.
I agree they need to move on from Miley he has established a pattern of running out of gas and I would rather bring up some of the young pichers. Next year is going to be a long year anyway so lets get Greene and Lodolo ready for the major Leagues.
Cards have better players. Period
This is true. And without their best pitcher.
Even more, a better organization, top to bottom. “Winning” is the core belief and goal.
Lester and Happ over Mahle & Castillo? No adjective way. We won the season series for a reason, but the Reds choked. Not professional. Low baseball IQ. Statue can’t even move forward on a wild pitch? That cost us a game in Wrigley. Low motivation for whatever reason. Bell should pay the price
Losing mentality.A winning organization measures success where they end up. The losing core of players ALL need to go.
I saw an article somewhere suggesting that Castellini’s son was going to start calling the shots. Don’t know if it’s true or not. Anyone have any insight into the son’s inclinations? As for the remainder of the season, play the young guys everyday and let the chips fall where they may. The old guys, forget about them and move on.
The fact is they had chances to build a nice lead over the Cardinals and failed to do so. It all started with the Winker injury, but losing series to the Marlins, Cubs, Tigers, and Pirates is unacceptable. If you back to the last 10 series they have won 1 and lost 9 including 2 to the Cubs. I go back to the August 16 – 18 series at home against the Cubs who were really reeling at that time, as to when the trouble began, the Cubs took 2 of 3. The Reds rebounded to sweep the Marlins 4 in a row and nothing has gone right since losing 16 of 24 thus closing out their 2021 playoff chances.
Not to mention the fact that Bell seems unwilling to make adjustments and keeps rolling out very similar lineups, L/R handedness, etc. Injuries happen. Adjust. Stick someone new in the lineup and tell them the position is theirs to earn, e.g., AA. He fails to deliver, punt. Call up someone, etc. Didn’t happen in any real sense.
And everything the Reds have today has come from the young guys. I guess they don’t know they’re supposed to lose.
Presume Friedl is the CF at least vs RHP regardless. Beyond him, play Stephenson and Barrero almost every day. Let Farmer catch his breath, play some 3B/ LF. Just shut Moose down as he is obviously still hurt. Get Lopez up and him in the mix at 3B. They’ll win as many or more games as with the same old, same old plus get looks at the young guys under pressure (at least till the Cards salt the WC2 away).
Sounds good to me
Same here. Might as well see what they’ve got now.
For next season, they’ve got to get CF and SS nailed down, and have a reasonable backup plan in case of injury.
Bell should have used Votto there as the tying run. Most likely there their last chance and Stephenson has not looked good all day. The problem with Bell is he fails to realize the obvious. I will give them credit though today for not giving up. Miley is done.
I haven’t thought much of Freidl as a prospect, but certainly wish him well. Great day for him and hopefully a launch of a fire career. Is my memory correct – didn’t he do something like hit 3 home runs in his minor league debut?
Fine, not fire.
As long as it’s not a dumpster fire. Lol.
p.s. Friedl put a nice swing on that HR ball. Kept his head down.
Dodgers playing add on. Because against this bullpen, who wouldn’t want to pad their stats some more?
And interesting that -2 runs, Bell chose not to use any of his top line backend guys to take a run at the Dodgers in the 10th. Not saying necessarily bad but it does send a message.
Sad to see the season come down to another bullpen failure, and that failure started with a BB. That’s been the m.o. of this club all year long, sadly. It’s one of the reasons I’ll reserve judgement on the Boddy departure until more comes out. If there were something about the Boddy method that put so many pitchers on the IL and that resulted in so many walks, especially when counts were 1-2 or 0-2, then I’d be all for going a different direction.
I have to say that I can’t understand giving Hoffman such a long leash, not even having somebody up in the pen. Hoffman has good stuff and, apparently, command issues, and those issues manifested today. Leaving him in has reduced the chances of coming back in this game from slim to nearly zero. Maybe Bell and management have given up.
This 9th inning is a great example why Bell must be Fired. They cut the lead to 2, slight chance in bottom of 9th, and he pitches Hoffman, with Sims, Lorenzen and Givens available. Dodgers score 2, lucky not more. Slight chance gone, please,please only 12 more games of this clown show. What else can you say.
Jeff Hoffman.
The gift that keeps on giving
How did that guy get so many starting opportunities and pitching opportunities. Is there anyone back in May that said Hoffman deserved to pitch at the MLB level over Santillan?
Who in the Reds FO insisted on hoffman pitching at the mlb level over Santiilan and over Gutierrez?
Krall certainly but who was telling Krall Hoffman is a SP for the Reds and a roster guy all year?
Reds could have won this game x miley didnt show up and Hoffman pitched
The starter lost this game. Dump on Bell and Hoffman all you want but when Miley gives up 6 in 3 innings, this loss is on him, no one else.
September appears to have been a bridge too far for Miley. They can’t say there was no warning prior to today. Hunter Greene turned out not to be an option but perhaps Reiver Sanmartin (from AAA) was or maybe Santillan for 3 innings and take it from there.
True. And other than the 9th inning the bullpen has been pitching much better lately.
And, for a change, the Reds hit well enough to have won this game if not for Miley’s start.
If they can carry their hitting into tomorrow’s game, maybe they can make the rest of the season interesting.
Bell has 100 pitchers? Miley SUCKS in September. They called Sparky Anderson Captain Hook for a reason. They started sucking AND THEY WERE GONE. Grab some bench!!!
Reds scored 5 today. Reds scored 4 in 7 innings in that doubleheader loss to the Cards but Bell left in Miley to give up all 5. Bell thinks too much and needs to go. Professor Doubleswitch can’t see who’s hitting/pitching poorly and who isn’t. Ridiculous?
Somebody said the Cards are better. No they’re not. Happ and Lester are washed up scraps. Mikolas has been out all year. Their pen is thin. They have 3 good hitters. The Reds won the season series against them for a reason
The Reds will end up losing 6 games to the Cards in 8 games. 8 and 0 vs 2 and 6. That is one sad sad story. Well maybe this week Reds go 7 and 0 and Cards go 3 and 5 = 41/2 game pick up. Crazy thoughts like that are all that’s left. Almost ready to check out for this season, might stick around one or two more, but I am tired of this poorly run organization.
Nothing will change anytime soon
Moneybags Bob is making his money
Suarez not moving forward on that wild pitch in Wrigley. That was a key sign that Bell isn’t connected to whats going on. Even a Beavis/Butthead tatted up Millennial mouthbreather knows that you move up at McDonalds when the other mouthbreathers move forward. Suarez? I’ve never seen that at any level
Bell’s gotta go. You can’t fire all the underachievers
Even 57 year old dad bod Cabrera was in the process of moving up. Miguel Tejada got caught lying about his age, but Cabrera made up 22 years? I’m sure he’ll be back next year to go 0-62 as a Red. “We gotta get him going”
Votto did not get the boot for doing the same thing in the playoffs last year. It a Reds tradition !!!
Juts play the young guys the rest of the way.It will not make a difference and they may even beat the minor league Bucs and Cubs.Lopez,Barrero,Stephensen,India,Friedl along with Farmer/Shrock in left and Joey and Casty could win 7 or 8 games.I agree the Cards are not better.They play Molina,Nolan and Goldy and the rest are kids.Their starters are terrible.
Sosa, O’Neill, Carlson, Bader, Edman are pretty good “kids” . Probably better than our Red’s kids