The September struggles for Wade Miley continued as the Dodgers put up six runs in just 3.0 innings against the lefty on the day as Los Angeles picked up an 8-5 win on Sunday and took the series against the Cincinnati Reds.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angele Dodgers (96-54) | 8 | 12 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (77-73) | 5 | 8 | 1 |
| W: Kershaw (10-7) L: Miley (12-7) |
|||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Offense
Clayton Kershaw held the Reds scoreless through the first three innings of the game. But in the 4th inning Nick Castellanos doubled and scored on a ground out by Tyler Stephenson to make it a 6-1 ballgame. Cincinnati didn’t get on the board again until the bottom of the 6th inning when TJ Friedl pinch hit for reliever Justin Wilson to lead off the inning and picked up his first hit, which was also his first home run of his career.
In an all-time good guy move, Mookie Betts signaled to the fan who caught the ball to throw it back and he would “take care of him”. The fan obliged and the next inning Betts took a signed bat out there for the fan.
Michael Diddle of Portsmouth, Ohio, caught the ball from TJ Friedl’s first MLB hit, a home run. Dodgers RF watched the ball, asked for it and told Diddle “I got you.” In the bottom of the 7th, Betts came back with a signed bat pic.twitter.com/wVT8kh9vNX
— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) September 19, 2021
With the bullpen keeping the Dodgers at six, the Cincinnati offense went back to it in the 8th and it was TJ Friedl getting things started again – this time with a 1-out single. He scored on the next play when Jonathan India doubled to make it 6-3. India then stole 3rd base and would score on a single by Nick Castellanos to make it 6-4.
In the 9th inning Joey Votto picked up his 31st homer of the year – a solo shot – but after the Dodgers padded their lead in the top of the inning it wasn’t enough as Cincinnati fell 8-5.
The Pitching
It was another tough outing for Wade Miley in September. After being the Reds best pitcher for the first five months of the season, his struggles in September continued as he gave up six runs in the first three innings before he was replaced.
With the score 6-0 the Reds bullpen did all that they could to keep the Dodgers off of the board for as long as they could. Tony Santillan threw 2.0 shutout innings, Justin Wilson tossed a shutout inning, Art Warren and Amir Garrett both tossed hitless innings as the Reds offense clawed their way back to make it a 6-4 game entering the 9th. But Jeff Hoffman ran into some struggles in the 9th as he gave up two runs on two hits, two walks, and a hit batter – making it 8-4.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates vs Cincinnati Reds
Monday September 20th, 6:40pm ET
Dillon Peters (1-2, 2.66 ERA) vs Vladimir Gutierrez (9-6, 4.25 ERA)
Good for Friedl. And great job all the way around getting the ball and rewarding the fan with a signed bat. Nice work by Mookie doing his part.
Miley “struggles” seems a bit of an understatement. They demolished him in the end. Great job by the pen holding the line for as long as they did.
Really can’t root for anybody in a Game #163 where the Trolley Dodgers and the Dirty Birds play. I’d be completely ambivalent and want neither of them to win. I’d be less unhappy with an LA win, though.
Maybe they should have changed his personal catcher to TS starting in September..
Bell’s presser reminds one of a politician conceding an election. It’s over. He knows it.
And he has no one to blame but himself. But I wonder if he’s self-aware enough to realize that.
Hmmm, over the last 30 days the Reds are ranked 27th out of 30 mlb teams in ops at 0.660. Little hard to lay all that on the manager but obviously some will. It’s a little hard to make chicken-salad out of something else. The hitting has been atrocious lately.
Hmmm, over the last 30 days the Reds are ranked 27th out of 30 mlb teams in ops at 0.660. Little hard to lay all that on the manager but obviously some will. It’s a little hard to make chicken salad out of something else. The hitting has been atrocious lately.
This trope is so utterly ridiculous. There’s a boatload of blame to go around, and Bell comes in third, behind the FO and a lot of the players.
In a lot of ways 2021 has been the worst season since I started following the team in 1970.
1. The Wild Card is gone.
2. We have been surpassed by the St. Louis Cardinals (the very last team I want to see win)
3. There is a real possibility this team finishes under .500 after being 12 games over in August. If there was another 3 weeks left in the season we would likely finish behind the Cubs.
4. Our MVP Candidate is as good as gone
5. Kyle Boddy’s comments about a “change in dirtection” is ominous.
6. As frustrating as David Bell has been at times, he is likely going to be replaced by Barry Larkin. Who has ZERO experience of running a Major League Baseball team. I also get the feeling he has been undermining David Bell with Bob Castellini.
Even if the Reds fell a little short this season, a month ago, I was at least optimistic with the direction of the franchise. That optimism has now faded.
The only hope we truly have now is if Bob Castellini sells the team. In my opinion, he is the worst owner in franchise history and that is saying a lot because the Reds have never have had a good owner.
I agree that if Bell is let go I’d want an experienced guy but how many experienced guys would want a job under the worst ownership and front office in mlb
I couldn’t agree with you more. Joe Girardi is the latest in proof of that statement. Once upon a time, I would guess throughout MLB, guys used to line up clamoring for the crack at managing this ballclub. But not now for sure. The Reds and Bengals are kind of running parallel with each other in that it’s difficult to attract free agents to Cincinnati for either team, and managers/coaches have exhibited the same hesitancies in taking the Reds or Bengals jobs. Regardless of what happens with this Reds shipwreck, I don’t think Barry Larkin is the man for the job either. Not no, but HELL NO. The Reds need someone with years and years of experience in getting things done HIS way. And that’s not referring to playing experience either.
+1,000
“ how many experienced guys would want a job under the worst ownership and front office in mlb”
Not many if even one
To make matters worse Patrick Wisdom of the Cubs has hit home run # 27, he is making a strong push at India for rookie of the year.
Marge wanted to win and did win. That’s good enough for me.
At least the Nippert family got out of the way and let Bob Houseman run the club…
I think you are correct, V4L. Today, for the first time, I had a weird feeling that Larkin will be named manager over the winter. This season was an opportunity for him to see the team up close in a non-threatening way. They won’t fire Bell, just move him upstairs. Everyone’s face is saved and Barry buys the Big Guy some more time and changes the conversation going into next year.
Moving Bell upstairs will be all kinds of disastrous.
More of the same
Castellini got to honor both g changes.
Mike Brown 2.0
*Castellini got to go, or nothing changes
And way to go, Friedl!
Rooted for that kid from day one!
Which, by the way, wasn’t his first at bat in pro ball a HR? With Dayton?
In my opinion, the Red’s ownership history is not without a number of good owners without which a ML franchise would no longer be in one MLB’s smaller cities and metro areas. Gary Herrmann, the well-liked owner from 1902 to 1927, developed an outstanding team that won the pennant and the 1919 World Series, known as the Black Sox series. In 1933, the Red’s owner, Sidney Weil, was on the verge of bankruptcy when the Central Trust Bank took over the Reds, and then in 1934, Powel Crosley, Jr. became the owner, for 27 years, until 1961. During that time the Reds won pennants in 1939, 1940, and 1961 with a World Series win in 1940. Crosley was instrumental in saving the Red’s franchise for Cincinnati in the late 1950’s when there was a lot of talk the franchise would move to NYC after the Giants and Dodgers departed for California.
Thank you for the historical perspective.
I am very worried about this new direction business too. Losing Boddy and the other guys who have already left is not good news for this team. I promise you that. I’m sincerely worried this team isn’t going to even finish at .500
Too many poor decisions made on the team and by the ownership group
Injuries have really hurt us this month a lot!
I just don’t this team has a direction that will lead to a winning atmosphere for the future of this team. I am praying I am wrong and If we have another joke of a winter this year like this past year. I’m done with the Reds. I’ll choose between the White Sox, Blue Jays or maybe Brewers since they are my home state team. At least those teams are trying to win each season recently.
This is the first offseason that I am actually not looking forward to and am in fact dreading. With what we’ve seen thus far (the departure of Dick Williams, Boddy, and the other guy this week), as well as no extensions yet for Bell or Johnson, the future looks murky at best. Then with Castellanos almost certainly departing, that leaves another hole to fill for 2022. Until Castellini sells, I don’t see much hope for the Reds to ever become what the Rays, Brewers, and Cardinals are on an annual basis.
Unless something happened in the clubhouse between players or between players and managers to sap morale, you have to really blame this on underperformance of the offense. All the guys we like to complain about (including Bell) did great for 5 months, getting to 12 games over .500 and a relatively weak schedule to finish. There really isn’t much Bell could do when the Reds collect maybe 5 or 6 hits and 1 or 3 runs. He could juggle the lineup, bench people, trot out youngsters, try more hit and runs, steals, etc. to try and make something happen, but really the batters have not come through. But I don’t think it would recapture the mojo we had going into the Sept. With Winker out, and without the Votto surge, there just wasn’t much to help Castellanos push runs across.
Be careful trying to talk Bob into selling the team…it may end up somewhere else, like Indianapolis or Dayton or further away.
The Boddy departure DOES sound ominous. Hard to imagine changing directions when it looked liked things were headed in the right way. Maybe money issues…that would coincide with Covid cutback and Williams departure.
“ Be careful trying to talk Bob into selling the team…it may end up somewhere else, like Indianapolis or Dayton or further away.”
Cincinnati was held hostage once my Mike Brown—i’m certain that if they had it to do over again they would have helped him pack his bags…
Blue collar roots of Cincinnati fans are such that a job worth doing is worth doing right. The Reds owners aren’t doing it right. That’s why fans are sick of it and at some point will lose interest even in this storied franchise.
That is the tragedy of the Castellini legacy
As someone pointed out the other day (not sure if it was on this site or Twitter), the Reds now have FOUR positions with platoons. C (Barnhart & Stephenson), 3B (Suarez & Moustakas), LF (Aquino & Schrock), and CF (Deshields & Barrero). When you consider that none of those players would be everyday players on a contending playoff team with the exception of the catchers, that’s a huge problem. Then you also have Farmer, who outside of his one excellent month is the same hitter he’s always been.
Well, it’s been a better season than I expected but the last month has been awful. I’m still trying to figure out why Bell did not bring Joey in in the 8th to pinch hit for TS with a runner on but then you let him hit in the 9th. Also, we are only 2 down going into the 9th and you don’t have anybody warming up if JH gets in trouble. We definitely have some players to build around but it’s going to be an interesting off-season for the Reds. It will be interesting to see if the Reds move on from I believe it is but we shall see.
The future with the young players the Reds have seem looks like it could be good. The issue is, IMO is if Bell is managing, and has the veterans at his disposal he will play them, to the detriment of the the young guys and their development. He has proven that is what he will do. Those players have to be taken away, or he will play them. If Moose and Suarez are there in 2022, he will play them, if TB is resigned he will play him as #1 and TS will be relegated to backup, is Farmer really a better SS, he has been fine this year, then Barrero. He has proven he will go down with the veteran ship and that will not help the on the field product move forward. Get rid of the “old” dead weight, and let the youth reign supreme. The athleticism will improve, the enthusiasm will improve, speed, etc, should all improve Even better, clean the FO and field management and go find someone from the Rays front office.
Agree 100%
“ The issue is, IMO is if Bell is managing, and has the veterans at his disposal he will play them, to the detriment of the the young guys and their development. He has proven that is what he will do. ”
The only caveat is whether or not Castellini dictates that he do it this way. That’s why Mr C needs to sell or nothing will change
I’ve heard this same criticism voiced about lots of managers–playing veterans over young players. It may be a blind spot that many managers have, and it may be because we, as fans, like shiny new things and over-estimate how ready young players are. I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that the Reds’ roster this year has not been loaded with reliable hitters. Third base has been largely terrible (no news there) but it is not clear at all that the solutions were on the roster, and the same with the bullpen.
Ok, this series loss was expected and to win 1 of 3 it was in the mid-goals. Now the Reds have to sweep the Pirates and Nationals as well as hope that STL loses most of the games to the Brewers. After that ,Maybe the Reds will be tied at 2nd NLWC spot or 1 game behind with one series left in the season. it would be dramatic…
Right now the current Reds team may be the worst team in this division, Cubs and Pirates are both playing better than the Reds. We will see what the next 12 games have to say, I hope they can win at least 5 to have a winning record, which when you list every thing that has happened, injuries, poor performance by people they were counting on, SUAREZ, and Bell’s strange decisions it isn’t as bad as it feels right now. It would be the first time since 2013 that they finished over .500 in a normal season.
You’re right at this point a successful season would be getting a winning record and hope the front office with their new direction has an actual plan in place instead of doing either nothing or half doing a certain direction. Either go with the youngsters or go out and get us the players we need to be a potential contender.
Have to go 10-2
LOL
With the Brewers losing today they now must beat the Cards 2 times in the 4 game series to clinch. If, and that is a big if, the Reds miraculously wake up they could sneak back into the race. They need to win at least 5 of 7 this weak really 6 and hope the Brewers take 3 of 4 from red hot Cardinals. I will add that the Cubs will play them tough next week end and won’t see Wainright. This is all not likely but just last Friday the Reds led St. Louis by 3. Things can change in a hurry. No I am not insane, just hoping for a miracle, not unusual for a Reds fan these days. Anybody but the Cardinals.
Reds going to fire Krall
David Bell will be on field link next 3 years to Phil Castellini- new president of baseball operations. buddy barry and others be special assts to phil castellini
Family business.
Write it down
If that is the case, and they continue to bring in, and play the retreads, the seasons will be the same result…. #letthekidsplay
I was the one who hinted at such an outcome a few days ago and now with Old-school’s more explicit statements, I think his prediction is the most likely outcome. Something has to be done and turning more control to his son would at least bring the appearance of some change and they are at least smart enough to realize that another former player with local ties is not the answer to replacing Bell. Krall follows Williams to the underside of the bus. Buddy, a rather horrendous manager himself (thrice fired, 1 winning record in 9) will be the top advisor to Phil Castellini who said after the 2020 season “The Red’s finances are a disaster.” Bell will work for cheap because this is his dream job and no other team would want him to manage. The new GM will have to work under a tight budget so all those youngsters will probably see better playing time. Expect a lot of deals as the “roster mix and key injuries” will be cited as the reason the Reds “came up short” on WC2.
What nauseating sentiments.
I hope they don’t happen
Does joey votto have trade value?
Yes he can reject all trades but if nick Castellanos chooses to leave why does joey votto want to spend his last 2 years in mlb with a team that wont win a world series?
With a universal DH and Votto having the 5 th highest OPS against righties- JV has trade value
Speaking of Casty. Interesting OF if/when he opts out. All spring training all we could talk about was how deep the OF was. Where is that now? Casty leaving leaves a huge hole. I think it is safe to say, there is no one on the current roster, or AAA to replace that production. OF FA are not that deep, and really are they going to spend for that…
I think in the past Toronto has been the only place there has been even a shimmer of thought Votto might be interested in someday; and, the foreign exchange rates/ taxation issues could pose significant issues there for both JV and the Blue Jays.
+500
What am I missing that is building the feeling that Larkin is going to be directly involved? I watch almost all of every game but little or none of the pregame or postgame pap. Frankly, with the excellent quality of the CBJ pre and post game, I wonder sometimes how Brian G. makes it through the baseball season. Consequently, I have the audio turned off and don’t always pay attention to the closed captioning.
I am not sure Barry, and the Bells would see eye to eye on roster and personnel decisions. He seems like the type that would say if you want my input then use what I say, otherwise leave me out of it..
I don’t know what the future holds. None of us do. But right now, at this moment, the Reds are THREE (3) games behind the Cardinals for the second WC spot, and tied with the Phillies, who have been on a roll. Just a half game behind the Reds and Phillies are the Padres. So, if the Reds are going to get this turned around, they need to do so NOW, while also fending off not just the Cardinals, but the Phillies and Padres to boot. That may be a bit much, in my opinion. We’ll see. Just not the same team they were a month ago, for various reasons.
For the Reds to have a chance at getting back into the WC, Bell has to do a 180 and put his trust in youth over experience. We saw that today in the near comeback.
The one spot I guess we all might wonder about what I just said is why didn’t Bell spot Votto for Stephenson as the potential tying run in the 8th. However, the fact Bell didn’t do this underlines his own sense that just maybe the time for youth to be served is at hand if they are to turn things around.
Maybe Friedl will go on a 2 week bump but then never do much again. Who knows either way; but, if he does, that bump just might be the spark to ignite enough in others to give them a shot they aren’t going to have if they just keep doing what hasn’t been working for 8 straight series.
Farmer has had what is a career year for him. He’s carried the team at times. However, he is tired and run down. Get Barrero more involved but spot Farmer as the LF versus LH pitching.
Barnhart has carved out a solid career as a journeyman catcher but the time has come for him to make way for Stephenson as the lead guy.
Moose is clearly playing with significant impairment from his foot/ heel ailment. Shut him down for the season. Get Lopez up. Use him in a mix with Saurez and perhaps Farmer at 3B.
Jim Walker for manager! I like everything you suggested. Let’s see what the young guys can do. We need a spark if we are to have any chance at all. And yes, Moose should not be on the field at all.
You’re making too much common sense, Jim. The Reds can’t use you. Sorry
Lol….logic does not play here…
I like Barnhart but I hope the Reds either decline the option or pick it up and trade him. If he is on the team next year, Bell will use him twice as much as Stephenson again. That can’t happen.
If Brewers were to beat up on the Cards, Reds still have a chance, but only if they toggle back to the first 5 months of play. Play the young-uns. Farmer may be exhausted but he still figures in what run production we’ve had. Bench Moose, and Suarez and Aquino.
Yes!
The Reds are 6-11 in September so far, good for a .352 winning percentage. For reference, the Pirates’ winning percentage for the season is .376.
I know this is too small of a sample size to mean much of anything, but just thought it was an interesting snapshot.
Look how well the Tigers have been playing lately. Another team that began rebuilding after the Reds and that looks to be a contender sooner rather than later.
The way the Cardinals are playing they may not lose much more than 3 games the rest of the season.
If I was a Dodgers fan I would be concerned facing Wainwright in a winner take all game.
Kinda feel bad for the Padres too.
Suppose, I will root for the Brewers in the post-season.
The Cardinals are playing very well, but things can change in a hurry. I am not saying they will just that they could. Phils losing tonight, more help for the birds, they have had a 9 day span where everything has gone their way, most of their own making, 8 straight wins. You just have to hope that things turn against them, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
A game at a time. I hope the Reds take the five remaining games with the Pirates seriously since they could decide the WC2.
Reds offense in the last 30 days is ranked 27th out of 30 mlb teams with an ops of 0.660. Hitting has been atrocious and we can’t blame all that on the manager. Cardinals players stepped up for the stretch run and Reds hitters shrank from the challenge.
Well, it felt like yet again another game where all the parts couldn’t align to pull out the win. The offense fought back and got back in the game, but ultimately fell short. The bullpen did well to give them a chance, but then allowed two extremely deflating runs after cutting the deficit to a manageable number. The starting pitching, which has been good most of the season has been spotty lately. Miley pitched his 3rd absolute stinker out of his last four outings. When it goes, it goes fast for him in a game, very similar to Arroyo.
Congrats to Friedl on his first hit/HR.