Hunter Greene grinded his way through a rough 1st inning before rebounding well, but the bullpen gave up three runs after he exited the game. The Reds offense rallied late, but they came up short against the Brewers in a 5-4 loss as they fell to 6-24 on the season and saw their 2-game winning streak snapped.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee Brewers (20-11) |
5 | 9 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (6-24) | 4 | 6 | 0 |
| W: Peralta (2-1) L: Greene (1-5) SV: Hader (12) |
|||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Offense
Mike Moustakas and Tyler Stephenson hit back-to-back doubles to begin the 2nd inning to put Cincinnati up 1-0. The Reds offense went quiet from there for a while, picking up just two hits over the next five innings. But in the bottom of the 8th inning they tried to get a rally going with one out. Brandon Drury and Tommy Pham walked and Moustakas singled up the middle to load the bases. After Tyler Stephenson struck out, Colin Moran walked on four pitches to make it a 5-2 game. A visit to the mound resulted in Devin Williams remaining in the game and that decision turned out to work against Craig Counsell as Tyler Naquin lined a double into the right field corner to bring in two runs and make it a 5-4 game. Kyle Farmer hit a soft liner up the middle, but Luis Urias dove and caught it to end the inning and strand two runners on, sending the game to the 9th.
The Pitching
The first inning of the game did not go quite as Hunter Greene had planned. The young right-handed pitcher walked three batters, but he escaped the inning without allowing a run. He did, however, throw 28 pitches in the inning. Greene settled in after that, though. He gave up a solo home run in the 4th inning, but he exited the game in the 6th with one out and a runner on after giving up an infield single. Tony Santillan came in to relieve Greene after his 100th pitch and immediately gave up an RBI double that put the Brewers up 2-1. He then hit and walked the next two batters to load the bases and that was the end of his night as David Bell came to the mound and called on Lucas Sums to try and get out of the jam. It didn’t quite work as Kolten Wong hit a sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 3-1. Kyle Farmer made an outstanding play to end the threat and help the Reds limit the damage. Sims came back out for the 7th and tossed a shutout inning.
Hunter Strickland took over in the 8th inning and after a strikeout to get the things started, he gave up three straight hits to bring in a run as Milwaukee made it 4-1. After a ground out, Willy Adames picked up an RBI infield single that made it 5-1. Art Warren tossed a shutout 9th inning to give Cincinnati one final shot, down 5-4.
Key Moment of the Game
Kyle Farmer’s soft line drive in the 8th inning with two men on and two outs being caught by a diving Luis Urias kept the game at 5-4 and ended the inning and ultimately led to the Brewers winning the game.
Notes Worth Noting
Afternoon game tomorrow and the series is up for grabs for the winner.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers vs Cincinnati Reds
Wednesday May 11th, 12:35pm ET
Adrian Houser (3-2, 3.42 ERA) vs. Vladimir Gutierrez (0-5, 8.86 ERA)
Very close win if not for Santillan and Strickland (this year’s Hembree) which by the way have been terrible so far. Four pitching spots must be cleared soon to allow the return of Minor, Lodolo and Wilson from IL, plus the 14th spot, so they may be part of the cuts.
Watching Reds now to see how the young guys are doing. Have been encouraged with Hunter. Red could have a decent starting five with Castillo, Mahle, Greene, Lodolo, and Overton. Of course the Reds have a lot of holes and no depth, but the optimist in me is looking for progress for a team we could have two years down the road. Maybe that includes trading guys like Mahle and Castillo but if that is the plan hope they do that this year.
Got to give an A for effort for the Reds not quitting. I just with Tony Sant and Hunter S would have pitched better, this is a game we could have won.
That’s true. And that will probably keep the Reds’ from having any extended winning streaks this season.
The horror show part of the season is over, but they still can’t keep a team close every night or have enough real offensive talent to overcome a lead.
Hader is overpowering and he can shut most teams down.
went to the game tonight. i am 0-4 so far this season (shucks) but this was the most competitive game so far. i observed a few things.
1. the brewers have a really good defense. that really made the difference in the game. Cain is a really good outfielder.
2. i find it interesting that on the double steal attempt, Pham did not swing to try to distract the catcher. that is a big difference i notice between 21st and 20th century baseball. hitters used to always swing on steal attempts to try to distract the catcher. now you rarely see it. it is almost like they are afraid to disturb the catcher.
3. i hate the dimensions and the surface at gabp. it is such a slow surface and there are no gaps at all. i always chuckle when people say gabp is a hitters ballpark. it is a home run ballpark, not a hitters ballpark. i say move the walls back 20 feet and go with that artificial grass surface. you want naquin’s double to go to the wall, then we would have likely had a tie ballgame. if the franchise is going younger, faster and cheaper, you want a ballpark that is accommodating to speed. not the national league version of yankee stadium for pete’s sake
4. i still think the reds are going to pass the 62 mets in the loss column this year but it is not for lack of trying. they are playing hard under Bell and not giving up. you have to give him credit for that.
I have long thought that the decision to make GABP so small and homer-friendly was a disastrous business mistake. A big ballpark blunts the advantage of big-market teams who have invested a lot in sluggers. However, my understanding is that due to engineering and structural issues that relate to the Ohio River, moving the outfield walls (there are no fences) back now would be very complicated and extremely expensive. I suppose that they could take out the first few rows of seats by raising the wall a few feet.
Putting in fake grass is a no-way, Jose thing for me. If they want to speed up the grass, they can do it by changing the grass mix or the fertilization or mowing patterns. They can adjust the grass’s speed week-by-week if need be.
I’m with you OBE on the natural grass…no way on turf.
Camden yards moved their wall back 30 feet, and raised it to 13 feet. It shouldn’t be that hard, just wipe out the first 4-5 rows in right field of GABP
They could wipe out the first 15 rows. It’s not like they are being used.
Interesting insight into GABP.
It’s almost Memorial Day which means stats start to no longer be small sample sizes. From a positional standpoint, Fangraphs has some interesting data in fWAR.
Reds SS position is 29th out of 30 @ -0.6
Reds 1b position is 28th out of 30 @ -1.0
Reds OF as a group is 27th out of 30 @-0.4. Thats brutal that collectively the Reds OF is below replacement.
DH 20th@ -0.2
Catching? 10th
2b 9th
3b 14th.
The Cards have a major issue at SS with Paul Dejong being just ahead of Skip Farmer as the 28th SS in fWAR in MLB and has a contract still for $40 million through 2025.
What did the Cardinals just do with Paul Dejong and his $40 million still owed? They optioned him to AAA.
Krall hasn’t done a bad job if you understand Bob and Phil told him last October to slash payroll to $110 million, to not even think of signing Castellanos and btw, slash future payroll for 2023 and 2024 before you start adding back 2022 payroll.
Who is missing Wade Miley? Who is missing Sonny Gray? Tucker?
How ‘bout Geno Suarez? Geno is hitting .209 and tied for 2nd in MLB with 41 K’s. Yeah, he hit a meaningless solo HR in the 9th inning of a loss over the weekend, and will hit 1 HR a week but then followed it with 0-3 with 3k’s. He’s old and slow and owed $35 mil thru 2024.
No thanks. The Mariners are 14-17 and 6.5 behind the angels and 5.5 behind the Astros already and have a 17% chance of making the playoffs per Fangraphs. Talk about excitement in Seattle.
Chase Petty, Brandon Williamson, Connor Phillips will add to the young pitching depth of Greene, Lodolo, Ashcraft,Abbott, Boyle, Roa, Bonnin etc. Not all will be impact pitchers in 2024, but there’s a nucleus there that can and with a cleared payroll- you can then add a proven #3/4 SP when the time comes and bullpen depth.
Drury is a decent bench piece. Moran is a decent lefty bench bat who can play twice a week- not 3b or every day.Pham is ok as a 1 year filler in LF.
Krall took a 2021 team that very close to contending and a lot of fun to watch and turned it into dumpster fire in 2022. We are terrible. The problem is his plan (whatever it is) doesn’t make sense. If we’re cutting payroll and building for 2024, then why add Minor and his 2022 salary?
I put the heavy majority of the blame on ownership, but I’m not giving Krall a pass.
Please refer to Old-school’s comment above. The trades Krall made are evidence of the plan that you say does not exist: Ownership isn’t willing to spend the money it would take to be competitive this year, so it seems obvious that the plan is to accumulate young talent and, hopefully, be competitive in the future. Might work, might not, but the established MLB players they might have traded for–given the spending limitations–wouldn’t have helped much now and not at all in the future.
If “it seems obvious that the plan is to accumulate young talent and, hopefully, be competitive in the future” then what’s the point of Minor (and his salary) being part of this team? I say “part of” very generously, as we haven’t seen him yet.
Again, I mostly agree with you here, and I put most of the blame on ownership. But I also don’t have a lot of faith in Krall, and he’s the guy in charge of building the team.
I think Minor is (at least theoretically) here to eat up innings, so we don’t have to overuse the young arms and risk injury. Which actually makes some sense, IMO…
What Dan said. It’s a one-year deal, right?
I was always fine with most of the moves made.
Moving Gray for a 2021 1st round pick was great. Gray always gave everything he had. Max effort, 5 inning guy. He’s 32, and his body was starting to fail him.
Suarez – great guy, but not great player. The occasional HR did not make up for all of the strikeouts, poor defense, and the multitude of runners he left on base. Free of the salary and the poor production.
Winker – Has a good hit tool, vs. righties. But they had to include something of value to get rid of Suarez. He started falling in love with the long ball too. Swinging so hard he’d fall down, or injure himself. I think the most games he played was 116? Defense not great either.
When they didn’t get Nick C back, that was the ignition to blow up the .500 team who’s ceiling was to be the 8 seed.
The only move that I really didn’t like was bringing in Mike Minor for 10 million. But they are only stuck with him for 1 year. Maybe they catch lightning in a bottle for 2 months when he returns and they can cash him in for a low level prospect.
They weren’t trying to compete this year folks. The filler guys they brought in (Moran/Pham) aren’t needle movers. You need to stop acting like they were trying to replace the guys that left with equal talent. Hopefully, they can get some answers on some of the young guys by the time they get payroll flexibility in 2024.
Agree. I like the talent they got for the players they traded away. As for Minor they got a guy who they hoped would do well and get a prospect for. Pham was needed because they had no outfielders and they might get a prospect for at deadline. Moran was a a million dollar signing. No buggy there. The record doesn’t bother me. The playing of a journeyman in Reynolds over Lopez bothers me. Let the kid play and see what he has got to offer. It’s time for tryouts.
Agreed. I don’t miss any of the guys they traded away. I would’ve been super mad to see Barnhart taking the majority of the at-bats at catcher. Whether they got value remains to be seen, but you have to be encouraged by the talent being stockpiled in the minors.
They are indeed missing Miley, Gray, Barnhart, Winker, Suarez. These were pieces that didn’t have to be traded or released. I get a kick out of the “war” stat what does that even mean. Oh, and a 17%chance of making playoffs on May 11th? Come on, Analytics to me is just silly and making the game boring
A better start for Hunter Greene, but I think he’s still got a lot of room to improve his mechanics to consistently locate his fastball, and reliability of his slider and change. But in a way that’s a good thing – he’s already so close with room to get a lot better.
Hunter Strickland needs to go – he should already have been optioned when Buck Farmer was sent to AAA. I’d say bringing him in was the key moment of the game. And Tony Santillan needs a little time in AAA to get back on track. I’m still really high on him long term, and still think he could be an effective starter, but he’s on the struggle bus right now.
I do like the Reds energy right now, and it seems that they’re sorting out the position players. And the roster will continue to get better, in some cases a lot better. Castillo will settle in. Lodolo will be back, and continue to improve. And I’m shocked to say it but Mike Minor could help the team too. Overton instead of Gutierrez and Sanmartin is an upgrade. And then they’ll get Votto back (and I’m confident he will turn it around) plus India, Senzel and eventually Barrero. They all make this a better team.
So I’m optimistic about the rest of the season. How about a series win against the Brewers? Go Reds!
Kyle Boddy on twitter last week was suggesting he would’ve liked to see Greene’s fastball usage be less in the minors but that was not the majority view in the org. To paraphrase, the offspeed stuff protects the fastball. For me, the sequencing and usages are off with Greene….and other Reds pitchers deemed to have good fastballs. How many times do we see fastballs called for multiple times consecutively in an at-bat? Like, I need someone to show me where it’s written in stone he can’t throw a changeup to a right handed batter the first time thru the order. How often do we not get a result on 2-2 counts? I’m afraid so much of the pitchers struggles are the usage patterns and sequencing, but you’ll never hear Welsh or Larkin point that out because then they’re biting the hand that feeds them. Much easier to blame struggles on inexperience or credit the other team.
Greene pitched well he got a standing ovation from most of the 4,000 fans in the stands.
Ouch. Has there been a breakdown on Tony S’s struggles? He was supposed to be a mainstay and potential closer and now he’s a liability? It’s doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Too bad I dropped out a little early, I guess. But the “cardiac event” that was our scoring didn’t end up as enough … again.
Better start by Greene. Wonder what is actual inning limit is.
I’ll have it on this afternoon in some way. The YouTube commentary makes Sadak look much better, so maybe on mute.
Just a friendly reminder for people over analyzing every single thing Hunter Greene does, Max Scherzer was sent back to the minors during his second major league season (He had allowed 34 runs in 42 innings). This doesn’t mean Greene will be a multiple CY winner or be a bust, just pointing out the fact that you can’t expect him to be Nolan Ryan a fourth of way through his first season.