A 90-minute delay preceded the game, there was a 35-minute delay during the game, and the St. Louis Cardinals scored 13 runs in a 13-4 drubbing of the Cincinnati Reds that saw the home team go through seven pitchers and a position player on the mound.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Louis Cardinals (75-54) | 13 | 14 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (50-77) | 4 | 7 | 1 |
| W: Stratton (7-4) L: Anderson (0-1) |
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| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Offense
Cincinnati had just two hits through the first four innings of the game and they were both singles. But in the 5th inning TJ Friedl led off with a home run as he continues to swing a hot bat. After a ground out from Nick Senzel, Stuart Fairchild homered and made it an 8-2 ballgame. Colin Moran walked to follow and Chuckie Robinson crushed his first big league home run to make it 8-4. Jonathan India came through with a single and extended his hitting streak to 12 games, but that was the final hit of the inning.
The Cardinals immediately got all four of those runs back in the top of the 6th and before the bottom of the inning could begin the skies opened up and it started pouring, leading to another rain delay in a 12-4 game. After about 35 minutes the game resumed, but the offense for Cincinnati didn’t as they managed just one hit – an infield single – and two walks the rest of the way.
The Pitching
Chase Anderson made his organizational debut after signing with the team last week. He looked good in the 1st inning, retiring the side in order with two strikeouts and a ground out. Anderson then began the 2nd inning by getting Nolan Arenado to ground out. But then the Cardinals figured it out and went homer, single, single, walk, double and grabbed a 3-0 lead before he was removed from the game and replaced by Ross Detwiler. He came on and gave up two straight hits to make it 6-0 before he got Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado out to end the inning.
It didn’t really get better after that for Detwilder as he allowed a 2-run homer to Albert Pujols on an 0-2 pitch to make it 8-0 for the Cardinals in the 3rd inning. Joel Kuhnel took over in the 4th inning and worked around a single for a shutout inning of work. Reiver Sanmartin took over for the 5th inning. The lefty had to work around an infield single but he held the score at 8-0. He returned for the 6th and walked the first batter then got a ground ball to Donovan Solano over at third but he threw the ball into the outfield. That led to Hunter Strickland coming into the game to face Paul Goldschmidt with two runners in scoring position and no outs, but he got a grounder to shortstop to hold the runners in place. It didn’t go as well against Nolan Arenado as he doubled in both runners and then scored on the next pitch when Tyler O’Neill hit a baseball to Scranton, Pennsylvania to make it 12-4. That was the final time the Cardinals scored in the inning.
After a rain delay it was Art Warren who came out of the bullpen for the Reds and he pitched a perfect inning with two strikeouts. Ian Gibaut then pitched the top of the 8th for Cincinnati and followed up Warren’s inning with a perfect one of his own that also featured two strikeouts. Alejo Lopez took over the game in the top of the 9th inning and after giving up a leadoff homer he retired the next three batters.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
St. Louis Cardinals vs Cincinnati Reds
Tuesday August 30th, 6:40pm ET
Daniel Hudson (7-6, 4.23 ERA) vs Justin Dunn (1-2, 5.12 ERA)
What truly amazes me is this. You have 3 rookie pitchers coming up. Who we have seen pitch. You have a solid 4 man rotation that could allow for great pitching depth for starting rotation. Instead you you trade 3 and waive 1. This is what you get. Lack of depth, and 2 rookies injured right now.
But hey where ya gonna go. Thank goodness football season is here.
And they were a last place before the trades… and next year too. Why not trade them for a bunch of guys with real upside to combine with your own young guys with real upside… and then have an actual chance to win something?
Sneaking into the last wildcard is of no interest to me.
Not last season.. this season After their terrible start they were a 500 ball club..
But hey we all have our opinions
How many of the players they picked up are playing well? A few?
i agree. as long suffering reds fan we deserved a competitive 2023. A starting rotation of Mahle, Castillo, Greene, Ladolo, Ashcraft would have given you a good shot to make the playoffs alone. the add a healthy Votto, Stephenson and India. Then maybe try to resign Solano and Drury. Then maybe add a veteran outfielder and reliever to the mix. Yeah 2023 could have been a very special year for the reds.
now we have to see if this “rays way” method works. Coin flip to me. Even if it does work it will be many years before we see the benefits. Will there still be any reds fans around?
Yes, Reds fans have been around since 1869 with the original Red Stockings, and they’ll continue to be. A revamp of the organization, from top to bottom, is needed in the offseason.
But they would have to pay Castillo,Mahle and others. This ownership doesn’t like to pay.
They had all those guys you mentioned this year. You like that huh?
You think there will be no injuries next year with that same cast…you know the ones that were 20-25 games under .500 BEFORE the trades.
Don’t look now but Stuart Fairchild has a .894 Ops as a Red! The kid has real power if he can make contact. Not asking for much here….just another Phillip Ervin that can help out vs lefties. Maybe?
… Another Phil Ervin? Well now the franchise is saved! haha
Lol)))
Well they have to find guys that can fill out roles. One by one
Ervin was actually more effective vs LH pitching than Winker was against RH pitching when they were paired as a very good platoon several years ago (2019??). Just Ervin’s misfortune and Winker’s good fortune that 70% of pitchers are RH.
If you didn’t see it (and how many did?) Fairchild got a leg hit in the 9th that I thought was just as important for him as the dinger.
In his previous AB, Arenado had robbed him on a smash (99.4EV; .450 xBA) he picked off moving into foul ground. In the 9th the ball was not struck as well (83.5EV; .090 xBA) but Arenado was deeper and further off the line. He fielded the ball easily and made a strong throw; but, Fairchild flat out beat the ball to the bag at 1B.
Fairchild’s night looked like this:
1s PA: 92.9EV, flyout xBA .090// 2nd PA: 107.6EV, HR xBA .300// 3rd PA: 99.4EV, GO xBA .450// 4th PA: 83.5EV, 1B xBA .090.
OPS Line OPB .500/ SLG 1.250/ OPS 1.750
All in all quite a night that will be lost in the team’s morass.
I’m surprised the xBA on the HR was only .300. I mean it was 107 mph at just about optimal launch angle. That pretty much guarantees it was out in basically every ballpark. I feel like the xBA was darn near 1.000 in that scenario.
@Luke, maybe it was a low topspin liner if they have ways of tracking that??
I saw Johnny Bench rip a ball off that removable inner wooden fence at Riverfront in the 1979 playoffs that only went for a single. I would not be surprised if the ball was literally never higher than when he hit it.
It smashed into the fence about halfway up and bounded right to the fielder. I think if he could have gotten to its path it was low enough to catch (unless it tore the glove off his hand).
From where I was sitting in the green level seats behind the Reds dugout, I could see that the fence was still quivering long after the ball was retrieved and back to the infield.
Watching Pujols he’s a lot like Tom Brady. No matter how much a rival or how much you don’t like him it doesn’t matter. They both have been so good for so long you can’t help but root for them. They’re amazing.
I can’t ever root for somebody who wore that blue helmet with yellow stripes on it at college and seems totally unrepentant about it all these years later. 😉
Jim speaks TRUTH.
I suddenly feel much closer to you. 😉
Nick senzel, 0 for 3 as the DH. Put him on the DL already and let’s get in with trying someone else the rest of the year. Any at bats they would give him need to go to Lopez.
Game Luke this makes me wish TJ zeuch was healthy. Hopefully we only have to suffer thru one more start Luke this before hunter is available.
Good for Chuckie getting his first MLB HR.
Fairchild is a bit of an anomaly to me … he’s got the dingers, but the rest of his hitting (or lack of same) is a mystery. But he’s only 12, so …
Friedl is playing with a great deal of intensity. I think he can be part of the mix somehow.
Onward to tonight (pending any more rain).
Fairchild’s full seasonal OPS and OPS+ has moved ahead of Senzel and Aquino. Limited to only his time with the Reds it is exceptional, .894/133, (BA is still right at .200 but he has taken enough walks to bump his OBP up to .294).
As the saying goes, his sample size is still small but he needs to be in the lineup at least 4-5 days a week to see what happens over the next month. Hopefully what we saw last night is the new trend with Fairchild the regular player ahead of Aquino with AA and Fraley paired as platoon partners.
All Fairchild’s 2022 MLB appearances before coming to the Reds did was add 11 negative PAs, including 5Ks to his OPS line.
Haven’t seen much comment on that Solano muff at 3rd in the 6th that really opened the flood gate. Cowboy said he was confused by the shift and blew a dp opportunity where it was badly needed. Game down drain after that!
This is how many games are going to go from here on end.
I’m afraid the Reds are going to battle with the Nationals and A’s for next season’s #1 draft pick.
One question I have is this with the pitching. . .
We have so much young talent on the mend right now. I thought that Boddy guy was supposed to come in and help us develop these guys. If his work is so good, why are we seeing so many young pitchers on the mend this season?
Boddy left the Reds organization last year.
So, does that mean he developed them and somebody else needed only a year to screw them up, or does it mean that he screwed them up with his high spin philosophy, then got the heck out of Dodge before the results of his technique began to show up?
@doc> I’d guess this would be the multi millions $$$ question. FWIW Boddy has seemed to make the parting as amicable as could be under the circumstances.
Doug and others have written that a number of people stepping into roles filled by Boddy seem to be essentially likeminded to Boddy. I get the feeling this “mutual” parting of the ways may have been significantly more a belt tightening by the Reds organization than a philosophical split.
T.J. Antone, for one, seemed to buy into what Boddy was teaching. In fact, as I seem to recall from an interview of TJ Antone (which I think was excerpted here), is that this was already something that Antone was working on, and Kyle Boddy just re-inforced that. Antone came across as a really smart guy, who had a pretty deep understanding of what he was trying to do on the mound.
Are the Reds young pitchers (minor leagues) all screwed up? I can’t judge. Making the jump from AAA (or sometimes AA) to the Majors is a big leap. Control, location of pitches, getting ahead in the count, being able to actually “finish” etc. Velocity alone (see Hunter Greene) is just not enough, although it might be in the Minors. Hunter Greene, by the way, actually had some crappy numbers at AAA level. I think he learned his slider up at the Major Leagues, and it is a killer pitch.
Somebody that looked great at AA or AAA (or even High A) might not make it to the Bigs and be successful. Kyle Boddy seemed to think that the Reds had a lot of talent at Low A and High A.
Having said that, a lot of guys who were great ML pitchers struggled the first year or two. Look at Greg Maddux numbers for the first couple of years with the Cubs. Johnny Cueto with the Reds.
I know the fans here want to see the Reds win, and it is more than frustrating to see them lose and get pummeled (like last night) by the Cardinals. Chase Anderson (like Dugger and Zeuch) was just some guy that they plugged in because they don’t want to promote anyone else from AAA. He’ll be waived after the season (I hope).
For David –
You talked a lot about making it. I’m not concerned about “making it”. I’m concerned about the number of injuries to the young pitching.
For David –
That doesn’t mean that Boddy’s ways/methods aren’t still here.
I understand the Cardinals have spent some $$, first for Goldschmidt and then Arenado, but I’m still amazed at how they seem to field a competitive team year after year. A lot of guys have passed through their system and play elsewhere but they seem to keep plugging in good enough players. And, last year they win 20 some in a row late in the season, and this August they pulled away again. Jealous.
Once upon a time, when Big Bob & Son first took over the Reds, it seemed as though the Cardinal organization was one they tried to emulate. Kind of deviated from that a little the last several years don’t you think? 🙂
Sure hope the Reds pitching injuries are just quirky bad luck and not systemic. Arms and elbows I understand, but the back issues seem new to me. I read, though, that the back is vulnerable to the twisting of the torso and then slamming of the front foot. Given the predominance of that injury this year, I hope someone deals with those mechanics.