The Chicago White Sox used a 5-run second inning off of Luke Weaver to grab a big lead early and held on for a 6-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Friday afternoon.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati Reds (2-3-1) |
4 | 6 | 0 |
| Chicago White Sox (4-3) |
6 | 10 | 1 |
| W: Cease L: Weaver SV: Peralta |
|||
| Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Highlights
The first inning went fine for Luke Weaver, but things got away from him in the 2nd inning and before it was over he had allowed five runs with the big blow coming on a 3-run homer by Andrew Vaughn. Tommy Eveld had to come on to record the final out of the 2nd.
Cincinnati’s offense went to work in the 3rd inning when Tyler Stephenson walked with one out and Wil Myers followed up with a single. That brought Jake Fraley to the plate and he unloaded on a 3-run homer to get the Reds back in the game and make it a 5-3 score.
Fall might be over but Jake is still gonna rake. @jfral_23 pic.twitter.com/G6wTdsqXAP
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) March 3, 2023
Brandon Williamson allowed a run in the 3rd, but tossed a shutout 4th inning to finish his day with three strikeouts in his 2.0 innings. Daniel Duarte, Hunter Strickland, Alex Young, and Jared Solomon all tossed a scoreless inning out of the bullpen to follow.
In the top of the 8th inning it was still 6-3, but Henry Ramos led off the inning with a double. He moved up to third on a ground out and then scored on a sacrifice fly by Christian Encarnacion-Strand. That made it 6-4, but that was all that the Reds would get on the day as they fell short of a comeback.
Wil Myers finished the day 2-3 with a run. Jake Fraley walked and hit the previously mentioned 3-run homer. TJ Hopkins, up from minor league camp on the day, went 1-1. Christian Encarnacion-Strand had a single prior to his sacrifice fly in the 8th. He’s hitting .625 so far.
Saturday’s Games
This weekend will see the Reds play split squad games each day. The Reds will play at home in Goodyear against the Kansas City Royals at 3:05pm ET with Connor Overton getting the start. An hour later, at 4:05pm ET, Cincinnati will begin their other game as they play against the Oakland Athletics in Las Vegas with Hunter Greene on the mound for the Reds. The game against Kansas City will be radio only and on 700 WLW. The game in Las Vegas against Oakland will be on Bally Sports Ohio.
Weaver was fine. Tough luck on his final 2 batters that led to 4 of the 5 runs
Williamson’s performance and the report he was at 94 today has me excited though
@BDH, I was reading on the game log your comments about Hopkins. I thinking they want to see what Pinder, Solak, Fairchild, and even what Senzel still has to offer. By midseason at the latest I expect that list of 4 mentioned above will be down to 1 or 2 remaining in the organization. After that happens, and Myers is traded, I bet Hopkins gets his shot.
I’d be really happy for him if that was the case. 9th round pick and lost a year to covid.
Fraley seems poised for a big year. Our OF is looking better with the addition of Myers and Benson. I know Myers might play a lot of 1B this year, but if feels like we got some depth at a position that we had none in last year.
I’m trying to temper my excitement for Williamson, but as @BDH said above I am excited. If we get another effective lefty into the rotation, that can shut down a lot of teams in a 3 game series.
And Andrew Young – very interesting career line – if they can regain something there it could solve a lot of bullpen issues.
I agree MBS. I like Fraley in Lf as a big time hitter against righties and I like Myers as an everyday RF.
Let Benson compete for the CF job
I like CES earlier rather than later at 1b.
Its looking like joey Votto and nick Senzel wont be on the Opening Day roster
Senzel hasnt run the bases or played live reps in the OF
Votto is further behind on live reps.
Im buying stock in Will Benson
Next question is who plays CF and LF against lefties? Reds play a ton of lefty starters the first few weeks
CES as Vottos early replacement would be exciting for the fans. Im not mad if they keep him ready in AAA too though.
If you had a choice for the Opening Day roster of CES or Jake Pinder, which would you choose?
Because Bell is going to choose Pinder. Just watch. Because he can play all over, and be less than mediocre doing it.
Putting it to a vote, I would guess most of us would vote for CES. Which just shows that we are not consumate baseball professionals.
Depends what spot i need covered, like you said they arent the same type of player. Im not taking an apple when i need an orange no matter how tasty the apple is. Newman McClain and maybe Senzel can cover multiple IF spots, so why have Pinder, then i might take CES.
I still think the prospects should still stay in AAA for 6-8 weeks and then let the callups begin. Too many of them have too few ABs vs. AAA level pitching. Get them all 100-150 ABs and start calling them up.
As for the OF – since it appears to be a 5-man platoon, please stay young, except for Myers, unless he’s at 1b. Benson, and the 3 Fs, and then maybe Solak – Newman is OK simply as the MLB SS, until June. Other than Joey, nobody else over 30 years old.
“I still think the prospects should still stay in AAA for 6-8 weeks and then let the callups begin.”
Looks like CES is saying, “Yeah, accept for me. I’m staying here.” 🙂
*except
Yeah. Bell prefers less than mediocre players. That’s the ticket.
I dont see how its a preference when thats all the organization gives you.
Exactly, 2020. It’s entirely possible that Bell is dealing with nearly contradictory expectations: Win, and develop young players. Certainly that is the message he’d get if he followed RLN.
Friedl could be ok against left handlers.
2021-2022 combined against left handers in AAA he’s 58/202 (.287) and 8/24 (.333) in the MLB
If Votto misses time and Myers is at 1B then I’d guess they’ll go with Fairchild, Solak, or Ramos as the other outfielder to play against left handers
I think Solak and Fairchild are both on the 40 man roster. Ramos, not so much. He would really have to impress the Reds to get that opportunity.
Weaver = Minor 2.0
How is Strickland in the Reds camp, and getting innings?
Yeah, isn’t that funny? I think the calendar says that Hunter Strickland is a year older than last year, when he was kind of lousy and 33, then 34.
Weaver is being touted as the 5th starter. And really, they Reds are kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel. Where’s Chase Anderson??
Cessa as the fourth starter, and keep Williamson. At least as a young talent, Williamson will likely get better.
Overton looked like crap in his first outing; maybe he will get better…or not. We’ll see this weekend.
Weaver said afterwards that he went out in the 2nd inning with the intent of working on his curveball, but that he could never really find the feel for it. This is a good example of why you have to take spring training with a grain of salt, especially in Arizona. Weaver threw a good hitter a fat pitch that went for a 3-run homer, but it was a pitch that he would not have thrown to a hitter like Andrew Vaughn in a regular season game.
DJ seems to be happy with how Weaver is throwing.
Yes, that’s true. Spring training is indeed a time that pitchers use to work out pitches.
I can remember that Greg Maddux at times got lit up in Spring Training. The difference is that Greg Maddux had proved that he was a premier ML pitcher. Luke Weaver has just been marginal. Weaver is working on his curve now?
I would sure like Weaver to become a good starter for the Reds this year, but I am doubtful. But hope “Springs!” eternal.
Kinda hoped Strickland would give up 10 so maybe he would be cut.
Thrall said Bell liked him because he always said he could go everyday. Heck for MLB minimum and donate half back buying tickets for kids,I’ll go everyday and I throw so slow I could get a few to fly out.
Ha! I’ve said the same thing about “innings eaters.” I’ll go out there for minimum salary and throw 165 innings.
Ive not seen much live baseball this week x wednesday and nick solak hit a bomb but also terrible 2 seam throw from lf that missed home by 30 feet
I think it comes down to pinder v fairchild if votto and senzel arent ready opening day
Fraley freidl benson and myers 4 OF
3 catchers
Steer india newman stephenson myers infield with barrero off to a slow start .
Fairchild might be 5 th of if senzel isnt ready as CF is a deep hole against lefties.
Would not surprise me at all if Krall adds righty hitting cf depth late in ST
Outside of Profar there isn’t an outfielder out there who’d improve the team from where it is now and I’m not 100% sure I’d take him over any of the three who’ll start for the reds either.
ok, I will say it, I am very concerned about EDLC. Will he have the same trajectory as Aquino and Barrero? all the athleticism and raw talent in the world. just lack that pitch recognition tool that you need to make in the big leagues in 2023.
this is the reason I wish mlb we become more offense and defense focused instead of pitching focused as it is right now. i want to see more athleticism in the game but it just seems like a lot of these real athletic players don’t quite have the hit tool to make it in the big leagues. banning the shift may help but i think banning some of these impossible to hit pitches would help even more.
…You are worried about a prospect who just turned old enough to drink 2 months ago, who is nearly universally recognized as a top 10 prospect in the game, who has .886 OPS in the minors to date?
You’re worried about him…. Why? Because of 9 Spring Training at-bats?
Correct. One could equally be overjoyed that his K-rate has plunged to 22.2%.
More people need to go to spring training games to see what they are actually like.
EDLC is hitting 0.000 while McLain has an OPS of 2.000
Both have less than 10 plate appearances.
It’s very difficult to rate a player’s future based on less that 10 trips to the plate. Especially when both cases seem to be an outlier vs their previous body of work.
If the Red could get Profar it would be a good pick up. Most likely not that expensive.
Eh, I’d rather they let the younger players play. We have enough vets already taking ABs away from them, the last thing we need is to give David Bell another excuse to not play the kids.