The game was over before it began. Well, almost. The Tampa Bay Rays scored six runs in the 1st inning against Levi Stoudt in his major league debut. They would go on to beat the Cincinnati Reds 8-0 and win the series by taking two of the three games at Great American Ball Park.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tampa Bay Rays (16-3) | 8 | 12 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (7-11) | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| W: Rasmussen (3-1) L: Stoudt (0-1) | |||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
Levi Stoudt was making his Major League debut and the Tampa Bay Rays gave him about as rude of a welcome as you could possible give someone. Yandy Diaz led off the game with a home run and the Rays offense seemingly never let up, batting around and scoring six runs before the inning mercifully ended with Stoudt having thrown 35 pitches.
After that Stoudt settle in for the most part, giving up just one run over the following three innings before giving way to the bullpen. By that time, though, the Reds were trailing 7-0 and hadn’t done much of anything at the plate to even begin threatening any sort of comeback.
Lucas Sims took the mound to begin the 5th inning and tossed a hitless inning with a walk. It was his first appearance in the big leagues since May 10th of last year. Fernando Cruz entered the game for the 6th inning with the Reds still trailing 7-0, but that isn’t where the score remained. Cruz walked the first two batters of the inning before an infield single loaded the bases. Brandon Lowe then picked up an RBI single to make it 8-0 and keep the bases loaded before Cruz buckled down to retire the next three batters in order.
Reiver Sanmartin came out and tossed a perfect 7th inning for Cincinnati – only the team’s second 1-2-3 inning of the day. Derek Law did his part in the 8th inning, working around a 1-out walk by getting a double play on the next pitch to end the inning. For the second time in the homestand the Cincinnati Reds sent a position player to the mound to pitch, which tells you how well things went. But Jason Vosler’s inning was as good as just about anyone’s as he allowed just one hit – a single- in a shutout inning to send the game to the bottom of the 9th with the Reds still looking for their first run of the day.
Tyler Stephenson led off the inning with a single. The next two batters were retired, bringing Stuart Fairchild to the plate. He took two pitches up near his head and David Bell would be ejected for yelling at the umpires over apparently not giving some kind of warning. With Jose Barrero at the plate, Pete Fairbanks threw another one high that went by the catcher before Barrero would walk to load the bases with two outs. Cincinnati couldn’t cash in as Luke Maile struck out to end the game.
Key Moment of the Game
Josh Lowe’s 2-run hit in the 1st inning that made it 4-0. Tampa Bay would add on from there, but that hit really put the team in a hole that they weren’t going to dig their way out of.
Notes Worth Noting
Reds lose back to back games where they are shutout while allowing 8+ runs for the first time since 7/31/1949 when they lost both ends of a double-header to the New York Giants 9-0 and 10-0.
— Joel Luckhaupt (@jluckhaupt) April 19, 2023
Since starting the season 2-14, Jose Barrero is hitting .267/.371/433 with five walks and 10 strikeouts in 35 plate appearances since April 10th.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati Reds vs Pittsburgh Pirates
Thursday April 20th, 6:35pm ET
Luke Weaver (season debut) vs Roansey Contreras (1-1, 6.00 ERA)
Well, that was painless …
We’re starting to form the callus 🙂
I wonder if it is the real offense the Reds will show the most of the games this season. I think the collapse of starting pitching could be for the time being since the Cessa mess joined Greene’s short outing with the worst Lodolo start and Stoudt debut. Ah! still the first game of Weaver left tomorrow…But I think they are going to improve in next weeks
At least, it’s against the Pirates. That gives the Reds a small amount of hope. Depends on whether Steer is ready and who Bell starts.
Don’t count on that the Pirates are playing good baseball so far.
Pirates beat the redbirds. Plus, they have a winning record vs reds last 2 seasons, iirc.
Attendance?
10,205 according to the Box score
Count me there, and it was a great weather day. I wanted coach to keep Levi Stoudt the pitcher, in just one more inning since in inning 2,3, and 4 he seemed to get it down much better. The first inning must have been so frustrating for him. His Dad was there from Louisville hiding in the right field seats so Levi couldn’t see him.
Have a great rest of your Wednesday everyone!!
Maybe it’s early in the season yet but I think the Reds FO/staff should do something about carrying 3 catchers in the team especially evaluating Luke Maile presence, I consider this scenario is not helping so far…
In the words of Bob Ryan, “They Stink!”
Bell got ejected in the ninth for arguing something. what was it? Down 8-0 in the 9th seems like an interesting time to get tossed.
Not only that, down 8-0, bottom of the 9th, and 2 outs already.
I have no idea what he was arguing about, I think he was mad the pitcher almost hit Fairchild twice or something.
I think this shows just how much of a joke Bell is as a manager. The times he chooses to go ballistic and the times that he chooses to stay calm are quite odd, even frustrating at times.
On the 1st PA of the bottom of the 9th there was a high wild looking pitch up in Stephenson’s face then with 2 out and a man on Fairchild had 2 thrown extremely up and on him.
The second of these to Fairchild looked considerably less wild and more just at Fairchild’s face which is what brought Bell out for a discussion. Bell appeared at first to calmly ask why a warning had not been issued but must have crossed a language line as the discussion became more intense because suddenly he got bounced. Then after Bell was bounced, he went ballistic.
Maybe get ballistic earlier. Bell is a clown. IMHO.
Like their pitchers are going to be intentionally throwing at our hitters with an eight run lead in the bottom of the 9th. Ridiculous. He was out there just for show.
Lou Pinella used to do that to get the team fired up. Really get fired up at an ump in a “lost” game to get the players more emotionally involved rather than just lie down.
Happening in the 9th inning may not be the thing though.
And the question on everyone’s mind…Will Newman play tomorrow and will he bat cleanup or what?
After India ‘took’ a pitch in the arm protector in the first game, Fairchild was drilled in the ribs on the very next pitch. It certainly looked intentional. If Bell were out there to protect Fairchild, even in the bottom of the 9th, it’s was a good thing.
Their pitcher was having control problems. The Rays were winning 8-0 in the 9th and most likely wanted to get out of town ASAP. They had no benefit of getting into a fight before they left.
It didn’t happen earlier, Jesse. It would have puzzled everybody if he yelled at the umps about something that hadn’t happened yet.
It was a pretty non-descript game. Outside the first inning, nothing very interesting happened.
Also, I touched on this in the other thread, but does anyone else thing Bell needs to stick to a more consistent batting order and just let it be? Baseball players thrive on habits and routine, and I don’t think anyone benefits much from moving all over the batting order each day.
If it were up to me, I’d go with:
2B India
LF Friedl
DH Stephenson
RF Fraley
3B Steer
1B Myers
SS Barrero
CF Senzel
C Casalli
Just run that out there for a week or two, with no changes, and see what happens.
Right now, I think I’d go with Fairchild before Senzel. And I’m starting to think – just let Stephenson catch. Forget DH and first.
Senzel has shown no aptitude yet for hitting the fastball. Fairchild has slumped but would get the nod for me. I suspect/hope both are placeholders for EDLC.
Play the one that will build the most trade value over the next year. Clearly, to folks here regularly, I think that is SF. I suspect at least one of the two of Fraley and Friedl will end up in the same situation.
From the looks of things right now, ship Fraley and keep Friedl.
At least Friedl can hit lefties and righties. Right now I think you build around Friedl in the outfield. He brings a lot at the plate and is aggressive on the paths
That would be a miracle if Bell did it for even 3 days in a row.
Bell out there ‘defending his guys’ lol.
What is indefensible is the pitch calling from the dugout during the first inning of Stoudt’s start. The Rays were hunting fastballs, the kid was nervous and leaving everything up in the zone, yet the pitch calling didn’t deviate until the score was 5-0. For goodness sake, if you trust the player enough to call him up then trust he can throw something other than a fastball for a strike. What did eventually work was pitching backwards, which could be instructive for him moving forward. The ‘dumbing it down’ act for callups is a persistent issue.
Nice to see Sims have a clean inning. His presence will be important.
Best way to forget about this series is to make some hay against the Pirates.
I was pleased that Sims seemed more impressed with pitching the inning than showing off his breaking ball.
Fire Bell! I called for it after he double pinch hit for Friedl and fraley and now again after 25-0 non competitive back to back losses with historically low attendance. What did bell say on the pregame today? ( it was actually a rerun of yesterday, they didnt do a live one today apparently on WLW). He said he knows how good Kevin Newman is and he needs to get him consistent at bats.
Kevin Newman is the guy the Pirates moved off SS to give the Pirates version of Hunter De la Cruz the SS role. Newman was then moved to 2b by the Pirates and then traded by one of the only franchises worse than the Reds. What does Bell do? Inserts him into the lineup with regularity and says he needs consistent at bats and Im the guy to give him those. If the Pirates moved Newman out to give playing time to their future, why wouldn’t the Reds do the same.? Newman is a fabulous 1 year back up utility guy. Hes not an everyday player and the fact the manager says he mostly is makes zero sense at this time and this place in the franchise rebuild.
Barrero did his homework this off-season. HE met with the hitting coach Who visited him in Florida. He went to a toe tap. He changed his approach and his stance. He went to Puerto Rico. He had a strong spring training. He’s taken steps forward with K rate and if you ignore his first 3-4 games, his numbers across the board are decent. Why not give him 150 at bats between now and Memorial Day and see what he has? Go back a year and look at the changes in the Reds and ask yourself. After all that, Jose barrero will share playing time in 2023 with a former Pirates backup SS????
This season is spiraling rapidly and the Reds cant afford losing a series to the pirates, a 9-19 record end of april and out of it by Memoral Day, before the Reds crowds actually do start to show up for summer weekends. David Bell better split with the Pirates. These next 13 games are urgent. 10 on the road against the Pirates/A’s and Padres with 3 at home against the Rangers. At 4 under .500, they have to come home from San Diego at no worse than 5 under and preferably 3 or 2 under. A losing series to the Pirates and a west Coast nightmare trip would make for a terrible April again.
Those are a lot of good points, Old School Guy.
It will be telling how well the Reds play against the Pirates in this upcoming 4-game series. It was uncomfortable seeing the Reds get walloped two days in a row, but I frankly thought they could lose all three to the Rays.
The Pirates starting pitching has not been really solid (and the Reds have been??), but their bullpen has actually been pretty good.
I think that there is an unknown pitcher on Saturday for the Reds, but they could win the other three. But they do have to start hitting.
Weaver likely tomorrow, who is not Cy Young, but could be respectable for 5-6 innings.
Ashcraft on Friday.
Mystery pitcher on Saturday (Anderson? Requires a roster move)
And Greene on Sunday, and hopefully his shin is Ok now after getting hit on Monday.
How good IS Kevin Newman? I mean, the rest of the league was breaking down the door to get him from Pittsburgh, right?
The 1972 Reds, who went on to win the NL pennant, started out the season 7 -12, then swept a 4 game series from..I forget now. But then they got rolling. Does anyone remember the epic four game sweep of the Astros, where they CLOBBERED the Stro’s? Hal McCrae and George Foster hit pinch hit grand slams in different games.
I don’t predict the Reds go on to win the pennant this year, but if they start playing a little better, they could be respectable.
I do remember the 72 Reds and this team is a long way from that. And Bell? He’s no Sparky Anderson. Yes, he had a couple of losing seasons. But he didn’t make it a habit. And he didn’t tolerate sloppy play.
“How good IS Kevin Newman? I mean, the rest of the league was breaking down the door to get him from Pittsburgh, right?”
Well David Bell loves him. There was a lot of speculation over the winter that Bell would play Newman over Barrero if he had the chance.
How good? Newman has over 1700 PAs, with a 79 OPS+. He’ll be 30 in August. All the preseason prognosticators, who expected him to be the Reds starter, had him ranked in last place among ML starting shortstops. So everyone knows how good Newman is. For the record, Newman’s career line is worse than Bell’s who managed an 85 OPS+ over his career. Bell, BTW, played mostly at 3B, followed by 2B, but spent at least one game at every position except catcher. Pretty much sums up his philosophy.
Sparky had seven losing seasons. When he had winning seasons, he had good players.
@greenmtred, there you go again. Part of having good players is developing the roster you have, instead of turning them all into utility players. The evidence of that failure is pervasive. As I’ve said before, Bell couldn’t win with the Big Red Machine. All we know for sure is that had Bell been the manager of the BRM, guys like Don Werner, Terry Crowley, and others would have had a lot more at-bats.
@ LDS, Ed Armbrister would have been hitting 5th in CF game 7 of the WS against lefty Bill Lee and the Red Sox with Merv Rettemund in RF and Doug Flynn would have started at 2b with Morgan and Griffey and Geronimo benched. Bench would have been pinch run for at some point and Daryl Chaney would have finished the game. After Morgan was brought into the game after Bill Lee left, Bell would have pinch hit for Morgan in the 9th against the lefty and John Vukovich the righty would have got that big at bat.
Bell overmanages and over-rotates his players and doesnt allow young players to gain any sense of confidence or continuity or stability with batting order or position play.
So your theory, LDS, is that a good manager can turn any player into a star? Sparky was able to work this magic on the BRM but unable to summon it in seven other seasons? Yes. There I go again. The crux of our ongoing disagreement is my belief that the players have by far the greatest role in determining the record of team and your apparent conviction that the manager is the most important factor. Perhaps this is because you were a manger, though in a different field?
@Green and LDS – You both can be correct at the same time. Bell can’t win if the players are bad. So what Bell has to do is determine who are the bad ones, and not play them as much. Luckily, with statistics, we have an idea of who the bad ones are, and who aren’t as bad. If they are similar, play the one who has potential to help your club in the future. Bell doesn’t do this. He plays the bad ones over and over and over, which in turn, stunts the growth of a younger player with higher potential, who might help in the future.
I see your point, VaRedsFan, but an issue I see is that, while the Great Eight were overwhelmingly better than the reserves, the same is not true of this iteration of the Reds, so it isn’t so clear cut. Note that India always plays and, lately, Friedl isn’t sitting much, either. Those two and Stephenson are the only guys who are vastly better than their replacements. Another factor of comparison is that analytics, as such, didn’t exist in the days of the BRM, and the detailed and specific analysis it offers likely leads to less-obvious decisions about whom to play on a given day. Also, The BRM, with its set lineup, probably needed little sorting. The current team has a good number of position players who haven’t been with the team for very long: if Bell doesn’t play them, how can he know what he’s got to work with?
David Bell is incapable of creating a sense of urgency. I just as soon the Reds move on to their next winning manager.
Yeah it amazes me that some on here want more at bats for Newman. Do we want a strong rebuild or not? Even if Newman is better than Barrero, which I don’t think he is, Newman is never going to be the answer to anything in the future. He likely won’t even net a decent prospect at the trade deadline.
Last point I’ll make for the day—this ‘sorting’ that happens every April is exhausting and no way to run a franchise if you even remotely care about winning.
Other than after the deadline last June when Bell was clearly under orders to play Aquino and Barrero then later Steer when in this awful going on 8 years have the Reds committed to sending a position player out nearly to win a spot or sink in the process?
To be cledar not saying whether the issue was Bell, the GM, the FO or some combination thereof. Just that it was an issue to my memory
BP goes 5 innings and gives up 1 run. Doesn’t appear anybody commented about that, or complimented them. Of course, hard to find something to complain about in that performance. Good job BP. Keep moving in the right direction. Eventually the Reds will score again and your performance will count.
Thank you for taking the time to do so. I too have felt the bullpen has done an adequate job so far. Sure, there were some rough spots but with the guys we have that is going to happen. Overall, they have done better than I could have expected them to do.
The Bullpen did a nice job today, but honestly by the time David Bell went to the bullpen, the game was over. There was absolutely no pressure on the bullpen today.
When the bullpen keeps the reds close in a one run game, they deserve credit. That wasn’t the case today.
Fernando Cruz getting himself out of the jam he put himself into was nail-biting and complimentary. Vosler’s defense (two double plays) and shut-out pitching was quite the show.
Send cruz down. Has he had a clean inning?
Keep him here. His ERA was 2.83 on 4/11. Just had two tough games since then. Let him work through his issues as he gets it straight. Last year, his ERA was 1.23.
Back to Bell coming unglued over the pitches up and in. I Do believe that was payback for India leaning into an HBP earlier in the series. Whether intentional or not, that many pitches around the head deserves a warning from the ump. I think Cash chose the last inning to avoid retaliation too.
Schedule gets easier from here. Phillies, Braves and Rays are good teams with good pitching. We need to play better, no doubt. But the team is looking much better overall and we need to keep our health so the youngsters get time to learn what it takes to succeed at this level.
On the attendance side of things, just pitiful. The players and front office deserve better from the metro cincinnati area. I’m tired of the excuses for why people within an hour can’t get to GABP. Milwaukee, Minnesota, Washington and Colorado have similar weather challenges and their fans get to the ballpark.
i totally agree. we are a very fickle fan base and get what we deserve, 100 loss seasons piling up
Milwaukee plays in a dome, so they don’t have similar weather challenges at all.
But the Reds haven’t won a playoff series in nearly 30 years. In the last decade they have gone through two complete tear downs of the roster. The owner’s son is a buffoon who has insulted the fan base on multiple occasions.
The players deserve better. But so do the fans.
Frankly, I don’t care if the Reds win another game this month. Signing Hunter Greene to an extension is by far the team’s biggest accomplishment this season. Not just because they signed a talented pitcher, but it signals the team is starting to reinvest the in winning. We will have to wait and see if it is indeed a cultural change for the organization, but is certainly a good start.
It was reported Lodolo has confirmed there have been conversations with him. Ashcraft stated he didnt want to comment and India said no conversations with him but he was very positive about how the Reds viewed him. Stephenson/india/ and Friedl were in the audience of media at the Greene press conference showing their support for Hunter.
Krall has stated the organizational plan starts with developing young starting pitching from within. Extending Greene and Lodolo through the ladder part of this decade would be a massive statement and commitment and indeed a solid plan. Greene stated he wants to be here and wants to be part of the reason the stadium fills up again with large crowds.
Something to consider if the plan is or should be to never play Newman then why was he brought here? We have more SS in this organization then will ever play.
I would think he was brought in as insurance if Barrero flamed out and the other young shortstops were injured/not quite ready. Also, it’s almost clear that long-range sorting is occurring, hence Barrero getting starts in center.
@Greenmtred Agree!!!!I’m just amazed how many on here can’t see this. Bell is managing a team. He is trying to balance wining and development and rookie versus Veterans. He has an obligation to every player on that team. They all are trying to have careers. There is nothing easy or cut and dried about his job.