The Cincinnati Reds offense went quiet tonight as they managed just two hits in a 5-0 shutout loss to former Red Luis Castillo and the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field Wednesday night.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati Reds (57-62) | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Chicago White Sox (62-57) | 5 | 11 | 0 |
| W: Luis Castillo (4-9) L: Rhett Lowder (4-8) | |||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
After tagging Castillo for three runs, including two home runs, on July 21st in Seattle, Cincinnati hitters couldn’t get anything going off him tonight. He had the fastball and change up combination working while he lived at the bottom of the zone, and had retired 11 batters in a row at one point. Castillo was helped out by some stellar defense, first by Tristan Peters robbing Matt McLain of at least an extra base hit, if not a home run, in the third inning. Second baseman Sam Antonacci made a nice sliding stop in the fifth, and Castillo helped himself with some nice glove work to nab TJ Friedl at first on a bunt groundout in the fifth.
In the sixth, McLain led off the inning with a walk, but a pop out by Elly De La Cruz, and a pickoff of McLain in a rundown between first and second quickly extinguished that threat. Castillo ended his night by striking out the side in the seventh for a season-high eight strikeouts. It was his first shut out outing since May 25 and just his second shutout of the season.
Meanwhile, Rhett Lowder pitched well again tonight, especially early in the game. He was mixing pitches well and using the entire strike zone. His slider and his changeup combination were eliciting some swings and misses. But then, in the third, he left a sweeper out over the middle of the plate that the number nine hitter, Drew Romo blasted into the right field seats to put Chicago up 1-0. Romo is hitting .130 on the season.
Lowder escaped a couple of sticky situations in the fourth and fifth, but was able to induce a double play to end the fourth and struck out Andrew Benintendi with the bases loaded in the fifth to keep the deficit at one run. He was able to get through 5.1 innings, allowing just two runs on seven hits with one walk and four strikeouts.
Julian Garcia came out of the bullpen in relief for Lowder in the sixth and promptly gave up a home run to Chase Meidroth to put the White Sox up 3-0. The White Sox would add two more in the eighth when Ron Marinaccio walked two batters, gave up an RBI single to Romo, and threw a wild pitch with a runner on third.
Key Moment of the Game
Lowder left a sweeper out over the middle of the plate that catcher Drew Romo hammered over the fence to get the White Sox on the board in the third. With the Reds’ lack of hitting, it would be all the White Sox needed in this game.
Notes Worth Noting
-Luis Castillo had just 11 swings and misses (21% whiff rate) against Reds hitters through seven innings when he faced them on July 21 when he was still pitching in Seattle. Tonight, he had 22 swings and misses for a 49% whiff rate, including 8 of 10 swings and misses on his changeup.
-JJ Bleday hit his first major league home run against Castillo on July 27, 2022 at Great American Ball Park. Bleday did not have the same luck tonight, going 0-for-3 with a strikeout against Castillo tonight.
-Sal Stewart had the only two hits for the Reds tonight.
-The Reds have been shut out 11 times this season, fourth most in MLB.
Up Next for the Reds
Cincinnati Reds vs. Chicago White Sox
Thursday, August 13, 2:10 PM EDT
Andrew Abbott (6-7, 3.92 ERA) vs. Davis Martin (9-6, 4.17 ERA)
Well as bad as things seem it could be worse. If what I’m looking at is correct the Reds have a -78 run differential. Based on that alone we should be 51-68 rather than 57-62.
Unfortunately with the remaining schedule the Reds will likely be well into triple digit negative run differential by season’s end. Nathaniel Lowe has a career 1.044 OPS against Castillo. Maybe if he was still around the Reds would still be at 10 shutouts for the year.
The front office felt Lowe was not needed for the Red’s offense.
Or the front office felt that they wouldn’t be able to sign Lowe to a contract, that they were very unlikely to make the playoffs, and that by trading him they could get something for him.
Or the front office didn’t really have a plan and were the laughingstock of the trade deadline because they only dropped two expiring contracts instead of them all.
Could be, JJ. It’s very common here to say that the FO has no plan. I doubt that’s the case. What seems more likely to me is that the plan has too many contingencies not in the control of the Reds, depends too much on luck, and–in light of the constraints from ownership –is too modest to produce much more than a marginally competitive team. By all means, fire the FO, but I hope that ownership precedes or closely follows them out the door.
I agree, greenmtnred. My post is more out of frustration than me knowing what they were planning. I totally am onboard with you wishing for mass changes!
@Melvin. Well that certainly gives us something to cheer about
You mean it doesn’t cheer you up? 😉
On WLW last night said that the Reds are hitting under 200 since first of August. I don’t want to hear Nick, Brad, or Phil say this was all do to injury. This is a poorly constructed team. Drafting is below par as is scouting. If any of the people have a job at the end off this season the Reds are just really not committed to winning.
There not committed to winning been saying it all year. The scouting, development, and front office have no clue.
The Reds had everything they needed to win this game………………….except hitting and pitching……..
But did they play good defense at least?
By the way Ashley, how’s it going with visiting all 30 MLB parks?
I’m at 25 of 30!
Awesome. i’m sure you’ll make it. 🙂
Reds hitters usually outplay their opponents in one category and that’s strikeouts. My goodness they’re terrible at contact. Valaika sure has them locked in, lol.
Terrible approach by most hitters in the lineup. Swinging at pitches outside the zone then looking at strikes. It’s bad. And far too common. Hard to win games with 2 hits from 1 player.
I noticed that too. They watch pitches right down the middle and then swing at the slider or curve outside of the zone. Easy for me to say, I guess.
How hard is to look back and find out that Castillo was traded 4 years ago in exchange of Arroyo, Marte and a couple of unknown guys. During this time he’s achieved +8 WAR while the Reds continue waiting for any results.
The decisions to give up Castillo, Cueto, Gray, and Chapman are easy to second guess at this point. I would’ve liked to have signed a few of those to lifetime contracts. Instead we’ve largely received nothing of value in return and are saddled with an uninspiring roster of players who aspire to reach replacement value of they get hot.
That’s a long list of failed trades, I’d add Iglesias to it, no wonder the Reds haven’t been in a WS in 36 years.
It was a terrible trade. Add to that the Candelario and Hayes decisions and Nick Krall has not exactly covered himself in glory. Time to turn the page even though the next page will probably be
Just as bad.
Just goes to show how hard a rebuild is. Getting a bag full of prospects for a bone fide MLBer that going to be too expensive is a crap shoot…and you won’t find out for years.
This version of the Reds has successfully killed off any interest in watching them. Not only are they a bad team, they are boring. There are 3 players that hold any interest; Burns, Elly and Stewart. That’s it, that’s the list. You want to add Greene? I would say that you have to play to be watched. IL trips every season just can’t keep him on field. Say what you want about the Bell teams, at least they were worth watching. I buy the ticket every year to watch them and I can only handle a couple of innings per night, on a good night! Good grief
100% agree about the Bell teams, this team is boring even when they win.
LOL@ Bell’s teams. Yet each night Bell got roasted on here. Basically the same things were said. People used to complain about the reds running into outs. Not smart base running etc etc etc. My conclusion is some “fans” just come here to complain. They dont really follow the reds
Kevin: I watched Chatterbox Reds after the game last night and one of Trace’s biggest complaints about this team is that they are boring. You know I watch every game and in my opinion they are boring. I think when people compare this team team to Bell’s teams they are just saying that good or bad Bell’s team ran more. I was glad when Bell was fired but in my opinion this team just doesn’t seem all that exciting to watch.
With the Reds remaining schedule it’s looking like another 90 loss season. I don’t see how Nick Krall and company survives it.
If Reds ownership is committed to winning, Krall & Co. will not survive.
The comments here by some make me ask the question.
“If the reds are boring then why watch and comment”? Its the same ole song and dance. Some I even question if they are truly fans, or fans when they win. I say that only because when the reds have had hot streaks those “fans” seem to dissappear.
Here’s the thing long standing Reds fans like myself are tired of this brand of baseball. Will always be a fan but Reds fans deserve better…been 31 years since last playoff series win.
I have been on RLN for at least 5 or 6 years. I see mostly the same people posting here day in and day out. So my guess here is people who post here are Reds fans. I’m not sure why you would post here if you didn’t care about the team.
The insinuation that “Real” fans don’t complain is ridiculous.
For all the love Bleday has received around Reds Country, he’s hitting, what .220?
Since May he’s been… not good… May really propped his stats. Like a majority of our offense, he’s been pretty offensive since then. Very tough team to watch hit and execute when they do get runners in scoring position. Then there was McLain’s baserunning blunder last night, it’s bad so many nights minus the occasional home run barrage. And many of those are solo shots.
Castillo was pretty good … we were pretty awful … combine those two and you get last night’s kettle of …
STINK. FISH. POT!!!
Still not sure about the hitting approach Valaika is teaching.Reds hitters are prone to strike out a lot so are they trying to put the ball in play with two strikes?It also appears the first good one they get they swing at it and hard which I understand that and why not.I also see players never swing and strike out and at times never stop swinging and strike out.So are they guessing when they never swing?Are they swinging at strikes when they never stop swinging?They just look confused a lot of the time as to what they are doing or trying to do.I really don’t know what as a team the approach really is or should be but there has to be stats on every player that show what they are doing.I know the Reds are in a bad place in the majors and in the minors but surely people can see we have few and very few that can hit.Hitting is hard but we seem to make it on some nights just impossible regardless of who is pitching.Last night was not a good night with only two hits but look at the lineup.No Steer No Lowe No Tyler no Myers and really no chance The first two will not be back so what do you do?
On the whole they’re not doing two things—being aggressive with less than 2 strikes, and having a contact oriented approach with 2 strikes.
First pitch OPS–29th
Ahead in the count OPS—3rd
Behind in the count OPS—Reds 29th
2 strikes OPS—26th
I feel like I just described every Matt McLain at-bat lol.
I was in attendance on the South Side last night. Pretty dreary on the field, but man the Vienna beef hot dogs are tops.
It’s funny how the White Sox are ‘ahead of schedule’ with their rebuild and the Reds are seemingly floundering, yet statistically they’re largely a mirror image of each other in all 3 phases of the game. The only separators seem to be the Reds pitchers have walked more batters and the White Sox don’t surrender as many home runs……probably enough to account for a 4 game swing over a full season I bet. Certainly doesn’t help the White Sox play in the easiest division in baseball.
One thing the Reds can’t blame for their season is injuries. Rotowire has them dead LAST in their weighted injury scorecard: https://www.rotowire.com/baseball/article/most-injured-mlb-teams-ranked-by-severity-score-111870
This list doesn’t account for the quality of the player on the injured list. Losing a pitcher like Hunter Greene for five of the season’s six months is a big deal. Three of the Reds’ top six players in terms of bWAR last year have spent considerable time on the IL this year–all pitchers. Clearly the Red’s organization is lacking right now, but this “weighted injury scoreboard” is just a raw data presentation without analysis.
I am not certain how our games lost to injury compare to others. From a guess standpoint, I would say we have had fewer injuries than teams like Dodgers, Braves, Cubs, and Brewers.
But one thing I am pretty certain of is replacement of the injured. We lost 2-3 of our most key relief pitchers to 2-3 month injuries in May. May, when we had a winning record! And Krall tried to ride the darn thing out with imports from Louisville. Something like 12 different guys had trials and some had 2-3 trials. None had an ERA less than 8-9!! As Krall and we fans found out, you can’t win with 3 relievers having ERAs of 9+. We lost 6-7 games we had the lead in the 7th inning. It wouldn’t have been hard for Krall to pick up a couple journeymen 4.50 ERA relievers. Like other teams did. Maybe taken cash or your 30th prospect. I will give Nick some benefit of doubt in that possibly he thought the Louisville guys were decent. But after the 5th or 6th candidate, that is enough. Go get a couple mlb pitchers. They are always tradable at the trade deadline if they do the interim job you hoped for. No loss.
I am also not sympathetic to our offensive injury toll. We lost Geno and Elly for about a month each. That is nothing in the grand scheme of a 6 month season. Have some suitable depth to cover injuries of less than a month. Isn’t that what Hayes, Lowe, Steer, and Trevino were for? No they are not as good as the first stringer but hopefully they can fill in suitably.
Luis Castillo is no longer a good pitcher. His era was over 5 before the game. Yet, He struck out 10 batters in 7 innings.
Then a rookie starting pitcher comes in for 8th inning and strikes out the side.
This team has either given up or is way worse than we hope. I would give Elly a couple games off. Problem is, our bench is much worse than beginning of season.
It’s like the entire Reds organization has decided to go into a bizarre holding pattern until the next collective bargaining agreement is completed. You can’t run a business this way. “Time stands still for no one”.
Interesting article about Stewart Vs. Weatherholt:
https://blogredmachine.com/former-reds-icon-makes-sal-stewart-case-against-jj-wetherholt-even-stronger?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fansided_Newsletter_FS_Daily%20%7C%20Fansided%20Daily%202026-08-13&ue=c3a8b03aa4675c74ec4c35e25be58c93e3c61b5ef7e6fc8f70a8923b59647687&sendid=47025508
It’s interesting if you don’t understand WAR or defense or defensive value.
Saying that “it’s not like Sal Stewart is a bad defender” is really dumb. Of course he is. Put him in center or at shortstop and see how bad he is at defense. It’s why guys that play up the middle get a huge boost right off of the bat in WAR calculations – even the guys who “aren’t good” at those spots are actually good defenders compared to the guys who aren’t good enough to even be considered to play there.
The problem with all of this “WAR” argument is that people who don’t understand it get mad because they either don’t care about defensive value or just don’t accept that it’s valued like it is because its tougher to see and there aren’t counting stats available to track for it like there are hits or home runs or RBI. It’s not shown on the ribbon when a guy makes a play in the field like their hitting stats are every time they go to the plate. They don’t get that sometimes making all the plays they get to isn’t actually valuable if you don’t get to enough baseballs.
Mostly though it’s just fans being mad and tribal that their guy isn’t getting the publicity that they want him to. Sal Stewart is not a good defender. And his WAR is punishing him for that just like it does everyone who plays first base or designated hitter.
+10,000
If you want to go strictly in terms of WAR then some of our guys are in big trouble this year:
Marte/ – 1.2
KBH/ -1.1
Friedl/ -.9
Suarez/ -.5
McLain is actually in the positive at .4
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/war?teamid=18&lg=
If you want to include the entire ML in terms of WAR then some of our guys aren’t looking TOO good in terms of rankings.
Our hitting has the highest K% in the league. It has the lowest AVG in the league. We’re right on par with my Nebraska Cornhuskers. “We were a good team back in the day.”
Just from a distant perspective, it sure seems like Myers, Elly, and Bleday haven’t hit in a week. Myers and Bleday are striking out and returning to their career norms. Both have seen considerable drops in their OPS. Elly is grounding out to 2B in bunches and this is devastating as he is the engine of our offense. Not picking on you Elly as you are entitled to a hiccup. Just shows how valuable you are.
The other obvious observation is our very poor depth. The combination of HRod, Toglia, Marte, Hayes, Trevino, and Friedl can’t have more than 3-4 hits combined over the last 5-6 games. It is awful. Put this on top of slumps and returns to norms and it explains the negligible run output.
Kind of a microcosm of the 2026 season only with a different set of names. I don’t know that I totally buy into Geno’s statements that there are no morale or motivational problems. You look at our recent stretch of no offense and look at Tito’s daily lineups, does that represents management’s best attempt to win? Noting the lineup presence of HRod, Toglia, Friedl, Hayes, etc., it is not hard for me to conclude that individual evaluations and performances have risen well above team Ws and Ls. IMO, this possibility or fear of prolonged losing periods is why we didn’t trade our expiring contracts for prospects. We will see what happens over the next couple of weeks.
“Not picking on you Elly as you are entitled to a hiccup. Just shows how valuable you are.”
One of the better-stated perspectives here in a while. IMO, of course.
Additional comment. Losing 4 out of 5 is not a prolonged losing period. Falling to 8-9 games under 500 in the next 2 weeks, with minimal offense, is what I was referring to. That comes close to the official end. 8 games out of the last wild card with 30 to go and 4 teams ahead of you, That translates to something like 25-5 to get a sniff. That kind of losing could have a big impact on attendance and $. TBD.
Sal getting NL ROY is the only thing to play for this year. Hope it happens…
Seeing the game in person is where you notice the little things…..hence the need for scouts. But yeah, in the 9th inning I could see Sal in the on deck circle really studying the pitcher like it was the World Series. He promptly lined a ball to right center.
He just brings a level of intensity day in day out that others don’t possess.
As crazy as it seems the Reds are only four back in the loss column of the last WC spot. With the way this team hits and the strength of the remaining schedule it would truly be a miracle to make it into the post season though.
Hayes has a punchers chance of finishing with the lowest batting average (at least 300 ABs) in the history of this storied game. Bill Bergen, in the deadball era, finished at .139 one season and Hayes is at .138 but needs more at bats to qualify. Thats nothing to sneeze at. Luckily he fields ground balls well.
I would rather see the Reds try to win and lose, than just give up. There is a lot of giving up in Reds country now. I think they manager of this team is trying to win.
What was it we got for Castillo?