Series Preview: Cincinnati Reds (30-53) vs Chicago Cubs (51-30)

In Series Previews by berselius82 Comments

The Cubs get a break from their brutal stretch of consecutive baseball games by playing the Reds, only 22 games back of the Cubs. Somehow the Cubs still have the best record in baseball despite last week’s asskicking by the Mets. Having swept the Reds at GABP certainly helped.

Team Leaders

Cubs

Reds

Zack Cozart as the WAR leader pretty much sums up this team. The Reds have had twelve different pitchers start this season, which is fewer than I would have guessed. The only starters who have been worth a damn are Anthony DeSclafani, who missed the first two months of the season with an injury, and Rasiel Iglesias, who also missed significant time to injury and is probably going to spend the rest of the year in the bullpen to take it easy a bit on his shoulder. They fired their pitching coach today, so I’m sure that will fix things.

Joey Votto is banged up, with a sore shoulder suffered in their second extra inning loss of the week, and Billy Hamilton managed to avoid the concussion DL after that scare on Rizzo’s inside the park HR last week. In other injury news Alfredo Simon is on the DL with a shoulder injury, much to the woe of National League hitters, and Homer Bailey is still out at least through the ASB in his road back from TJS, which has had a few complications. Catcher Devin Mesoraco had surgery for a torn labrum back in May and is done for the season.

For the Cubs, Dex is still out, with no word on his return other than it probably won’t be this series. No word on Soler either, though he was taking batting practice over a week ago. Blerg, injuries.

Pitching matchups

K/9, BB/9, ERA, FIP, Projected ERA listed for each pitcher

Monday: Cody Reed, LHP (11.25, 2.81, 9.00, 6.48, 4.54) vs Kyle Hendricks, RHP (8.18, 2.46, 2.76, 3.48, 3.64), 1:20 PM CT

The Cubs blasted Reed for three home runs in his last start, though I’m guessing one of them was the Hamilton injury play. He has decent DIPS-ish peripherals, but when batters are getting wood on the ball, they’re crushing it. He’s allowed 24 hits, six of them home runs, in his 16 innings pitched. He had pretty good minor league numbers for the Reds and Royals last year across high-A and AA, but I’m guessing this isn’t the year he turns it around.

Hendricks was his opponent in that start, and he pitched into the seventh inning allowing just two runs. The Cubs were hoping he could go the distance again, as this was the day after the marathon extra inning game, but that probably counts as a deep start for Hendricks.

Tuesday: Brandon Finnegan, RHP (6.45, 4.58, 4.48, 5.28, 4.46) vs John Lackey, RHP (9.20, 2.49, 3.27, 3.50, 3.36), 1:20 PM CT

Finnegan got off to a decent enough start to the year, and managed to limit the Cubs to just two runs in 6.2 innings despite five walks in his first start against them. Since then things haven’t gone as well. The Cubs lit him up the next time they face him, and he only lasted four innings. He’s managed to go deeper in most starts since then, but he’s walked three or more batters in 12 of his 17 starts, and is coming off an eight-run shellacking by the Nats.

Lackey has pitched at least six innings in all but two starts this year, and is coming off a start vs the Mets where he may or may not have been pulled too early. I still don’t like the guy, but so far this signing has worked out as well or even better than the FO could have expected.

Wednesday: Anthony DeSclafani, RHP (6.82, 2.67, 1.78, 3.70, 3.86) vs Adam Warren, RHP (6.31, 4.91, 4.56, 5.43, 3.44), 1:20 PM CT

Technically no one is listed as the probable pitcher for this game, but DeSclafani is the guy who would be on schedule for this start, and he’s the only pitcher worth a damn in their rotation right now. He missed the first two months of the season with an oblique injury, but has been solid in his five starts so far aside from a short (2.2) inning outing against the Braves, where he gave up four runs (just one earned) but was over 75 higher-stress pitches.

The Cubs sent Warren to the minors a while back with an eye to having him start to give the rest of the rotation a breather , though given how gassed the bullpen has been since then they might be regretting this a bit right now. He made two meh starts with Iowa, averaging 4.1 innings per start and a 11.8% walk rate, which is at least slightly better than what he put up as a reliever. Still, I think Maddon is going to lean on Lackey for longer than he has lately in Tuesday’s start.

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Comments

  1. SK

    Technically no one is listed as the probable pitcher for this game, but DeSclafani is the guy who would be on schedule for this start,

    Pat Hughes said it would be him when previewing this series yesterday.

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  2. SK

    I still don’t like the guy,

    I still don’t like what I’ve heard of him from the past, but he hasn’t done anything to make me not like him since joining the Cubs. Annoy me slightly, but not dislike…

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  7. SK

    berselius,

    …………………./´¯/)
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    …………./´¯/’…’/´¯¯`·¸
    ………./’/…/…./……./¨¯\
    ……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
    ………\……………..’…../
    ……….”…\………. _.·´
    …………\…………..(
    …………..\………….\…

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  12. Author
    berselius

    (dying laughing), the Reds starter’s glasses strap looks like the world’s worst rat tail.

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  20. Author
    berselius

    dmick89:
    berselius,

    Took me 2 innings last time to figure out it was the glasses. (dying laughing)

    If it were a rat tail, I think having one that long would legally require him to be wearing jorts

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  36. Author
    berselius

    At least the Reds are throwing a bone to Reed by making sure so many of these runs are unearned

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  40. dmick89

    This team has the worst defensive communication I’ve ever seen. The Schwarber/Fowler thing was a freak accident, but it’s almost every day these guys are running into each other on basic plays. Twice today.

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  49. SK

    Both collisions today involved Bryant. In the first one, it was his job to call off Russell. In the second one, it was Almora’s job to call off Bryant.

    But even if you’re the other guy you should be calling it until the the guy behind you or from CF calls you off.

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  58. dmick89

    SK,

    I think Bryant fucked up the first time, but I think the collision play was on Almora. Bryant was clearly there and it was a ball that is almost always fielded by the left fielder. That’s Bryant’s play.

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  60. dmick89

    But I don’t really care whose fault it is. It’s happened with each player multiple times. It seems to be a team issue from what I can tell.

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  63. dmick89

    Bullpen MVP

    FWIW I think Wood has been really good and definitely valuable, but most valuable reliever for this team is so obviously Rondon that it’s surprising that anyone other than Trump would say otherwise.

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  70. SK

    dmick89,

    At least. I had him muted, but my son texted me to say that he announced Joe Maddon will be on Curb.

    I don’t mind Garlin on Curb, I just can’t stand him in the booth.

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  78. SK

    dmick89,

    I don’t know, but I I’m pretty sure I heard since then that what really happened is that Contreras was told to study the Cubs pitchers for a few days/couple weeks. Maybe someone heard “study” or “learn” and made an assumption about English.

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  81. dmick89

    SK:
    dmick89,

    I don’t know, but I I’m pretty sure I heard since then that what really happened is that Contreras was told to study the Cubs pitchers for a few days/couple weeks.Maybe someone heard “study” or “learn” and made an assumption about English.

    In all honesty, how difficult would it be to catch Kyle Hendricks and John Lackey? That was the plan coming up and there’s nothing about those guys that would, in my non-expert opinion, take more than a plane trip to figure out. Not to mention, he’d have caught both of those guys in spring training. I think it was just someone’s wild ass guess that someone else turned into a rumor that started floating around the internet. From what I remember, Contreras seemed genuinely surprised to get the call to come to the big leagues. It wouldn’t be that surprising to get the call if you’d been told a couple weeks earlier to prepare to be called up. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Alvin Yellon started the rumor.

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