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Chris Welsh! Reds 4, Mets 0.

2013-05-22T02:12:20Z

The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game

Mike Leake, fresh off of the relief of not being sent to Louisville when Johnny Cueto made his return, was positively dominant tonight, and he gets the nod. Leake tossed 7 shutout innings, allowing just 3 hits and 2 walks while striking out 4. With tonight's result, Leake has lowered his season ERA to 3.25 which, for you conspiracy theorists, is now lower than Tony Cingrani's MLB ERA of 3.27.

Commence argument about how they match up over 24 other statistical categories.

Honorable mentions are due to Devin Mesoraco (1 for 3, 2 RBI, HR); Todd Frazier (2 for 4); Joey Votto (1 for 3, BB, yawn); Chris Welsh (Hi Chris!); and Sam LeCure (1 scoreless inning to lower his season ERA to 1.35...#beeasy).

Key Plays

Offense in this one was terribly hard to come by, but the Reds got what they could (and what they shouldn't have) in the Top of the 1st. After Derrick Robinson and Zack Cozart were retired to start the game, Joey Votto walked, Brandon Phillips singled, Jay Bruce walked, and both Votto and Phillips scored when Todd Frazier hit a grounder through David Wright's hundred million dollar legs. Donald Lutz then reached on a softly hit infield single, and Devin Mesoraco walked to drive in Bruce. Reds led, 3-0.
In the Top of the 9th, Devin Mesoraco cored a big apple deep to LF for his 2nd HR of the season. Since Mike Leake and Sam LeCure had breezed through the first 8 innings, all Logan Ondrusek had to do was shut down the 9th, which he did. Reds win, 4-0!

Source: FanGraphs

Other Notes

Even when JTM tries to ruin things, I still love when Chris Welsh and George Grande are together again.
Despite starting the season with a 1-8 record in road games, the win tonight leaves the Reds at an even 12-12 away from GABP. If they can keep up their recent trend on the road, their winning ways at home will make them nearly impossible to beat in the NL Central division race. Last year, both the Reds and the Cardinals had identical 50-31 home records; on the road, the Cardinals were 38-43 while the Reds were 47-34.
Once upon a time, there existed Tupelo Tuesdays. It's high time we resurrected this.
Chris Welsh is Magnum P.I.!! HOW ELSE DID HE FIND US???

Reds at Mets, Game 2: Previews and Predictions

2013-05-21T21:09:12Z

Next Game

Cincinnati Reds
@ New York Mets

Mike Leake v. Jonathan Niese

Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 7:10 PM EDT
Citi Field

Partly cloudy,rain. Winds blowing from right to left field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 75.

Complete Coverage >

The Reds take on Jonathan Niese, the pride of Defiance, Ohio, in game two of a three game series tonight. Niese had a breakout year in 2012, posting a 112 ERA+ over 190 innings, but he's regressed pretty severely so far this season. Niese has been struggling big time with his command, and he's striking out only 4.5 batters per 9 innings. So the Reds should really try to guarantee a series win before facing the phenom tomorrow afternoon.

Opposing Niese will be Mike Leake (MIKE LEAKE!), who is coming off of back to back solid starts. With the lack of thunder in the Mets lineup, and pitching in this ballpark, Leake should have a good chance to make it three in a row.

The bullpen has been leaned on a bit the last two games, but even though four relief pitchers were used yesterday, none threw more than 15 pitches. I might want to stay away from Chapman and Broxton tonight, but LeCure, Hoover and Simon should all be fresh and ready to go.

Go Reds! They're Dolph Lundgren's favorite team!

This Day in Reds History: Happy birthday, Eddie Milner

2013-05-21T19:33:23Z

On this day in 1883, former Red Eddie Grant was born in Franklin, MA. Grant died fighting in the Argonne Forest during World War I. Bill James believes that Judge Landis included the character clause in the Hall of Fame requirements in an attempt to force Grant's election (Posnanski, SI.com).

On this day in 1930, the Reds second baseman Hughie Critz to the Giants for righty Larry Benton. When I first read about Critz, I assumed his last name was pronounced "Crits" as in ritz. However, I later learned that he pronounced his name, "Crights" as in lights. Baseball-Reference supports the latter pronunciation as well.

On this day in 1938, former Red Silver King died in St. Louis at the age of 70. King threw only 105 innings for the Reds in his career, all of which came in 1893. He is best known for his seasons with the championship St. Louis Browns clubs of the late 1880s.

The 1887 Browns had a player by the name of Bob Caruthers who threw 341 innings of 137 ERA+ ball. On his off days, Caruthers played the outfield and slashed .357/.463/.547 (169 OPS+) in 436 plate appearances. In 1886, Caruthers led the league in OPS+ while posting a 147 ERA+. Caruthers also led the league in ERA+ one season. Not surprisingly, Caruthers is a popular pick for the best 19th century player who isn't in the Hall of Fame.

On this day in 1955, former Red Eddie Milner was born in Columbus, OH. Cincinnati called up Milner at the age of 25. He didn't become a regular until he was 27. Milner broke out in 1983 at the age of 28 with a good season, but was out of the league at 33 despite being a productive player. After the 1983 season, Bill James wrote that Milner was "probably as good defensively as any NL centerfielder, and [it] looks like he will hit enough to say . . . drew 68 walks, swiped 41 bases," which was an accurate description of his skill set (218, The 1984 Bill James Baseball Abstract).

On this day in 1973, former Red Herm Wehmeier died in Dallas, TX at the age of 46. Wehmeier was a native of Cincinnati who graduated from Western Hills. He pitched for the Reds in the 1940s and 50s.

On this day in 1977, the Reds traded righty Santo Alcala to the Expos for players to be named later. Montreal later sent lefties Shane Rawley and Angel Torres to the Queen City to finalize the deal.

Red Reposter - Heeeeere's Johnny Edition

2013-05-21T16:40:15Z

Joe Lemire from Sports Illustrated seems to have seen the same Johnny Cueto we saw yesterday. Cueto didn't scrap his Tiant-turn, his velocity was still where it was supposed to be (93 mph average on his fastball while touching 96 at times), and he was both rusty and effective. Yep, that's exactly what I saw, and it's about what I expected for a pitcher coming off a 5 week absence who was considering re-working his mechanics. Lemire goes on to heap praise on Cueto's previous performances and gives him the kind of national dap he deserves.

Paul Daugherty is wrong, in public, in writing, on purpose, for all of us to see, again, again, one more time. Doc claims that Brandon Phillips is "his team's best player now, and was last season." He said that. Honestly, it's not the claim of BP being the best player on the Reds over the last 200 or so games that has me stabbing spoons in my eyeballs; it's his reasoning. What about Choo, you ask? "S. Choo has gotten most of the love this spring, and he has deserved a decent bit of it. But not as much as BP. Choo benefits from his newness, and the fact he filled a lineup spot that had been a vast wasteland for years," says Doc. So Choo loses points for replacing a part of the lineup that's been awful with league leading performance...yet the fact that Brandon Phillips' .788 OPS in 2013 is replacing Ryan Ludwick's .877 OPS from 2012 means he's the team's best player. Right. Got it. I'd mention Joey Votto, but it seems trying to explain Joey Votto to Doc would be akin to speaking in Latin to a person with no ears and, well, ain't nobody got time for that.

Ryan Vogelsong fractured a bone in his hand last night and will hit the shelf for awhile. Remember when the Giants had a rotation so good you could plug your headphones into it and jam on repeat all night? Well, now Vogelsong (who has been bad) is out, Lincecum can't throw a ball 90 mph (and is a free agent after this season), Barry Zito is in the last year of his contract (and is still Barry Zitoing to the tune of an 86 ERA+), and Matt Cain has a 5.43 ERA and is on pace to allow 50+ HRs this season. Madison Bumgarner and his 109 ERA+ is now the only starter having any success on the staff that's allowed the 2nd most runs in the whole National League. Once again, folks: there's no such thing as too much starting pitching. We should probably trade Cueto for Pablo Sandoval already.

Mike Axisa uses all sorts of Joels and Luckhaupts to break down who best rivals Miguel Cabrera as the 'best hitter in baseball.' It's weird. If you just go to CBS Sports' MLB page, the title under the link says "Braun best of Miggy's rivals for best hitter," but if you then read the article, Axisa never makes the claim that Braun is the best rival to Cabrera, and he rounds up his breakdown by saying that the Reds' own Joey Votto is "the closest thing there is to Cabrera right now, that all-around hitter who excels at everything at the plate." I'm confused.

Dayn Perry takes a look at some of the paces set by top players today, and our own Brandon Phillips shows up. It appears that BP is on pace for 18 sac flies this year, and that would put him just one shy of the all-time mark of 19 set by Gil Hodges in 1954. Nevermind what I said earlier. BP is the team MVP.

Reds Blog Roundtable: Is Bruce turning a corner?

2013-05-21T15:00:08Z

This week's topic for our esteemed panel of blog types:

After a rough April, Jay Bruce seems to be coming on lately, with a .915 OPS in the last two weeks and a .471/.500/.882 line in the last week (as of last Friday). Is he turning a corner on his way to have his best season yet? Is this the real Jay Bruce? And is this alternating hot and cold streaks going to be the norm for the rest of Jay's tenure with the Reds?

Chad Dotson, Redleg Nation: Jay Bruce is what he is. Yes, I think Bruce has turned a corner, and yes, I think 2013 will be his best season yet. I see no reason to believe that Bruce will not continue to be a streaky hitter, however.
Our greatest hope, I suppose, is that the cold streaks won't be quite as cold as Bruce matures and becomes a more experienced hitter. We already know how hot Bruce can get when he's hitting the ball well. Sure, everyone would love to see Bruce hit like that all the time, but very few hitters can maintain that type of pace.

At any rate, I'm very happy with the player Jay Bruce is, and I'm very hopeful about the player he can become. Keep in mind: Bruce is still only 26 years old. Think about that. Bruce has hit 30+ homers twice, made two All-Star teams, and he's younger than Todd Frazier, Zack Cozart, and Homer Bailey. He's already a very good player, and he's just entering his prime years.

Quite often, Reds fans have a tendency to ignore what a player does well and focus instead on that player's weaknesses (see Dunn, Adam; see also Encarnacion, Edwin). Jay Bruce is a good player, but he strikes out more than Marty Brennaman would like. He isn't perfect. But he's very good, and I hope Reds fans will appreciate just how good he is, and how good he can be over the next few years.

Amanda, Red Hot Mama: At this point, it's still hard to tell whether Jay Bruce's streakiness is a symptom of just now being old enough to rent a car or a genuine characteristic of who he is as a player. Like a college student who can't settle on a major, he may be trying out a variety of different levels of awesomeness before he settles into the one that will become progressively more soul crushing until he can retire.

But I don't know if this is a good analogy. Do hot shots tend to settle down, or can you really be streaky throughout your career? I don't know enough baseball players to cherry pick anecdotes to support my position, so I went out to do some highly scientific research* and see what official-sounding information I could cherry pick.

I figure that Bruce's Player of the Week awards are a good indication of his streakiness: artifacts of fantastic stretches that act as a counterpoint to a still-good-but-not-really-fantastic overall career. I wondered how other multi-POW award winners measured up.

So I went to Wikipedia and copied the table of POW winners for this year and 2012 and plopped them into a spreadsheet. Then I alphabetized the rows and spent 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back deleting out everyone whose name only showed up once. I looked up the 25 remaining names on baseball-reference.com to find the easiest indication of overall offense: lifetime OPS.

Once I deleted out the pitchers, I was down to 18 multi-POW winners. Only Jay Bruce had won 4 in that time period, and he came in 13 out of 18 in OPS. Being at the extremes like that makes me think that it is not really typical for a guy to be that streaky, and he's probably going to settle down eventually.

Question is: where will he settle down? Continuous award winner or good-but-not-really-fantastic? Probably somewhere in the middle, which ain't too shabby: it's not like right field is the spot where you normally stash your slugger. There's enough other production on this team that a somewhere-in-the-middle Bruce will still be a valuable guy to have around.

By highly scientific, I mean I follow a rigorous methodology that calls for doing the first thing I think of and making an effort not to drop more than a half dozen or so rows of data without noticing. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I didn't account for Joey Votto winning the Player of the Week Award this week, which wouldn't have changed the results at all, but did give me the opportunity to mention Joey Votto.

kcgard2, Red Reporter:I don't think we can talk about Jay Bruce turning any corners at this point, at least not yet. A week or two of hot hitting happens to all players, all the time. And maybe if we hadn't just watched Bruce flounder to the tune of an awful .246/.296/.345 line for over a month, it would make more sense to talk about turning corners.

But we've seen all of this from Bruce before. In 2010 his July OPS barely cracked .500(!), which was followed by an August and September OPS over .1100(!) - equally impressive in each direction for how extreme they are. In 2011 Bruce put up an .1140 OPS in May (awesome), but sandwiched it with a .687 in April and a .649 in June (gross). In 2012, Bruce's whole season was a roller coaster of slightly less extreme swings: .950 to .760 to .850 to .750 to .950 to .780. At least all of those are presentable. But when Bruce is spending entire months with OPSs in the five, six, and seven hundreds, it's pretty unlikely he'll post season OPSs in the nine hundreds, and this is a pattern he's shown his whole career.

Bruce leads the league in doubles (he's turned a corner!), but he also leads the league in strikeouts (wait, no he hasn't). His batting average is matching a career high, but his OBP is 30 points off. And so on. Right now, I don't see any reason to think Bruce will outdo his 2010 or 2102 seasons, or maybe even match them. We know who Bruce is. It's not who so many fans wanted him to be, but he's still a solid player. If we look for evidence that he's "turned the corner" after every 10 game hot streak though, we're going to get whiplash.

ken, Red Reporter: With five full seasons under his belt, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Bruce continues to ride hot and cold streaks on the way to stringing together solid if unspectacular seasons. His latest run is certainly welcome, and brings his adjusted OPS up to 108. Which puts him another strong week away from matching what he typically puts up. If we're just looking at his overall production, this year is more of the same.

But what is different is his swing-happy approach. By swinging more and hitting fewer flyballs, Jay's done his best Joey impression - a killer LD rate (33%) and average on balls in play (.381), not to mention his league-leading 15 doubles. But it's also depressed his walks, stretched his strikeout rate to 30%, and limited his homeruns. I think the dingers will come, especially when the weather gets warmer. But the ballooned K:BB ratio (nearly 5 to 1) is a major concern. We're a quarter of the way through the season, right around when those rates typically normalize. I think Bruce needs to show better strike zone judgment just to match his production from last year, let alone surpass it.

AC Slider, Red Reporter: It's important to remember that Jay Bruce is still only 26 years old. Sure, he's had nearly 3,000 MLB plate appearances, but that doesn't make him any older than he really is. Young players tend to be more "streaky" than older players, for a number of reasons. According to href="http://baseball-reference.com/">Baseball-Reference.com, Jay Bruce (to this point in his career) is most similar to Reggie Jackson. Take a look at Jackson's splits for the 1972 season (age 26 season). Month-to-month he was wildly inconsistent. His OPS by month ranges from .550 in April to 1.034 in May.

The point is, young talented hitters will have bad stretches accompanied by MVP-type hot streaks. So, for the time being, we simply need to accept that Jay Bruce is still young and developing. With time, Bruce will become more consistent and the cold streaks will become fewer and shorter. Regardless, he's still a very good player right now. The next time he has a cold streak, just remember that a hot streak is not far away.

-ManBearPig, Red Reporter: Bruce started the season mired in one of the worst slumps of his entire career, slashing .252/.312/.339 in the month of April, with only one home run and a Stubbsian strikeout rate. But as the calendar turned over to May, Bruce heated up, honking 4 Beaumont Bombs and OPSing 1.015 so far this month. Slyde mentioned on Twitter about a week ago that he thinks that Jay may have changed his approach this season, but he was apprehensive whether or not it would work for him.

The batted ball data seems to reflect that there has been a change in approach. It looks like he's flattened his swing out a bit, trading in fewer fly balls for more line drives, at around a 10% change from his career norms in both categories. Bruce is also hitting the ball the other way with a little more regularity, and more of those opposite field pokes are finding grass this year than in years past. Looking at a spray chart for the month of May, it appears that he's still going the other way just as frequently as he was earlier in the year, but he's finding a lot more success at the plate overall. Time will tell if Jay's new approach is actually a new approach, or if this is just a small sample size anomaly at this point, but if it is, his slow start in April could be attributed to still working out the kinks of his new mechanics.

It seems like Bruce is trying to imitate Joey Votto, trading wangers for doubles, and using the entire field. Hopefully this new approach will help steady the highs and lows of the Jay Bruce experience, and provide a little more consistency. Bruce is never going to walk, and therefore get on base, like Joey Votto, so the question is will trading some slugging for batting average and OBP make Jay more valuable to the Reds?

Farmers Only: Hey, Hey! It's Soft J!

2013-05-21T12:00:14Z

Louisville split a double header yesterday. The Bats beat up on the Jr. Braves in the first game, winning 8-5. Raven Riley would have appreciated the Bats performance, as Henry Rodriguez, Neftali Soto, and Denis Phipps all showed off their wangers. Billy Billy Billy knocked a double, drove in one, and scored a run on a 2-3 night. Pedro Villarreal wasn't spectacular, giving up 4 runs in 4.1 innings on 8 hits and 2 walks while striking out 3, but he kept the team in the game, and even helped his own cause with an RBI single. Poor, poor Pul Janish went 0-3. Louisville dropped the nightcap 5-2. Unfortunately, the Daniel Corcino. He walked 6 in 4.2 innings while allowing 6 hits and gave up 5 runs with only 2 strikeouts. Le sigh. The Bats managed 10 hits, but were decidedly unclutch. Billy Snax, Neftali Soto, and Hank Rod all went 2-4. Up Next: Chad Reineke (3-3, 4.10 ERA) faces the Barves at 6:05 PM ET.

Pensacola lost to the Bay Bears, falling 4-1. Remember yesterday when I said Bryson Smith was really the only one hitting for the Wahoos? That hasn't changed. The Splendid Ginger had the only multi-hit game for Pensacola, going 2-4. Josh Smith went 7 innings giving up 4 runs (2 earned) with 5 strikeouts and a walk. I don't know what else to say, this game was pretty stoopy domb. Up Next: Tim Crabbe (2-2, 2.24 ERA) tries to get the Wahoos a series win at 8 PM ET.

Bakersfield beat the High Desert Mavericks 5-3. Ryan Wright was totally jamtastic, knocking a dinger and 2 doubles in 4 plate appearances. Carlos Contreras gave up 2 runs in 5 innings on 5 hits, striking out 4 and walking 3. The bullpen was able to preserve the win, and although he gave up a run, El'Hajj got the save. Up Next: John Jacob Jingleheimer Johnson (3-2, 6.63 ERA) duels the Mavericks at 10:30 PM ET.

Dayton got spanked by South Bend, as the Siver Hawks exacted their revenge on the Dragons 9-1. Ismael Guillon and Daniel Corcino are battling for the title of most disappointing pitching prospect in the system. At this point it's a neck and neck race. Guillon gave up 6 runs (4 earned) on 6 hits in 4.2 innings, walking 5 and striking out 6. Yuck. Jeff "Fluffernutter" Gelalich went 2-4 with a double and scored the only Dragons run. Up Next: Off day.

May Bruce! Reds 4, Mets 3.

2013-05-21T03:00:01Z

The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game

Hard Jay is currently Hot Jay, and it's a thing of beauty. Jay Bruce homered again tonight in the midst of a 2 for 4, 2 RBI evening, and he's as locked in as we've come to expect him to be once the calendar flips to May. He's now sporting a .284/.327/.481 line on the season, and he's on pace for 58 doubles, 22 HR, 108 RBI, and his .808 OPS is right on his .811 career OPS. Whether or not this proves to be Bruce's "breakout year," he's once again the Jay Bruce we've come to know, and that's a middle of the order bat that can carry a team to the playoffs. Yay.

Honorable Mentions are due to Joey Votto (2 for 4 with a walk...yawn); Brandon Phillips (2 RBPI!), Johnny Cueto (he's back!); and Aroldis Chapman (a clean IP with 2 K for the save).

Key Plays

The Reds raced out to a lead faster than a Shaun Marcum fastball...wait, that doesn't make any sense. They raced out to a lead faster than an Aroldis Chapman fastball...well, a 2012 Aroldis Chapman fastball...well, damnit, they took the lead in the Top of the 1st, OK? Shin-Soo Choo led off with a walk, and two batters later Votto hit a sharp grounder down the 1B line (that actually hit the base). Choo went to 3B, and Votto ran into Ike Davis before being thrown out at 2B; the Umps conferred, however, and awarded Votto 2B as a single and interference on Davis (an error on his behalf, and also the first time in the game where the Mets commenced complaining). Brandon Phillips, previously 0 for 12 against Marcum, then singled to score both Choo and Votto, and Jay Bruce followed with a laser double to score BP. Reds led, 3-0.
Johnny Cueto was far from his vintage form tonight, and he missed spots more tonight than I've seen him do in years. The velocity was there, but missing the strike zone cost him in the Bottom of the 3rd. Rick Ankiel singled, David Wright walked, and after Lucas Duda struck out, Marlon Byrd hit a cheeseball to cheesy-poof land for a 3-run HR. Game tied, 3-3.
To lead off the 6th, Jay Bruce hit one down by the bay where the watermelon grows. He hit it to the land where people see llamas eating pajamas. It was glorious. It was hit so hard, it sounded like th racquetball game in the background of this. Glorious, I tell you. Logan Ondrusek, Sean Marshall (Sean Marshall? Sean Marshall!), Jonathan Broxton, and Aroldis Chapman but the beat down on the lock down, and that was that. Reds win, 4-3!

Source: FanGraphs

Other Notes

Man, Jay Bruce's racquetball game has me on an old Outkast binge now. Roll with me.
Seriously, do.
It was announced before the game tonight by MLB that Joey Votto had won the Joey Votto NL Joey Votto of the Month award since even MLB couldn't even think of some excuse of a human being that they could pretend had out Joey Vottoed Joey Votto over the last week. Expect him to win another one every other week of his existence because, well, Joey Votto. Keep Calm and Joey Votto.
This album came out 17 years ago? Man, I really am growing old.

Red Reporter Podcast Episode 1 - Dolph Lundgren

2013-05-21T02:37:11Z

And now, some actual news!

We decided that we need to get into the podcast realm here at RR, so we recorded one. We're planning on making this a weekly thing. We aren't on iTunes yet, but I'm working on it.

Episode 1 happened directly after Chapman blew that save last night, and how could that not set the tone? That said, we think it went pretty well, so take a listen here. It features FordhamRam, Cy Schourek, and myself, and runs about 50 minutes.

Topics include:

Recapping the Phillies series (and a Chapman blown save)
Manny Parra
Honkbal!
Drinks
Airline food
Aroldis Chapman
Twitter questions
Help us with the hashtag!
Mets series preview

Listen below!

rr-podcast-1