Intro
The dog days of August are nearly over. The Cardinals embark on their last sojourn into Redsville, intent on derailing the Reds fading playoff hopes. As of publication, it is unclear if the Hi-Chew inventory has been replenished.
The 66-69 Cardinals come into Cincinnati off a feel-good series split with Pittsburgh. That’s as much as sign as to how the second half has gone than it is the Pirates, although the Pirates certainly can pitch. They are going to be troublesome.
The 68-66 Red host the
Cardinals, thinking their strength of schedule is what gives them whatever remaining hope they have. They are returning from a tough west coast swing where they lost 5 of 6, and gave up a fair amount of runs doing it.
The Pitching Matchups (projected)
Friday – Liberatore vs Zach Littell @ 5:40p (all times Central)
Saturday – McGreevy vs Andrew Abbott @ 5:40p
Sunday – Pallante vs Brady Singer @ 11:10a
Quick peek at the pitching/run prevention
The Reds had to disable Ashcraft a couple days ago (he may be their best reliever). They brought Lodolo back. They have had good pitching health like the Cardinals in their rotation. Their rotation is a good mix of credible starters to round out their rotation. As the Cardinals assess themselves against NL Central competition this winter, the pitching gap may be the most crucial to address, however they choose to do that.
On Friday, 29-year-old righthander Zach Littell takes the mound. Yet another guy who defies the trend away from pitch-to-contact. A soon-to-be Free Agent, and a deadline acquisition, he carries a 3.62 ERA, adorned by a 4.73 FIP. A 16.9% K rate explains much of that, but he does have a super low walk rate of less than 5%. He is a heavy flyball pitcher (60%+), which I wouldn’t think would work in GABP, but who knows. Look for the Cardinals to hit a lot of warning track flyballs against this guy. Maybe some with carry.
On Saturday, 26-year-old left-hander Andrew Abbott takes the mound. His surface stats are phenomenal. 23 starts, 2.62 ERA. His FIP of 3.62 is good. He is also another low K, low walk, high fly-ball rate pitcher succeeding in relatively cozy GABP. He must be a bit of a magician. In his two starts against the Cardinals, he has given up 1 ER runs in 10 innings (ERA below 1), but his xFIP is close to 6 for those innings.
On Sunday, we should see 29-year-old righty Brady Singer. He is pretty much pitch-to-contact, too, with little higher K rate (22.7%) that can allow him to avoid too much BABIP luck and he is low GB rate (37.7%) pitcher succeeding at GABP. I need to re-think my assumptions about that place. His walk rate is relatively high at 9%, but that shouldn’t impact the Cardinals much as the quality of ABs declines as the season drags to the finish line. His ERA (4.06) is pretty much in line with FIP (3.83), which is helped by a remarkably low HR rate. I really need to re-look at Park Factors here.
The Reds bullpen appears to have had a tougher time than the Cardinals (2.5 fWAR overall vs. 4.2 fWAR for the Cardinals). They seem to walk a lot of guys as a group. Pagan is really their only high octane guy.
The Reds are a middling defensive team. I don’t see any glaring weaknesses, but as a team they are 18th in OAA.
A peek at the offense
Here is where the Reds struggle. They are 25th in MLB in wRC+ (92), lagging well behind the Cardinals wRC+ of 98, which we of course find frustrating. 98 wRC+ at Busch seems a lot better than 92 wRC+ at GABP. Maybe that has become a pitcher’s park?
De La Cruz (wRC+ 113) and Marte (wRC+ 128) are their best hitters. Trevino has really cooled off, down to wRC+ of 76. Lux has maintained an average wRC+ and Friedl is just above average at 108 wRC+. De La Cruz will push it on the base paths. McClain will too, if he gets on.
Overall
Indeed, GABP remains a home run hitter’s park, it is #2 in HR behind Dodger Stadium at 122.
But overall offense is just 102 (6th in baseball), so very near the average although a bit away from the median (top 20th percentile). Can it be that lots of extra HR don’t necessarily net out to a surfeit of runs scored? Really, except for the outlier HR rate, the rest of offense is neutral or even a little skewed to the pitcher.
