After losing a series to the last place team in the American League Central, the Phillies will travel to Cincinnati to take on the last place team in the National League Central. The Reds aren’t particularly good at either hitting (They rank 24th in runs scored) or pitching (23rd in ERA), but neither were the Royals, and that didn’t seem to matter much.
Opposition research: Eugenio Suarez
During the offseason, there was a lot of talk about the Phillies needing to add a righthanded bat to their lineup, ideally someone who could replace
Alec Bohm at third base. While the first choice for many was Bo Bichette, there was also a strong push by some fans for the team to sign Eugenio “Geno” Suarez.
It was easy to see the appeal: Suarez hit 49 home runs last year, and has been reliably over the 30 homer threshold throughout his career.
But it was also easy to see why the Phillies weren’t interested. Along with the home runs, Suarez brings a lot of strikeouts – he’s led the league in that category three times – and his on-base percentage was under .300 last year. More importantly, he’s one of the worst fielding third basemen in the league. (Not that Bohm is a Gold Glover, but having Suarez next to Trea Turner on the left side is nightmare-inducing.)
He ended up signing with the Reds, and much like with Bichette, it looks like the Phillies might have dodged a bullet. He missed about a month of time with an injury, but he hasn’t produced when healthy. He’s batting just .206 and his slugging percentage is .362 which would be his lowest number since his rookie season. Predictably he’s been bad defensively and has spent half his games at DH.
On the bright side, he likely helped push horrendous umpire C.B. Bucknor out of the league.
Remembering a guy who played for both teams
Aaron Harang pitched 14 years in the majors, eight of them with the Reds. He was never a star (zero All-Star appearances), but he was consistently a solid, mid-rotation starter, who might occassionally rise above that. (He finished fifth in Cy Young voting in 2007)
By 2015, he had become a journeyman, pitching for five teams in four years, though he was coming off a solid season with the Braves. The 2015 Phillies were rebuilding and were looking for a veteran who could soak up some innings, so they signed Harang to a one-year deal.
Harang got off to a great start to the season and had a 2.02 ERA at the end of May.
There was a lot of talk that the rebuilding Phillies needed to trade him immediately before his value inevitably went down. But it wasn’t like Harang was an unknown quantity throughout the league. Any team trading for him would pretty much understand that regression was coming, and they wouldn’t be getting a 2.02 ERA pitcher.
Sure enough, Harang couldn’t sustain that early season performance. He was pretty bad for the rest of the season, and the Phillies apparently couldn’t find any team that would trade them anything for him. He returned to free agency at season’s end, and that ended his major league career.
Hating on the Reds
It’s amazing how one of the league’s most storied franchises has lapsed into such irrelevance. Marge Schott must be looking up wondering what happened to her beloved franchise. It’s not a good thing when the current ownership has made some fans wistful of the Schott era.
The Big Red Machine is long gone. These days, the Reds can be counted on to make the playoffs every few seasons or so and be quickly dismissed. I still remember watching the 2010 NLDS and seeing Reds fans all excited at the start of game three. By the end of the game, those fans look despondent as they watched their team get dominated by Cole Hamels, understanding that the Reds’ postseason was coming to an end.
Additional thought on the series
As mentioned, the Reds don’t have a good pitching staff. However, they have two very good starting pitchers on their roster – Chase Burns and Andrew Abbott – and the Phillies will face both of them. When the teams met up in May, Burns gave up one run in six innings and Abbott allowed one run in 5.1 innings.
The Phillies as a team are hitting better recently (the last two games aside) than they were in May, so hopefully they can have more success against those guys this time around. The Reds’ bullpen also qualifies as a weakness, so if the Phillies can keep it close, they will have a chance to do some damage in the late innings.
