The Cincinnati Reds played the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday afternoon in Great American Ball Park in the rubber match of the series. By now, you’ll be able to recite how the game went.
Cincinnati got an effective, albeit inefficient outing from their starting pitcher. Their offense was mostly inept, but gave just enough combined with the grind from the starter to turn the game over to the bullpen while still very, very much in the game – even, one would say in a vacuum, in the driver’s seat.
The
bullpen, though, is overmatched and overworked. Pair that with the inefficiencies from the starter, and they became overextended, too. The lead evaporated quickly on a mistake pitch that was punished, and the offense retreated back to its silence until the allotment of outs allowed had elapsed.
The Reds lost, 5-3. They’ve lost this game dozens of times already this year, particularly concentrated within the last six weeks. It’s the kind of predictability in these scenarios that’s become as frustrating as the final scores themselves.
It was off Tejay Antone and Zach Maxwell that the big hits came, two arms that – for many different reasons – weren’t really in the plans for late and close situations when the season began. That’s how the mop has flopped, though, and Cincinnati’s front office hasn’t been able to augment the bullpen in a meaningful way since so many other arms went by the wayside.
(Starter turned bullpen rescue guy Chase Petty was presumably unavailable today after having to perform said task twice already this week.)
The end result is a fifth straight lost series for the Reds, who fell to 33-37 on the season – the first time they’ve been 4 games under .500 all year. On top of that, the next five weeks of baseball that will take them to the All Star break don’t look any fun at all, meaning they’ve already exhausted their opportunity to build up some games, some momentum before taking on many of baseball’s Big Boys in the coming weeks.
It’s bleak in Cincinnati right now. The Reds are too predictable, to incapable to really change that course at the moment.
