Cincinnati Reds get SWEPT by Athletics & Fall 2.5 GB in the MLB Wild Card Playoff Push | Highlights
The bench to bench change in the air to deep field that goes to Indie and the team. Get out of here baseball. It’s gone. Oh my god. Can you believe it? Johnny Banks has tried it out. The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series in fourth rate. It was a sweep in the dirt. the back and for the game. That ball is fair. Cincinnati’s ahead. Two games to mount. Welcome Joe to Cincinnati. Adam Dunn has done it again. Benzinger backing and calling. And the 1990 World Championship belongs to the Cincinnati Red. Marty. Yes. This is Adam from Milwaukee. Hey Adam, how you doing? I’m good. How are you? Good. You think a good player done up there with the bases loaded the outfield deep and around toward right in the 10 on the way to the plate. Swing on long drive right field and this one do their best and a high drive back into deep right field. Junior has just knocked the door down to the 500 scores. That ball had a family. And Daylight Cruz is Oh my goodness. Look at this kid run. My oh my. That is a triple. Then Mlan’s first big league bomb. Spencer Steer’s first big league hit is a home run to straightaway center field. Joey Botto again. The pitch. Botto swings high in the air right field. Yes, he pointed to the dugout to say I told you. That is Joey B’s 315th career. Go ahead, Revy. Only Johnny Bench had more as a Red. And I can’t tell you how much it means to play in front of everyone here in Cincinnati as a Red. What a gift. What a tremendous gift. So, thank you. Thank you. I think I can speak for all of Red’s country. Joey Motto, thank you. High five. Left center feet. Racing back to the National League Central Division Champions. In the air, left center field begins [Music] win. [Music] the first round [Music] you got to have a chance for a three home run day by Raone Hernandez strike away and out away is Homer B. Round ball to third. Frasier gloves to first and Homer Bon for the second time in his major league career. [Music] Are you kidding me? [Music] in the first game in the air and the Reds win. What a dream to the career of J Bruce. All right, folks. Uh my apologies because uh I decided to run a golf tournament today and didn’t really factor in that it was an hour away and then by the time that was over, I had to drive home. Uh so yeah, I just walked in the door about 2 minutes ago. I have about 12 to 15 pizza rolls, Mike. And I have nothing to drink. Actually, I do have something to drink. So, there’s that. I have some water. And I’m also running the graphics package. So, if it seems like I’m maybe a little disorganized tonight, that would be why. But, you know who else is disorganized? Perhaps just a little, our Cincinnati Rats. Um, so maybe they’ll love us both. Mike, I don’t know if we’ve done a show. I I’m trying to think on the way home. I don’t think we’ve done a show together. Uh, so nice to be on the airwaves, I guess, or the the the stream or the video, whatever term we use on these things. Uh, nice to do a show with you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I think we did the pregame show at Smoke Justice together. Yeah. All right. That Yeah, that one is that was special circumstances, but yeah, this is my maiden voyage with you on the uh postgame show. Yes. And um you know what? We’ll see how it goes. I I know that there are going to be some people that want this show to go one of two ways. You know, it’s uh I I don’t know where it’s going to go with me. I I’m just disheartened at this point. It feels like Mike, you get into a spot where you have a real chance. Like, you know, we talk all season long and we try to convince ourselves all season long that, you know, if you play the right way or you do this or maybe you get on a hot streak here, you can kind of maybe accidentally find yourself in a spot you’re not supposed to be. you know, kind of like you’re playing a little bit o over your head. Um, no. Coming into this weekend, they played probably what many of us would consider not even good baseball to to the level that we thought we were going to have to get to to be able to make the postseason. Not at all, Mike. Uh, the door was wide open. It was extremely open. I think honestly the front door and the back door was open. And if there was a side door, I would even consider that to be open as well. And what do we do? What do we do? We slam the front door shut. We slam the side door shut. And we go to the back and we slam it shut as well. Three straight days, three straight losses to an inferior team. And if you don’t think they’re an inferior team, then I I guess what I would say is then then that’s fine. If you if you are going to convince me, and maybe you will, Mike, that the A’s are good or the A’s are are formidable or the A’s are something that you shouldn’t take advantage of, then we’re not good. Then we’re not good. Then they weren’t then we’re basically who we are. This team all season long has played to the level of their competition. To the level of their compet. And you know what? I don’t know who that falls on. I’m not totally sure, but I’m sure we’ll get into it. Mike, um I I I I don’t I again, to be clear, we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of the game, but more or less I’m sad as a fan. Uh we can we can call it however we wish. Uh but I’m more or less sad. Yeah, I’m right there with you. Sad is a great way to put it. just kind of, you know, defeated, just uh resolved that this team uh ran out of gas and wasn’t, you know, really didn’t play up to a way um that a playoff team should. I was talking with Craig last night about it and it’s just like yeah I guess two and a half or it was one and a half last night seems doable but like what has this team showed you in the past week month that shows that they are in any way going to be able to fight this for the playoffs let alone do anything in the playoffs. So, it’s just uh it’s just sad to see, you know, it I know we’ve pronounced the season dead a few times now and the the Mets inexplicably have uh kept us in it, but yet tonight really feels like the the the coffin nail, right? The last nail in the coffin here. You get swept by I I don’t think the A’s are good. They were 69 and 80 coming into this game. Uh the last place in their division. um you know playing in a ballpark where they you know I think as a team have almost over a six erra and um yeah now they could hit but boy we sure we you know got shut out in the first game and then just couldn’t take advantage of uh of opportunities and to be honest we didn’t look like the better team. I I genuinely think that the A’s are not as good of a team as the Reds as a whole for this season but we look like the worst team. We look like the team that was, you know, not driving in runs, that was coming in and uh not being able to hold leads and and um you know, looked looked lost and and and and frankly uh defeated at the end of this series and and it’s sad to see that that’s where we’re going to be left for the last two weeks of this season. Yeah, there’s always a chance. That’s that’s that’s that’s the truth. I mean, there’s always a chance, but I’m with you, Mike. It’s like at some point you’re just so defeated by watching the team each and every single day that they don’t even make it. It’s like I I don’t of course I’m an analogy guy. I don’t really have a perfect analogy right now. It’s almost like we’ve gotten to the point where we feel so disgusted about any of it that you just throw the rest of it away, right? It’s like it’s like you you you you uh I don’t know, maybe you kicked over your your can of your beverage. Uh maybe you’re having a cold one. You kicked over your can. It’s like the third one you dropped in in a row. And it’s almost like you’re just like, you know what? Pour the rest of it out. I don’t even need it. I I don’t even want it anymore. Get it out of my face. I’m tired of seeing it. It’s kind of how I feel about this baseball team. It’s just like every time that this damn team reels you back in. Get you into a really good spot where you feel like, you know what, maybe I was wrong. Maybe all along I was wrong about these guys because they are playing better. They have find themselves in a spot where you think they can do it. And then every single time they don’t even not not only do they kind of keep you somewhat in it. No, they just they literally like give you a one-two punch to make you feel like you’re right back to where you started, if not even farther behind. And yeah, I know we’ve sat here and maybe just done nothing but complain the whole time about it. But that I guess where I’m going with it, that is who this team is. That’s how I have them pegged at this point. It it’s it’s sad, but it’s like, you know what? It’s almost like your friend in high school is going to tell you he’s going to stop smoking cigarettes. And it’s like, oh, okay. And then you know what? They go about a week without smoking cigarettes, and you’re like, “Wow, maybe they’re going to stop.” And then there, sure enough, a couple days later, they’re back to ripping some sigs again. I don’t know. You know, I just I give up. I I give up with this team. And uh we’ll talk about it and more as as to what’s maybe more even even more frustrating is is some of the success that they’ve had maybe this weekend. I would even go so far to say Mike that could be even more infuriating is the success that some players have had over this weekend that you found yourself in a spot now asking yourself what in the absolute hell were we doing all year long? And I know it’s going to sound like we’re sitting here trying to jump on a take that we sound like we were right about. That’s not it at all. I don’t give a damn. I’m wrong plenty. Trust me, I know I’m wrong a lot. But I also know that when you watch a team as much as we do, one thing I I I would like to give all of us fans credit for, Mike, I’m tired of hearing about a Hall of Fame manager 100 is 100% right no matter what. That’s what I’m tired of hearing about. Okay? He’s human just like we are. He I’m not just trying to put it all on Tito, but the whole entire the whole entire front office can be blamed as well. Yeah. And I think part of the frustrating thing about this too is I, you know, I I live in Columbus. I have a lot of friends that are Guardians fans. And the moment that Tito is hired, they’re like, “Oh, good. You know, man, that’s an awesome hire. This is going to be great for you.” And then it starts off a little shaky and I’m like, “Hey, what’s going on?” They’re like, “Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry.” Tito always has his guys playing the best baseball at the end. We’re always, you know, riding right to the end and and making the push into the playoffs. So, don’t worry. It’s going to get better. And uh it’s pretty hard to say that this past month has been the Reds playing their best baseball. Um you know, I feel like we’ve been sold a bill of goods about this guy that he’s going to change the culture and um update things and and make it different so that we don’t get to the end of the season and we don’t kind of just fall flat because we’re tired or because I don’t know, for all a litany of reasons. And you know, it doesn’t seem like we’ve changed. It doesn’t seem like there’s much difference. This was the calling card for David Bell, right? It’s like we’d get going, we get close, and then we just kind of peter out at the end of the season and what have we done? We’ve gotten close, we’ve been kept in it by other teams, terrible play, and we’ve just petered out at the end of the season. So, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’s got something up his sleeve for the next uh 13 games, but it sure doesn’t look like it. And um yeah, it is it is frustrating cuz you felt like the the thing that could be the difference would be something like that. The intangibles, the the you know, the coaching pedigree that can get these guys to believe, get these guys to perform over their expected stats. And um I we just haven’t seen that. I mean, for a couple a couple exceptions maybe um you know, Marte, but besides that, you know, we’ve just been faced with underperformance and um and then baffling decisions about when to bring people up and when to play people that has, you know, felt like that’s brought us to this point. Now, it’s not all on the coaches. It’s not all on Tito, but you know when you’re when you’re build as the Hall of Fame manager, you really hope that that would be something that can make a difference. And here we are doesn’t seem to have done that. Can we also agree as a fan base? I would hope collectively to understand that if you’re more than 15 games behind anyone in your division, you’re just not probably a good team. I mean, maybe maybe a maybe an average team, maybe a maybe a mediocre team, but not a good team. Not a not a not a team that not a team that you should you should justifiably, in my opinion, get extremely excited for. I mean, we’re we’re we’re we’re we’re 16 and a half games back at the Milwaukee Brewers. And I get the Milwaukee Brewers have had an unbelievable season. I’m not taking anything away from them, but 16 and a half games back, I don’t give a damn. I mean, yeah, the Cubs, very good team. Five and a half back of the Brewers makes perfect sense. I would even say, you know what, call it eight eight nine back of a team that’s as good as the Brewers. You could justifiably say you’re a good team still. 16 and a half is where we sit. Two and a half now in the wild card. Four and six in the last 10, losers of three straight. And we are who we are. We are who we are. Um 42 and 43 against teams with a record of greater than 500. Just an average. We’re an average baseball team that unfortunately has got us excited a few times this year that has made us believe they might get into a watered down playoff situation in Major League Baseball, but we’ll talk about it. Uh obviously they played a game today. Um Mike, uh usually obviously this is the Nick Kirby box score recap. I guess today you’re going to do the honors and and have some fun with it. Um we’ll uh we’ll uh we’ll see we’ll see how it goes for you considering it was a tough one to watch. Yep. I I did prepare the box score recap obviously um presented by our fearless leader Nick Kirby who normally does this. Um but you know the Reds came in today trying to avoid being swept to the 69 and 80 last place A’s in their AAA ballpark. They were still a game and a half back from a playoff spot and we had Nick Lollo on the mound against Luis Morales. And you know, once again, just like last yesterday, the Reds started off hot, scoring in the top of the first. Noelvie Marte golfed his 13th home run out to left field. The Reds led one- nothing. And then in the top of the second, after a lux walk, Will Benson again hit his fourth home run in just his seventh start uh to give us a three nothing lead. And things started things were looking up. It was looking like, hey, maybe we can pull one out here and and uh keep our playoff hopes alive. And in the but in the top of the fourth, Gavin Lux tripled to start off an inning and after a line out by Benson to Nick Curts, KBrian Hayes grounded out to a drawn in infield and Lux was thrown out at the plate again failing to get a runner home from third with nobody out and just the you know what we have expected to see from this season. And you know that would come back and bite the Reds because in the bottom of the fourth, Jacob Wilson and Colobby Thomas each hit solo home runs off Lollo who had been rolling till then and it was only 3-2 Reds. Then in the bottom of the fifth after getting two outs, Nick Looo hit Jacob Wilson and then Nick Curts only got his second hit of the series, but also his second home run of the series, giving the A’s a 4 to3 lead. Ledo would give up one more run in the six off a Brett Harris double, making it 5-3A’s, leaving his final line at five and a third. Eight hits, five runs, no walks, and five strikeouts. The Red’s offense continued to be baffled by the bad Oakland bullpen. And Brett Rooker hit a two-run home run off of Zack Maxwell in the seventh inning, making it seven to three A’s. But in the top of the eighth, Sal Stewart hit another laser beam, 106.7 miles per hour off the bat, and it cleared the left field wall for already his third home run in just 32 big league at bats. And it whittleled the lead to 7 to four. But that is all the fight the Reds had left in them. And they ended up this game getting swept by the A’s in Sacramento. And with the Mets walk-off win earlier today, they fall to two and a half back with just 13 games to play. All right, and we do have a deep drive of the day. Thankfully, we got deep drives of the day now. We just even though we don’t win baseball games, we have some legitimate deep drives of the day. Sal Stewart, baby, third home run of the year. And you heard it from Mike in just 30 plus Major League at bats. 106.7 off the bat, 417 ft. Win probability unfortunately for the Reds would double, but that would make it six and a half percent. Not something that, you know, not something to probably get extremely excited about, but you know what? It’s nice to see Sal Stewart hitting home runs because that’s what he was bu to do. DSC, they are a leader in renewable commodities for bofuel production, specializing in used cooking, oil collection, aggregation, and sales. Visit www.deepsouthcommodities.com for more information. And thank you to John and his team. All right. Um, I put why. Now, you might ask yourself, what that what what does that even mean? I think that’s a very, very, very deep question to ask about this team and organization right now. Why do we find ourselves in what feels like the same predicament year in and year out? Are we the worst team? No. No, we’re not. Are there some things that you could like possibly heading into the next season that you can kind of justify getting a little excited about? Yep. But is it ever good enough? And it hasn’t been. And I’m at a point now, Mike, where I got to ask and I’d like for someone at least in the organization to let me know what is the plan? What is the roadmap? because it seemed like to me they were going to try to build within, get a young core, push them through, live and die by them to be honest with you. Live and die by them and hopefully they progress and get better and you find yourself either having a legitimate team that’s going to make the postseason year in and year out for the next call it two to three to four years or you’re going to hopefully what I would consider develop get a little bit better then make that jump the next year. Well, in 2023, that was the hope. And I think for all intents and purposes, Mike, 2023, we were all excited. I mean, let’s face it, we were projected to win 60 plus 67 games, I think it was. And they ended up winning 82 games. They had the likes of of Mlan and CES and Marte and Ellie. And that was just an incredible core. And you could even justify it by saying they even had some other guys that were on the way. And all you really needed to do was maybe just get a little bit of help from a free agent perspective. and you’re on your way. Now, we find ourselves in a spot two years removed from that. Playing a lot of guys, Mike, that really are just average big league players that are either retreads or offseason acquisitions or guys that we’ve gotten over kind of at the deadline that, you know, aren’t bad. I mean, Andrew Har for all intents and purposes, not a bad player, but we don’t have anybody that I would say pencil him in next year. I can I can I I know what I got and I guarantee you they’re going to produce. I don’t know if we have anybody. And I I it just it feels like we’re right back in limbo. And I I know Ellie is probably the closest thing to that, but let’s face it, the power is gone. It’s zapped. I don’t know where the hell the power has gone, but you know what? That’s the most concerning thing I have at this point is is are we going to be a small ball baseball team and situational hit and all these things that we’ve been told, Mike, or are we going to look at today’s game and realize, wow, this this whole thing looks a lot different when guys just hit the ball out of the ballpark because that’s what the A’s did. Yeah. And it’s it’s pretty hard to think about say next year and hey, what does success look like next year? how are we going to see any sort of improvement from this year without it being like, hey, we need certain people to take some serious leaps and unfortunately that’s not often how baseball development works. We’ve seen that with Ellie, you know, probably take a pretty big leap last year and then I think all would say maybe take a little bit of a step back this year, especially in the second half. Matt Mlan, we saw him come up and and tear the cover off the ball. uh you know be second on this team and wins above replacement and then after an injury you know has taken another big step back. Now I’ve I’m not giving up on these guys but it is unfortunate when you’re in a position like this cheering for a team that you know like we know how this offseason’s going to go. It’s like that’s what’s kind of frustrating is like we can see what’s going to happen because we’ve already seen it. They’re gonna go, they’re going to, you know, maybe sign a couple Austin Hayes types, maybe uh somebody to, you know, fill in some spots, maybe fill in some bullpen. Um, and then, uh, kind of just run it back with the guys that we have and they say, well, you know, we think Stephvenson’s going to take a leap. We think MLAN’s going to take a leap. Sal Stewart’s going to get into there and he’s going to, you know, he’s going to take a leap and and maybe we even start uh, you know, getting some more contribution from Benson. And then with our pitching, we’ll we’ll roll it out there and we’ll take our chances. And at some point, you start thinking, man, am I the insane one? Am I the team? Am I the person that keeps, you know, buying in every year when they keep doing the same stuff and uh, you know, we end up with the same result? Um, it’s uh, it’s unfortunate. Uh, I think that there were points there are times when you can get to end of seasons and you can be like, well, so and so is hurt. so and so is coming back. So and so, you know, looked good here and maybe had some setbacks. So, but next year, you know, we, you know, we can see where the leap comes. Uh I don’t know. It I mean, I’m with you. It doesn’t feel that way now. It doesn’t feel like, you know, it’s set up to be like, oh yeah, this this is for sure, you know, five wins better next year. It’s like we’re going to have to get all kinds of uh additional uh production because we’re not going to go out and sign a Schwarber or, you know, somebody that’s going to be have really move the needle for us. And uh I can totally understand why Red’s fans are this fan base feels like it it it doesn’t actually look better for next year even though, you know, we we kind of overperformed this year. Yeah. I I think the bill of goods is going to be sold as well. Matt Mlan’s going to be better. He’s he’s he’s a he’s a year removed, another year removed from the injury. He’s going to be fully healthy. He’s going to bounce back. Uh Ellie’s gonna not have a fluky second half. These are all the things you’re going to hear. Uh you know, I I don’t know who they go out and get to to to help with the power or the pop. The whole idea that Will Benson’s going to play, I I I don’t believe it either. Uh, I just I I I really don’t I know that sounds insane to say, but like and and and to be fair, here’s the crazy thing. On a good baseball team, Will Benson probably not even probably Will Benson’s like a good bench player. like that’s that’s a he’s a he’s a good spot platoon starter and I think probably a good guy to bring off the bench to face, you know, right-handed pitching late in a game if there was a left-handed starter that you can then put in the outfield as a good defensive replacement. Like I don’t know whether you want to call him a bench player or not based off that role, but that’s what a good baseball team would do with with Will Benson, but now quite frankly, he’s one of the better he looks like one of the better hitters in the lineup. Um, at least one of the ones that you feel like, you know what, I mean, hell, we’re down three. There’s there’s a guy on first base with two outs. He might he might put us within a run. There’s just not enough of those guys in this lineup. If anything, the A’s kind of showcased, yeah, you might not have like um a great like offensive plan in regards to being able to get guys on and and continuing to hit doubles and moving guys over and getting them in from third base with less than two outs. All those things sound good in principle, but as Nick has been preaching and and I’m starting to kind of come over to the bandwagon, it seems like you’d rather have guys who strike out more and hit home runs because it seems like the way the game is going, that’s the best way to maximize your run potential. It’s the best way to try to get uh you know, score multiple runs in an inning. It’s the way we scored today. I I mean, it’s it’s the way we scored today. And it just seems like, you know, we’re obviously going to talk about Lollo and and and and the bullpen in a minute, but it’s just what h I guess my thing is, Mike, we’re a month removed from the all the guys that helped us score runs today. They didn’t play. They weren’t even on the team, right? And and not to mention also these home runs maximizes the advantage that you would like to have for playing 81 games at Great American Ballpark. I think part of it too with the frustration that we saw tonight is the A’s. I mean that that ballpark that whatever you want to call that AAA ballpark that you know has rated out as the second most hitter friendly ballpark other than Kors Field and that was a team that was built to take advantage of that. You know they were built to hit the ball out. Uh, and and the frustrating thing is we it’s not as crazy as this as this ballpark, but it we we hit in a very hitter friendly ballpark and we decide, hey, we don’t want to take advantage of that. We want to get all the deficit when it comes to our pitching uh and giving up all these cheap solo home runs that we have to give up and then we don’t want to take advantage of it on the batting side because we don’t want to play our guys that have power upside. You know, we’ve been so married to Gavin Lux and earlier in the year Santiago Espanol and you know, people that have shown no power. We’re talking two home runs, I think, for Lux. Zero home runs for Espanol. So, it’s it’s one of those things where it’s it’s the disconnect between not only how baseball is going and I you know I am sympathetic to the argument of like hey we want to make sure that we’re more a complete team not striking out as much right because obviously the A’s aren’t you know this that’s not a playoff team either right so uh I would argue that that’s because of their pitching not because of their hitting and they they obviously tear the cover off the ball but it it’s like if we are going to go and and and take advantage of what we have there. Why why wouldn’t we try to be able to do that? even if it is, you know, costing us a little bit when it comes to strikeout percentage, you know, I I I don’t think that that’s something that’s going to be able to ring through to Tito in however long he’s left here or um but it’s it’s it is frustrating to see and I think it was even more frustrating because of the contrast of what we watched uh with with the A’s this weekend. Nick Curts, their their big guy, the guy who’s going to win rookie of the year, the guy who everyone’s clamoring we should have taken over Chase Burns. He had two hits this whole series, right? He had two hits, but nobody looks at this series and be like, man, what the heck was he doing all series? Because he hit a 500 foot grand slam and then a two a two-run home run to give the A’s the the lead in this game, right? He was able to change on on a like objectively not a very good series offensively. struck out a bunch but was able to change the game because of his predigious power. So, you know, that that type of thing I think you know that power is something that can cover a lot of ills and um you know to see it especially when you see it from somebody like an Ellie de la Cruz who we saw it we’ve seen that ball had a family. We see him go three4s of the way up the moon deck and to not hit a home run in August and September is just criminal. It’s just so unfortunate to see. I don’t know how much the injury is dealing with that. I think it’s all mental, man. It has to be mental at some point, right? Like it just can we all agree that even if he had a bum quad or had something else going on that, you know, he’s going to run into one run into one? It just seems like we’ve gotten I don’t know, Mike, if I’m all in on just blaming Valleica. I don’t know if I’m in on blaming Tito. I don’t know if I’m if I’m I’m upset because there’s there’s been some fundamental organizational shift on offensive philosophy and the mindset of, you know, making sure you put the ball in play, you do the right thing, you get the guy over, you get him in from third base, all of this stuff that, you know what, I will openly say that is a lot of baseball talk. That’s a lot of things that are said within the clubhouse. Those are things that are said ever since you grow up and you play high school baseball and on. It’s just stuff that you hear, you know, like, “Hey, you did a good job getting them over. You did a good job getting them in with this with a with a sacrifice fly.” The problem is is that, you know, the same way that pitching has evolved with velocity and spin rates and guys trying to maximize their effort as as much as humanly possible. And you don’t have guys throwing 88 miles an hour that that that’s where they tout at. Like Jamie Moyer, there is no Jamie Moyer anymore. Like there is no there there is no guy that can that can, you know, possibly throw 90 mph topping and out and be so good from a from a consistent location standpoint that he’s able to consistently get guys out over a long period of time. The same way that that has changed in pitching is kind of the same way that has changed in hitting, right? You can you can go, as you’ve said, a whole series and only have two hits, but if those are two meaningful home runs, it doesn’t matter. The same thing that the Reds are like, here’s the issue, and this is why I say why the philosophy from the front office, this this off season was exactly what you bring in Gavin Lux, right? That’s fine. But did you did you bring him in to play left field? Was that the plan? And if it is the plan, you’re telling me two things. One, you know, his defense is going to be probably bad because he’s never played out there before. And also, he doesn’t have any pop. You’re putting him in a position, a profiled position that should have some pop. And if you’re going to tell me, well, they could DH him. Again, going back to the same sentiment, where’s the pop? I’m going to go through the whole thing here, and I know people are going to get pissed off at me, but you know what? I’ve been preaching this all year and this is the night. This is the night to finally put the nail in the coffin on this. I’m done talking about it, but let’s go through it again, shall we? First base, okay, is a position of pop. It’s a place that you turn to to say, you know what, we need to get some production out of that from a power perspective. And Spencer Steer, as much as I’ve kind of dogged him at first base a little bit, he has done more than you could have ever asked at first base. He has he has been put in a position that he’s never played before. And I thought he did a service serviceable job. And I think he played hurt, which is kind of crazy to me. But you know what? There’s not a lot of pop there. There’s just not. Second base, Mike has been absent. One of the worst players in the entire league all year long. Second base. Your shortstop hasn’t hit a home run since the All-Star break. He’s one of the guys that coming into this year, you would say, well, he’s probably going to be one of our more of our more of our higher profile kind of OPS guys. probably going to slug a little bit. He has some power, has some speed to leg out some doubles and triples from time to time. That’s been gone. Third base, which is which is a spot that you could argue is another what profiled position to do what? Hit home runs and mash the baseball. And what did we do? We tried to we tried to put Santiago Espan Espanol there half the time. We had Jamir Candelario who was supposed to help out there who obviously is absent completely now but I’m just saying when they signed him that’s where he was supposed to play. I know that was so long ago you kind of forget about it but that was the truth. And then and then now you traded and again Cab Brian Hayes I got to be honest with you I love the guy to for all intents and purposes I’m not trying to downplay him but this is another guy that has no pop. There’s no power. There’s no fundamental kind of normal position at third base that you would say, you know what, we we really are going to believe in this guy offensively. I just went through the whole damn infield and and and and not a single one of them was a good result. It doesn’t get better in the outfield, you know. Go ahead. I’ll let you take it. People are people are trying to hear, but you can go ahead and go through the outfield, right? you you know you’re right your corner outfielders are supposed to be somebody that you know is getting you know uh has pop and Austin Hayes you know I don’t let’s see I don’t have his I don’t have his up Austin Hayes when you know obviously has played well in certain aspects of it but you know when when you’re signing a guy for what $5 million you know that’s you’re not expecting a guy for pop so it’s like who we had scripted for left field was you know Austin Hayes Gavin Luck Spencer Steer, right? That was kind of our plan going into the season in left field. Uh we just talked about Lux and Steer and then uh Austin Hayes, while I think has been better than his $5 million price tag, it you know, still not giving us pop there. And then, you know, right field, we had uh you know, that was the concoction of, you know, Jacob Herabes, Blake Dunn. Uh we were just throwing everybody out there. um until we finally landed on moving Marte and frankly that’s probably one of the biggest uh biggest bright spots because you know that was a gamble moving your uh high prospect out to right field having never really played in the outfield and yeah has he made some errors yeah but he’s also looked like well enough to where you can you can see yourself he’s like yeah that guy’s the right fielder next and then has yeah for sure and you know young guys like that look at Fernando Tatis Jr. right infielder, all kinds of crazy athletic talent turned into being a platinum glove winner in right field. I’m not saying that’s what Marte can be. But, you know, within offseason that he is able to work on that and continued just reps out there, he’s still under 100 games ever playing out there. You know, I can expect him to improve there. And then, you know, mixing with Benson, I guess, right field, you know, we have some guys that have hit for power, but to be honest, we we we put bunch of people out there. We continued to roll people out there. Uh Jake Freilley, forgot about him. Uh you know, that didn’t have power. So, it was it was clear that that was in no way our uh expectation. And, you know, TJ Fredo is what T.J. Fredo is. I don’t there aren’t very many center fielders that are thought to be you know big power hitters. Um but still it it’s one of those things where you know you look at each and how things were run out and just like what was their plan going into the season? The plan was you know we’re going to we’re going to you know what do we say? We say Hayes, Lux, and Steer in left, Fredel in center, and then you know, like a Benson Freillley uh you know, Jacob Herbee’s uh platoon out in right field. You know, I just like to me looking at how the season went and and this team’s just utter lack of being able to hit the ball out of the ballpark, it just it what from a roster building perspective, that’s not good enough, right? That’s not good enough to be able to put yourself into a position to be able to um take advantage of your ballpark and and and win games that frankly you should because you’re hitting the ball out of the ballpark. So, I get it. I I we’re on the same page. The roster builds nowhere near good enough. It’s not even it’s not even remotely close. And and Nick Crawl’s claim to fame right now is really building within, you know, drafting and developing and bringing guys up here. And uh that might be the most damning thing I think so far of this whole entire situation is that you have Matt Mlan and Ellie de La Cruz. Two of the bigger disappointments this year from a development perspective. Now I know that one of them got hurt and maybe the other is dealing with an injury, but it doesn’t matter like that. That’s the thing is like we can’t sit here and keep on giving excuses after excuse after excuse as to why these guys aren’t aren’t kind of um getting better. I mean, for all intents and purposes, that’s the only way if if all right, if we’re gonna have sustainable success or whatever the hell that that that Nick Crawl always pout, you know, that that’s his like company line. Every time he kind of gets in a tough spot, he he just goes straight to, well, we got to do these things because we want sustainable success, you know. Um, the reality is is that, and I’ve said this before, in order for you to have sustainable success, you have to do something at an elite level, better than the rest of the league. And he has proven that he’s done nothing at an elite level. And I’m not trying to kill Nick Crawl and say he’s the he’s the guy to go after and say it’s all his fault. I’m just saying though, at some point, we can all at least agree that from a drafting perspective, we can sit here and act like Rhett Lauder was a great pick. We can sit here and act like Chase Burns was a great pick. We can sit here and act like I guess you know to a certain extent taking Matt Mlan was a great like all of these things can say we can say those things but we’ve not we’ve not hitten the home run yet and and to be honest he has gotten a little bit and and I’ll give him some credit. I’m not saying it’s not he he already hit on a lottery ticket Mike like Ellie de la Cruz was not a calculated decision that he made. He he he quite literally the guy the kid could have gotten cut when he was playing for the DSL Rojas. Like nobody would have batted an eye. They they they signed him. They didn’t even go down there to look at him. They went down there to look at a different guy. They signed him for 30 grand. It’s not like it’s not like Nick Crawl was out here like that’s our guy. Let’s go get him. No. Derek Johnson. I believe in him. But outside of that, who the hell else are we supposed to believe in in this organization? Literally, there’s nobody that can say that they’re doing a great job. And you know what? In order to win with the Reds, you don’t just have to do a great job. I would say you have to do a phenomenal job based off the resources that are given to you. And I am so tired of hearing about sustainable success when we go out and we swing and miss on Jam Candelario at the at the trade deadline, right? No disrespect, but we had an opportunity. Mike to go out and sell on some pieces that I think were high. Nick Ledo was never going to be more valuable ever. And we didn’t do anything. We had aspiring expiring contracts with some guys I’m sure we could have gotten rid of for something. Whether that be Nick Martinez, whether that be um and again, I’m not I don’t know what you get out of Austin Hayes. I don’t know what it looks like at the deadline, but you get something. I guarantee you that. And I know Nick Martinez would have would have garnered something back, but you you stand Pat and you say that you’re going to go for it and your additions at the deadline was to take one of the worst one of the worst, you know, offensive players in Major League Baseball when your team already can’t score and you put him at third base and your other strategy was to go out and get a guy who’s given up the most home runs in Major League Baseball. And oh, by the way, you don’t go out and get a left-handed reliever when you know you need that. a third baseman that blocks your number one prospect as well. Exactly. I mean, where’s South Stewart going to play now? Is he supposed to be a first baseman? Cuz if he’s Here’s what I would say about South Stewart. If he’s supposed to be a first baseman, with all due respect to South Stewart, his value comes down. He’s not He’s not as valuable at first base. Yeah. You know, hopefully if he does, at least he can hit home runs. But yeah, I I’m with you. I you know I think that there’s there is a lot of it is kind of what we expected in that they just kind of sat in the middle and and imagine if I mean a lot of these a lot of these teams you know went out and got they did a little bit and it just really fizzled. Imagine if V and Van Duhar and um I guess Latell hasn’t been as great since when he first got here, but he’s just like imagine if we would have went out and got these guys and they hadn’t produced. this like then it’s just like we kind of barely went for it and then didn’t you know so and didn’t even get much production out of it and you know Hayes and and Duhar have obviously been bright spots in offensively but you know where they fit into our long-term plan I guess you put Hayes because of his defense at third base and an argument could be made that it’s so good there that it’s that gamechanging right um so you know I could be convinced about that but I it’s one of those things where, you know, either go all the way in or or like do something about it. You know, this is like you’re sitting there. I remember sitting there with Nick watching every player that we had on the list of people we wanted to get go to the Padres’s, a team that we were actively chasing. So, not only did they go make their already good bullpen better, but then they went and got Rhino Hearn, they went and got Raone Lauraniano. These are guys that we wanted to be able to play defense but also, you know, be able to be a part of it up upgrading this offense and and they didn’t do it. So, it’s it it felt like we just kind of sat on the fence. We didn’t go for it and we didn’t, you know, sell. And I think unfortunately we are going to be worse next year because of that. I think we we but because we did this we you know we’re obviously it helped a little bit this year but ultimately we’re we’re blocking the production of our young players and if we would have sold we would have been able to potentially stack stash the farm a little bit more to make next year or maybe the year after Red’s team better. So, you know, we’ve we’ve already talked a lot about I think there’s been a lot of discourse between a lot of different people on Chatterbox about that um that that trade deadline. And it’s also easy now when it feels like it’s over to criticize it, right? Of course, if if they go and they’re they’re two up on the Mets and in the playoff spot, then you’re like, “Oh man, what a move and Duhar, Latell, and Hayes have been. Look at how much they’ve added.” Right? So, it’s easy to sit here a month and a half later looking at what the record is and say, “Well, why didn’t you do this?” So, you know, I understand that we’re kind of playing playing that game here. But still, it’s uh you know, it does come back down. I think every conversation we have has ended up back on roster construction. It’s just like we don’t think that this is, you know, we’re not good enough. We don’t have a good enough roster to be able to take advantage of an eightgame losing streak by the Mets to, you know, take advantage of the fact that, you know, all these other teams are coming back to Earth and, uh, now we, you know, we we can’t run with that. So, unfortunately, I I think we we do land in the same spot. It’s just like we don’t agree with how this roster is going to be constructed. And they’re going to have some weird decisions to make this year or this upcoming off season. Like do they say all right Style you’re all of a sudden first base and CES what happens to him right obviously he is had some prolonged not success in the majors but he’s still a prospect steer do you say hey go back to left field where he did not really cover himself in glory defensively uh Gavin Lux we still have him for another year what do we do with him is he just going to be a full-on DH that just you know slugs under 600 and and you know basically you know blocks other people that can hit home runs. It’s like I it’s going to be weird what they what they do, what you know, how they move things around in order to make things better. And unfortunately, it’s you know, I I I don’t see what the clear answer is going to be. The answer needs to be that Nick Curl has to be elite at his job or else you’re going to continue to get results like this. I agree. And and the question is, is is he is he elite at his job? I I don’t want this to turn into like, oh, the Reds go out and they get swept to the to the the A’s and all of a sudden now the sky is falling and the organization is completely terrible and Nick Crawl is the worst at his job. I don’t want it to come off like that and I don’t think that’s totally fair and and you know what, they could rattle off five more and all of a sudden does it make them better or worse their job? The reality is is that um is that there’s going to be there’s going to have to be some hard questions asked about Nick Crawl and the front office as a whole on what the direction is and are they capable of getting themselves to a spot where they actually have one of the better teams in the division and or baseball. And in order for that to happen in my opinion, Mike, they’re going to have to make some bold moves. And they’ve not ever done that. They’ve been very vanilla forever. It’s always keep everybody. We’re going to keep everybody. we were not going to make any crazy moves and and that just is impossible to do in my opinion. Um, you’re going to have to at some point, I’ll say this, you’re going to have to you’re going to have to find guys in your organization that you’re smart enough to know that you don’t think that they’re going to be ma good major league talent, but the metrics that other other front offices they that they they still love them or they they have a they had a great season in double and AAA like CES and they’re able to move them while their their stock is incredibly high and they’re able get something in return that is actually going to provide your big league club some value. CES is a perfect example of how a bad front office would operate. They don’t move him at the they don’t move him at all right at any point when he was incredibly hot at AAA uh and or double AAA in 2023. They then decide that they’re going to shove him. They’re going to shove him. And now you’re going to trade him after basically his stock is in an all-time low. And if you’re not going to trade him, Mike, then I would just say, what is the plan? Because you went out and you paid a guy a lot of money to play third base. Your top prospect that looks the part. Sal Stewart looks the part so far. Say whatever you want about him. He’s got three home runs and 30 at bats. It’s pretty damn good. Is he going to be a DH? Is CS going to be a DH? Point. My point in saying all this is that he’s gonna have to make more bold moves that turn out to be brilliant moves because this whole notion of just waiting your time for the Cam Collers to come up and replace this guy or whatever. It seems like by that point, Mike, we are already losing a couple players because they’re they’re either arbitration eligible that it’s going to cut into payroll or more importantly their free agency is going to become available and they’re going to be gone and then Cam Collier is going to slide in and we’re going to stay mid when we might have been elite. We’ll we’ll see. But that’s the issue. People are asking why we haven’t talked maybe about the game itself because if you watch the game, it’s really not worth talking about. Okay, they did the same song and dance. They jump out to an early lead. They once again get a guy to third base with less than well nobody out. They can’t get him in and then they give up some home runs. Nicolola obviously was cruising for a minute but then uh was prone to the long ball in a hitter friendly park I might add and against a team that hits home runs. So you you have those two things and sometimes these outings happen. I’m not I’m not going to kill Looo for the outing but um I guess that’s what happens when the Reds score four runs. Mike, everyone wants to blame the pitching. Yeah, I it’s that team. We talked about it last night. That team hits left-handed pitching pretty well. And to be honest, I thought he was looking pretty good. And there’s a couple turning points, too, where it’s like like he gets I think he has two strikes on Jacob Wilson in the bottom of the fifth. He’s already got two outs and he ends up hitting him and then Nick Curts comes up and hits a home run in the next in the you know to give him a 4-3 lead. So, it’s just like he had obviously gives up the solo home runs, but like seemed like he had the stuff to be able to get out of that fifth inning and then, you know, potentially even, you know, make it further in this game so we don’t have to go to our bullpen like our Maxwell. Um, yeah, it’s it’s it’s unfortunate, too, because it’s like it it felt like the line that we see obviously it’s a good it’s a good uh hitting team, but it it feels like it it had the potential to being so much better and then it did it just we just quite didn’t didn’t get there. Similar to, you know, it feels like there’s been different situations with Andrew Abbott that this year where it’s like we’re so close. he maybe doesn’t have it all the way, but he’s he’s getting there. And then just like a a couple bad breaks, uh maybe errors even that has led to, you know, a a stat that line that hasn’t been great. And to be honest, like the they scored a bunch of their runs on Graham Ashgraph, Zack or Scott Barlo, and Zack Maxwell in these last couple innings, right? It’s just like if we are able to keep adding on because we get that lead, right? We get that lead. It’s like we let’s get to Santion and Pagan who I think yes we’ve seen a few blowups from those guys but for the most part on enough rest those guys have been effective for us those guys have shut the door for the most part obviously we’ve had a few hiccups but you know we just have because of our inability to be able to add on we had all kinds of opportunities last night you know I think we had two on in the fifth two on in the sixth last night we had obviously this lux at third base unable to before because of our inability to to add on and give ourselves something. They they’ve been able to come back and then they’ve made hay off of our off of our lower leverage relievers. And you know, I think that that is that’s unfortunate a way where obviously we don’t want the bullpen to give up those runs, right? But I think that with a little bit more help from the offense there, I think we we may are looking at, you know, different, you know, different sides of these games because we’re able to get a little bit of lead further into this game so that we could get to our higher leverage guys who we trust way more than we do. Um I I guess Scott Barlo used to be a guy that we trust, but he’s very clearly, in my opinion, just out of gas. He’s just overused. And you know, Zack Maxwell is a young guy, uh, you know, that is not being put in huge situations for, you know, reasons that were clear. And then, you know, Ashcraft obviously in his first start coming back or his first appearance coming back from an injury where he wasn’t even good before the injury. So, it’s you need you want the bullpen to bow up there, but I think the offense could have done a little bit more in this series to, you know, kind of get us to the to the higher leverage guys and we would be able to I think we’d be, you know, we’d at least come out with one of these games, maybe both of the last two games that we saw. Yeah, styles make fights and it felt like uh in that ballpark against this team, you knew how you were going to have to win. more than likely it wasn’t going to be the two to one games that we’ve that we’ve become accustomed to in Cincinnati this year because our our offense isn’t good enough and our pitching has been absolutely elite and now since the pitching struggled a little bit over a series everyone’s going to some people are going to say that maybe you’re just tuning in after like maybe intermittent starts because let’s face it the Reds entered uh Sacramento or or or whatever you want to call these folks the A’s they entered the series in a spot where the buzz was back around town, the the the bandwagon was starting to fill back up again. So, if you just started paying attention and you’re asking yourself on a show like this, why are we talking about the offense so much? It’s because this was what this series was supposed to be about. You’re supposed to outscore the A’s. You got to find a way to outscore. Now, I get it. They’re not supposed to go out and score maybe 14 runs the other night, but the reality is is that this is going to happen. Starting pitching is going to regress from time to time. Your bullpen is going to struggle from time to time. can your offense, you know, as you just said, bow up and find a way to win. And they just weren’t capable of doing that. And I also believe in momentum. I believe in momentum significantly in sports. And you’re never going to convince me when you strand a guy at third base with nobody out with a chance to extend your lead when you haven’t given up a run yet. It doesn’t it doesn’t give the other team a little bit of life. Doesn’t give them a little bit of confidence. I’m not saying you would have buried them. I’m not saying they would have quit or rolled over if if if you find a way to score. I think Gavin Lux, but I definitely feel like you just kind of keep you don’t poke the bear. You don’t give them a feeling that they might have a chance to get some momentum. But we can’t do it. Yet again, another guy at third base with less than not I keep saying less than two outs. Another guy at third base with nobody out. Nobody out. And we still couldn’t score him. And I I think where a lot of the frustration lies with me too is specifically in us against that bullpen. Right. This is an athletics bullpen that was bottom four, bottom five, depending on what metrics you like to use. They sold that is with Mason Miller, who we saw how good he was, right, for half the year, right? They sold him off. They sold the part of their bullpen. So, this is like this this is a bullpen that we should be able to take advantage of. And in the three games, the bullpen pitched, the athletics bullpen pitched 12 and two/3 innings, giving up one run and 10 strikeouts. So, this bullpen that should have been our, you know, the thing we can take advantage of, the the place where we can hopefully, you know, claw back some of these runs that we’re going to inevitably give up to this offense. And we were just completely ineffective. And that one run was today, a South Stewart home run like without that. And frankly, you know, what we say moved you up to 6% probability win probability, right? So, pretty meaningless home run. Uh like we’re we’re talking, you know, 13 innings with no runs, zero zero runs against a bullpen that, you know, is a bunch of dudes that I had never heard of. I feel like I follow baseball. And the only guy that I heard of was Shawn Nukem, who was like failed in three different spots and got picked up by the A’s because they needed somebody to fill out their bullpen. And uh yeah, they just they just completely were just non-factors against the bullpen that you know should have been a place in which we were able to hopefully score some runs and and boy, we didn’t just didn’t happen, did it? All right, folks. Uh as a reminder, you can text and or call 988 day or night. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s an anonymous hotline 247. You can also visit man theapy.org as well to get some help. Um, also we have some super chats. Let’s get to those right now. Savo says, “Uh, this manager is keeping us out of the playoff with his decisions and we have a number and we have a number three hitter that can’t get the ball out of the infield.” That’s fair. Listen, I don’t know why we haven’t moved them. I get that. I get you want to be stubborn at some point and like, you know, I like, come on, man. How long does a guy have to go without any juice, any pop, and you just keep shoving him back in the same spot that many of us don’t even think he should have been in in the first place? Like Ellie Dela Cruz is not a three-hole hitter, but he’s sat there all year because we’re just going to act like it’s important for him psychologically. I’m going to go on a rant maybe here, Mike. I’m going to I’m I’m sorry, but if we think that psychologically speaking it’s going to do him bad if we take him out of the three hole. Have you watched what’s going on? Have you not thought to yourself, man, you know what, maybe on second thought, I was wrong about that. Maybe we could move him maybe down in the order. Hell, put him at leadoff if you’d like. Do something. Do something. You can’t sit here and continue to watch a guy get his absolute tail kicked in and not throw the white white towel in. You can’t you can’t not stop the fight. If this was a boxing match, they would have stopped it a month and a half ago, Mike. It’s gotten ugly. All right. This this whole three-hole hitting Ellie situation has got to stop. I’m not saying it’s going to fix his problems, but I’m saying I’d like for my baseball team to have a guy hitting a three-hole that I think can hit the ball over the fence. And until Ellie proves that he’s capable of doing that right now, move him somewhere else. And you know what? Maybe he’ll start hitting the ball over the fence because it takes pressure off of them or something. I don’t know. I’m not saying it will fix him, but let’s give it a shot. We’ve tried almost everything else. Why not try that? But we don’t do that. So, I’m not trying to say that the manager is keeping us out of the playoffs, but we have done a lot of things that make little to no sense. Mike, yeah, it’s to the point where this series I trusted the bottom of the lineup. It’s like, oh, we got Stevenson Benson and Sal Stewart coming up. Okay, I feel better about let’s get a rally going here. And it’s like, oh, we got the top of the lineup up. It’s like, oh well, okay, don’t feel good about that. Um, yeah, the continual expectation that I’m putting him in the three hole and that’s where he is. In my mind, it’s admirable that he wants to play every day and he wants to be the three-hole hitter. Uh, which like that’s nice, but hey, I also want to be the red starting shortstop. It does doesn’t mean that just because I want something or just because this player wants something uh means that we have to stick to that all year long with this prolonged level of of struggling that’s going on lack of success. So, you know, I I understand maybe this will maybe this worked for David Ortiz, right? Some guy that had a track record of sustained success. Maybe this worked for, you know, some of these guys that he managed previously. You Jose Ramirez, right? That had years of sustained success. Manny Ramirez 23, right? Ellie’s 23 with one good year under his belt. A good year, a very good year, but you know, not in in my opinion, somebody that’s, you know, you’re like that the track record speaks for itself. He’ll figure it out. It’s like give a guy a break, help him out here. Give, you know, give him days off. give him move him around in the order. We’re willing to do that with literally everybody else besides him and Fredel. He’s like, we’ve been shuffling people up and down, up and down, being like, “Oh, he’s hot. He’s batting second. Oh, now he’s cold. He’s batting ninth. And we’re bringing this guy batting second.” We’ve been moving the people around all year except for the guy that is really, really struggling for us in the three hole. uh you know, one of the most important slots and one of the guys that’s going to get one of the most sets of at bats in a year, right? Because of where he sits at the in the lineup. And uh we’re we’re not willing to move him. And that’s to me that has been pretty frustrating um of a situation to continue to play out, especially with his failings, I guess, in this past this past month and a half. Been hard-headed. He’s been very hard-headed about that, and he’s decided not to move off of it. And at this point, you just feel like you’re kind of that that uh you know, if and I say this reluctantly, and I don’t mean it to come off as like um maybe like age discrimination, but as you get older, I I feel it myself, as you get older, you kind of tend to be like, you know what, this is the way that I’ve done it. I ain’t changing it because this is all I know. And you’re not you’re not prone to maybe even trying to adjust something, even though more than likely not right. even though you’re more than likely not accurate anymore about what the best way is of going about something. So, I don’t know. Jacob Doyle says, “Uh, we have had every opportunity in the world to be a playoff team this year, and we just don’t want it.” Yeah. No, they’ve they’ve they’ve squandered every opportunity. There’s no doubt about it. Um, it’s been a huge disappointment. Big Red Machine says, “What this organization has done to Benson, Ellie, CES, Hines, along with the countless horrific in-game decisions is absolutely malpractice. If we weren’t if it weren’t for Benson and CES Boston, our season would have been over months ago.” Um, yeah, like like we had some great I know for a fact that that that Will Benson was playing pretty good baseball and then he then he just went absent. He was literally on the side of milk cartons for what two two three months. Um CES, I don’t know about him. I’m not going to sit here and and and act like if we had CES, it would change everything. At the end of the day, too, none of these guys are proven. So, we’re going to sit here and keep playing musical chairs with probably most of them because we’re not even sure if they’re major league whether they’re Major League Baseball talents or not. But, um but but that just goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Not to continue to rehash subjects, but the development I think the development’s been the most disappointing thing and the plan of what their plan of development is. Um, yeah, I I don’t want to go out like even even like something as simple as this. Do right one of the top prospects in this organization. No doubt about it. Has a great year. He’s 19 years old. I’m not trying to be overly uh mean about this. It’s gonna it’s going to sound a little harsh. He He’s gonna have to He’s going to have to get in better shape, to be honest with you, to probably play in Major League Baseball. He’s 19 years old. It’s not like he’s 30 on the back end of his career. The kid’s 19 years old. Is there a development plan for this kid? Is he on a regiment? Is he on a health and diet regimen? I’m not, again, I’m just being honest. I’m just asking questions that like he’s in a Major League Baseball organization. Are we tracking this stuff? Are we asking this out of our prospects or are we just closing our eyes and saying, “Yep, they’re going to develop. They’ll figure it out on their own and they’ll show up at the big leagues or they won’t.” I’m not trying to be overly mean. I’m just saying the kid’s 19. What’s he What’s he going to look like at 24 if it keeps going the way it’s going? Yeah. I you know I I think part of the issue too is is maybe even less of hey develop yourself and more of just like inconsistency with developments by levels, right? We see uh a aaa team that is mashing home runs because of the players that they have there and then the inconsistency with what the hitting philosophy is in the majors. And you know, I I think this is this is something that I think stems throughout the whole organization is just there needs to be some level of singular plan. Even if I don’t like what the plan is, even if I disagree with the plan, I want there to be a plan. We do this, we go and we do. And I think we’ve seen that change in the pitching. Derrick Johnson has become the pitching zar over the entire you know all the way down and said this is how we are going to pitch. This is how we are going to develop our players. This is how we are going to set them up to get them to be successful in the big leagues. And we are seeing that. We are seeing not only obviously some of these high draft picks that we’ve that we’ve pulled in, but we’re seeing development. The Andrew Abbotts, the the Zack Maxwells even, right? The Connor Phillips. These are people that ha, you know, were, you know, we’ve gotten in and have shown development, have shown growth, and have led to potential uh major league success. That doesn’t exist, it seems like, in in the back and in and offensively, right? It’s just like we got these stars that come up here and then stall out because we don’t have anyone to keep keep help them keep growing. Um, so that to me it that’s it. It’s less of like, hey, go figure it out yourself. It’s that they’re hearing different voices when they go from Daytona to Dayton, from Dayton to Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to to Louisville, Louisville to Cincinnati. We’re hearing different philosophies, it feels like, and that is leading to Ellie, you know, being up there in between very clearly in his head in between. He’s like, I I’ve got all this power. I, you know, but I’m desperately trying to strike out less. And so, because of that, I’m going to, you know, take strike three right down the middle because I don’t want to swing and miss at one. You know, I think it’s led to these mindsets that is it’s not letting our players play to the best of their abilities because of this mixed messaging. And that that to me is what’s the most frustrating. It’s like, let’s just get on the same page. Let’s just, you know, I I I don’t have a lot of faith that Tito is is hanging it up at the end of this year. Um, but whoever he’s But he’s the thing is he’s not here for the long haul, right? He’s here for next year. A two or three year deal. I I forget what it was, but she’s like, “The next person that we hire, can we get somebody in here that’s going to do what Derek Johnson did and level set everything for the entire the entire organization?” It’s like, from Arizona on up, we are going to do this and we’re going to stick to it and we’re going to draft players that fit that system. We’re going to sign players that fit that system. We’re going to trade for players that fit that system. and then we are going to at least bring that up so that we can see that into fruition in the big leagues. That’s what I want. That’s what I want to see this organization do. And I’m not sure if we have it in us to do something like that. I don’t know how long we’ll be saddled with Tito’s, you know, old school baseball thinking, but I think if we’re ever going to be able to see development, consistent development, which we’re going to need to do with our small market team, that is what we’re going to have to do. We are going to have to get on the same page as our pitching and develop from within in a consistent manner. Let’s be clear on this. There’s one guy that hired Tito. There’s one guy that’s supposedly the director of baseball operations and holds the keys supposedly to every single thing that the Reds franchise does from a baseball perspective. And the question I have is is what do we do at an elite level that separates us from the average teams in this league? And I I I I have a hard time figuring out what that is. You know, you can tell you you you can quickly go to the Brewers and say, “Well, this is the this is the style of play that they have and maybe they’ve gotten a little bit lucky. Maybe they’ve gotten a little bit lucky. I’ll agree to that. Do I think that they’re this good?” No. But this is who they are, you know, and or Tampa. Uh they’ve had some success there. So, I seen Alex Wallace say this earlier in the chat. I know it’s not a super. We’re getting ready to go through some more supers at some point. I I I’m I’m going and I’m I’m I’m stealing. I’m stealing from them. I am taking somebody directly towards the top of their organization and I’m overpaying them and I am and I am asking them to come in and and find a like go find and again people are going to think I’m just saying this because I’m Georgia football fan. I’m just being honest. If you’re Ohio State and you want to be elite, what do you do? You go hi you go hire Urban Meyer. You find out you find out a guy that is either on a bounceback or he’s had success and you go get Urban Meyer. If you’re Georgia football and you can’t figure out how to win, you go get Nick Kirby. Why? Because he’s studied. He’s been a study under Nick Sabin forever. Kirby Smart. Yeah. What’ I say? Nick. You said Nick Kirby. Kirby Smart. Sorry. Like the guy from Florida State. There’s no there’s no there’s no there’s no reason as to why he’s just magically successful. Dan Lanning at Oregon. Like all these college football coaches, and I know I’m using analogy here, they didn’t just magically become great college. They studied or were at a great organization before they got there. The last thing I’m going to say, and again, this isn’t a Here’s where I’m at, and I know Nick’s not here to defend him. All I’m saying is I’m going to give a little bit more time, but my question is simple. What has Nick Crawl done to earn the right to sit here and trust a guy for a significant amount of time? Or is he just a, this is where I get really crazy. I’m not trying to be a conspiracy theorist. Or is he just a guy that puts up with the BS that he’s handed to him and he doesn’t have the balls to say, “Nope, I’m not going to operate that way. This is the way we’re going to have to operate to win. And if we don’t do it this way, I’m out.” But it’s a nice cushy job, so you don’t want to tell your bosses that. So you just put up with the BS. I don’t know which one it is, but I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m again, I’m gonna be patient for a couple more years before maybe I’m completely slamming the bandwagon doors of saying, “Let’s go find somebody that has legitimate baseball success of of playoff baseball and go steal them from somewhere else.” All right. Um Tim Barnes says, “I hate to be cynical, but uh well, I don’t know if you’ve watched this show, but you could see this coming. They didn’t win games. They should. If they have the chance to take the next step, they won’t. Thanks, Tim. Um, you’re not wrong. Mike Dean says, Mike Dean’s back-to-back super says, “Meanful baseball in September isn’t as fun as we hoped.” And he says, “The A’s the A’s equals a team built for home runs on a field built for home runs.” Uh, yeah, it’d be kind of nice if we found a way. Yeah, must be nice. Uh, Savo once again with a super says, “The Reds don’t have a player that will hit 20 home runs this year. Are we the only team in baseball?” I don’t know. I’ve not looked that up. I’d like to think Ellie can get to 20 home runs. I mean, there’s just no way he doesn’t, right? There’s no way he doesn’t, but the way it looks, I gotta tell you, I don’t know if I’d be putting money on it. Only 13 games left. Who knows? Uh, who knows? Uh, you know what time it is, though? So, it’s the time of the year in the fall. I don’t know about you, uh, Mike, but, uh, there’s nothing better than firing the grill up outside on this time of the year and the crisp air outside. It’s nice and cool. You get the heat from the fire. Football’s starting to come back on. Yes, I would like to think that there’s some playoffs playoff baseball in the air, but uh, but what you can do is when you fire that grill up is, uh, you can get some Omaha Stakes. Now, here’s the thing about Omaha Stakes. Yes, they’re a new sponsor. Shout out to Omaha Stakes. Um, from handcrafted steaks to delicious fall favorites, Omal Steaks delivers the world’s best steak experience. Uh, we got a bunch of stuff delivered to us, myself and Nick. Sorry, Mike. Maybe I can send you some stuff as well. But, um, going to start basically doing some taste tests. They they sent me so much stuff like everything from steaks to some basically some uh some, uh, dogs. I’m sure there’s more of appropriate. There’s some some uh some uh sirloins in there that I got to test out. But um quality heartland quality delivered straight to your door. Uh Omal Stakes delivers unrivaled quality variety for every bite packed with their 100% guarantee right now. Just so you know, you can get an extra $35 off with the promo code Chatterbox at checkout. It’s 50% off right now during their red hot sale event. So, you get 50% off sitewide and then you get 35% off with the code chatterbox. That’s ch h a t r or b o x. Hopefully, you can spell chatterbox at this point uh if you are a chatterbox fan. But, uh get fired up for the fall grilling with Omaha Stakes. Visit omahalstakessaks.com for 50% off sitewide during their redhot sale event and an extra $35 off using the promo code chatterbox cha t ox at checkout. That’s 50% off at omahhaloststakes.com and an extra $35 off with the promo code chatterbox uh at checkout. See site for details. So, new sponsor came right in time. I mean, they you know what? They picked the perfect time. Picked the perfect time. Never been better timing for Omaha Stakes with Chatterbox Reds. We’ll see what we can do. Maybe we can’t find a way to to mix in some uh some Omaha steak ads during who knows what. uh just to try to make sure that all of our loyal listeners and viewers will actually, you know, maybe be able to take advantage of that deal because I’m sure that they’re, you know, we got a lot of people that just don’t really like to kind of what would it be throw salt into the wound, right? Who wants to listen to Chatterbox Reds after I’ve gotten my guts ripped out of me this weekend when they went to a team that doesn’t even want them anymore and they’re not even going to have them in their ballpark anymore in the next what year or two. It is funny. I wanted to say there was two Sundays in Oakland now, but they weren’t even in Oakland, turns out. So, nope. Yeah, it’s uh I’ve had Omaha Stakes before as well. I’ve ordered some of those. They are quite quite good. That’s uh you know, I’m looking forward to that. That’s that’s pretty cool. Use the code box, man. That sounds that sounds like a great idea. I’m going to go playing that out right after this with my wife. There you go. Hey, man. 50% off plus $35 off. Um, I think I said 35% off, but I think it’s 50% off and then you get $35 off, which is We need a graphic. Craig, we need Craig. Craig, we need to make a graphic on that one. Yeah, we’ll get that. We’ll get that for the next show, maybe. Um, no more super chats. So, from here on out, we’re going to go and kind of round out the show. Uh, we have Reds MIB. Craig, I Craig, I don’t know if Craig put these in. I don’t know if you put these in, Mike. I don’t know if there even is Reds MIB at this point. Do you know if there’s reds in my LB? I I have some reds in my LB to talk about. I don’t know if we have a graphic on it. I you know I’m in control of that guy. Let’s just go for it. You ready for this? Uh I’m going to throw I’m going to throw the uh AAA up there. We’ll see if it works. I don’t know. It might work. It might not. We’ll find out. All right. Uh starting in Louisville today, the Bats lost 5 to4 to Toledo. Um they only have one more series left in the uh in the year against Nashville. So they’re getting to the point now where hey we’re uh wrapping up that season as well. Um I’m trying to pull up the Oh, looks like we got something. Blake Dunn went for four. Ryan Valade two for three with a home run. Connor Joe, remember that guy? Two for four with a double. He got DF8 and then was like, “Yeah, I’ll I’ll take your triple A uh your assignment.” uh Yazra Zuluetta two in the third innings, no runs, three strikeouts, continuing to look good uh in his in his uh time down in Louisville. And then DJ Anton obviously got in and pitched as well, not giving up any runs, no strikeouts, but good to see him back on the road to recovery uh with even though Louisville lost. They they had won 10 in a row and then I think lost two of their next three, but you know, uh obviously still some some good things that we’ve seen up in Louisville. All right, you got another one on there because there’s Yep, there we go. Chattanooga. Um, Chattanooga obviously they won their final game of the year 6-3 over the Rocket City Trash Pandas. One of my favorite mascots in the minor leagues. Uh, Isa Sakorski win an inning and three hits, two earned runs. Obviously a tough Lenny Torres Jr. down in DA I think on a rehab assignment. Um, an inning pitched with uh no run earned runs and I believe got the save there. Leo Balcasar one for four. for Ruben Abaro, one for five with a home run. And um I got a little thing that’s in there. I need to get that. Austin Hendrick, I’ll do it for you, baby. Yeah, Austin Hendrik. We Let’s not forget about uh that first round pick for 2020. Uh one of uh um Nick Crawl’s finest hours. So, obviously, they actually begin their postseason play on Tuesday at 8:00 PM in Birmingham against the Birmingham Barons. So, uh, you know, I bet you there’ll be some Reds fans deciding, hey, you know what? Reds are out of it. Let’s watch some playoff baseball. Let’s watch the the DA Chattanooga lookouts. And speaking of postseason, uh, the Daytona Tortugas kicked off their best of three Florida State League Championship Series against the Lakeland Flying Tigers. They are a part of the Detroit Tigers uh, system if you if you wanted to know. And unfortunately, this game did not go well. The Tortugas were one hit and lost the game uh six to1. Uh the only hit was Ichiro Canó and uh the only run was an Alfredo Alcanter’s sackfly in the sixth. This is where Nick normally reads off a bunch of stat lines but it’s a bunch of uh of so we’re not going to do that. And the Cudigra Nick Kirby a virtues losing pitcher today was Sha Yin Lynn started this game and took the loss. four innings pitch, only one earn run, but zero strikeouts. So, they got to win the next two, which they did uh they did in the previous series, but they got to go to Lakeland and win the next two. They’re going to claim the Florida State League Championship. Shangen Lynn let us down today, but he won’t let us down in 2034. That’s right. That’s right. I don’t know. Well, I don’t even know what his track is. Maybe it’s I’ll be a little more respectful. 20 2030 2030. I don’t know. Maybe 2029. How old is he now? I’m not even sure how old he is. I think he’s like 17, I think. Something like that. Who know? Yeah, I think he’s still pretty young. But yeah, I it may be a couple cycles of the next good Reds team until we start seeing Shane. Then I’ll tell you what would be an awesome awesome awesome gamble. uh would be when Shang Enlin pitches for the Reds. If he does pitch for the Reds, will Nick Crawl be the general manager or the baseball of operations? It’s a good question. It’s a fair question. I think it’s a fair question, folks. It’s a fair question. Uh who knows whether or not that will happen or not happen. All right, let’s keep it moving. Uh just for time sake here, we uh we do have more baseball to be played. I know that there’s a lot of fans that may not feel that way, but damn it, I think it’s true. They do have more games to be played. Whether or not you watch them, I don’t know. But at least you can come back and listen to the recaps on the shows. Maybe you don’t want to invest two and a half hours of watching the games. You just rather listen to Chatterbox Reds for 45 minutes to an hour. That might be the better way to go. You might be a little more entertained perhaps. But uh we do have who, what, when, where, and why. Go ahead and take it away, Mike. Um just the guy we need to be a stopper. I know the Reds are going to stumble into St. Louis tomorrow for a three-game set against another below 500 team, the St. Louis Cardinals. It will be a 745 start at Busch Stadium. And like Trace said, pitching for us will be Zack Latell, 9-8 with a 378 erra against left-handed pitcher Matthew Libertore, 7-12 with a 4 and 435 ERA. Obviously, Latell coming off a pretty good start in San Diego. remember that series? Remember when we, you know, took two out of three from a playoff team and thought we were had a playoff chance? I Yeah, I barely do. But anyway, he went six innings pitched, two hits, two runs, and four Ks in that start. Uh has actually faced the Cardinals back on August 29th. Actually, it was a Latell Liberator start. So, we’re kind of getting a round two of that game. He went seven innings pitch, but uh gave up three runs in a Red’s lost. And it looks like some of the players against him, Ivon Herrera’s two for three. Uh Pedro Pahz is one for three. So not uh Nolan Gorman 1 for six. Not anything too crazy when it comes to uh success or people that have faced him. Uh Herrera and Pahz have both hit home runs against him. And then Matthew Liberator uh since July 1st is 1 and6 with a 559 erra. So kind of been struggling here in the second half of the year. faced the Reds in that game where he went five innings pitched, eight hits, three runs, and fourks, but did get the win. Uh some notable uh batting against him. Uh Miguel and Duhar is five for six against him, so hopefully he’s in the lineup uh with a home run. Uh and then Noel V Mart is three for six against him. And Jose Trovinho also three for six. and uh Krian Hayes is four for 16 uh with a double and a walk and two strikeouts. So, you know, we’ve seen some success against Libertore. We’ll see if it makes a difference. Um but yeah, I guess the we only have people from our division left. I think we got Hey, it’s Cardinals to Cubs to Pirates to Brewers or something like that. So, bunch of familiar foes. see if we can get end the season on not a not a just a a wet fart, which is what this the this past series ended up like. I tell you right now, they went out, they make the postseason. So, you know what? They went out, they make the post right there. That’s it. I tell you that right now. I guarantee you one thing. If they can do that, they’ll be in. Uh it’ll also help with the tiebreaker against the Giants, considering the record against your own division is a pretty big important one. I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen. At this point, I stopped giving up. I have said I’ve said before and I’ll say it again. I’ve had this team dead four times this year and they’ve convinced me to come back four times. I’ve I’ve I’ve thought about making it five. I thought about convincing myself tonight to say, “Hey, this is it. We’re done.” Fifth time, but I’m not doing it. You know what? I’m not doing it. The season’s not over. It’s not dead. It’s on life support. As I said before, the ventilator has been on for quite some time. whether or not whether or not they take us off the ventilator uh against the Cardinals, we’ll find out. But uh I just want to let everybody know we appreciate them. I do want to give a shout out as always uh to Chatterbox Bengals. If you’ve not gotten a chance to check them out, please do so. Uh they obviously will have content moving forward with the Bengals. I know there’s some folks that are obviously a little disheartened with what happened today with the Cincinnati Bengals, but you know what? It’s a long season. It’s a long season and Jake Browning is going to be that guy that can kind of tread some water. All right, everybody hold some faith in the town. Let’s all not get ourselves in a bad bad spot. Chatterbox Bengals has daily content. Check it out. Um, also, as a reminder, Smoke Justice, okay? Uh, that will be Sunday, September 21st from noon to 5:00 p.m. Chatterbox Bengals will be live. We’ll all hang out there. We’ll enjoy ourselves and we’ll go down to Smoke Justice and get ourselves some bourbon and some good old meat. That used to be a thing on this show. 302 Court Street, Covington, Kentucky. Uh, hope to see you there on Sunday, September 21st. Well, that’s it. We did a show. Um, there’s the graphic as well. You know, leave it to Craig. I don’t know what he did. His wife was probably like hanging out with him. you know, they’re watching a movie and uh Craig had his AirPods in and heard we needed a graphic for Omaha Stakes. So, as a reminder, Omaha Stakes red hot sale event, 50% off sitewide, plus get an extra $35 off using the code chatterbox. That’s ch Ha tx uh for an extra $35 off omo omahalstakes.com. Uh, and in parenthesis, our main man Craig here put I think that’s all correct. I think it is, too. I think he did a good job. Um, now from here on out, all we got to do is uh hope the Reds win every single game. You know what? I’m going to do that. I’m going to hope for that. Uh, Mike, it was a pleasure doing the show with you, man. I don’t know if we got off the rails too much. I’m sure I pissed hopefully. By the way, shout out to uh Nick. Obviously, he’s having an uh uh his baby today. I don’t know. I haven’t gotten any news. I don’t know. I I’ll be honest with you. Also, I could have gotten news. My my phone, I’ve not really looked at it, but maybe 5 seconds today. I don’t know what’s going on at this point in Chatterbox, but I do know this. The Reds need to win some more games. It was a pleasure doing a show with you, Mike. And uh we’ll be back better than ever again. As always, in the ninth inning live, and hopefully we’ll we’ll be talking about a Reds win. Till then, enjoy your night and uh wake up tomorrow and remember, it’s just baseball because that’s all it is. Uh, outro cra uh trace [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music]
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Sunday, September 14, 2025, marks the conclusion of a three-game series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Athletics at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento. After dropping the first two games, the Reds desperately need a win to salvage their road trip and keep pace in the crowded National League Wild Card race.
The Saturday night defeat was particularly frustrating for Cincinnati, as their playoff aspirations suffered a blow in an 11-5 loss. Rookie sensation Nick Kurtz’s 493-foot grand slam and a home run by Brent Rooker powered the A’s offense. Reds’ ace Hunter Greene struggled, giving up five runs in just 2 1/3 innings. Cincinnati now sits 1.5 games behind the New York Mets for the final Wild Card spot, needing a turnaround to avoid a disastrous West Coast swing.
Taking the mound for Cincinnati is left-hander Nick Lodolo, who brings an 8-7 record and a 3.10 ERA into the finale. The Reds hope Lodolo can provide a much-needed quality start to contain a hot Athletics offense that has been punishing mistakes. For the Athletics, right-hander Luis Morales will make the start. With a 3-1 record and a 2.73 ERA, Morales has been a positive surprise in the A’s rotation.
The Athletics, while out of the playoff hunt, are a much-improved team at home recently. They’ll look to complete the sweep and extend their home win streak to four games. Their formidable slugging percentage, third-best in all of Major League Baseball, makes them a dangerous lineup even for a playoff-contending team.
With the stakes high and the regular season drawing to a close, Cincinnati must find a way to quiet the A’s bats and ignite their own offense, which has been inconsistent recently. Sunday’s rubber match will be a test of character for the Reds, who must prove they have the resilience for a playoff push after two discouraging defeats.
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Player FM: https://player.fm/series/3450767
Andrew Abbott, Scott Barlow, Hunter Greene, Zack Littell, Nick Lodolo, Nick Martinez, Zach Maxwell, Emilio Pagán, Connor Phillips, Lyon Richardson, Tony Santillan, Brady Singer, Brent Suter, Yosver Zulueta, Will Banfield, Jose Trevino, Elly De La Cruz, Santiago Espinal, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Noelvi Marte, Matt McLain, Spencer Steer, Sal Stewart, Miguel Andujar, Will Benson, TJ Friedl, Austin Hays, Gavin Lux, Rhett Lowder, Alfredo Duno, Tyson Lewis, Steele Hall, Cam Collier, Chase Petty, Edwin Arroyo, Héctor Rodríguez, Aaron Watson, Adolfo Sanchez, Arnaldo Lantigua, Mason Neville, Sheng-En Lin, Mason Morris, Julian Aguiar, Luke Holman, Ethan O’Donnell, Liberts Aponte, Tyler Callihan, Ricky Cabrera, Carlos Jorge, Leo Balcazar, Jose Franco, Tristan Smith, Cole Schoenwetter, JeanPierre Ortiz, Ty Floyd, Graham Ashcraft, Fernando Cruz, Alexis Díaz, Carson Spiers, Brandon Williamson, Jeimer Candelario, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Edwin Ríos, Jake Fraley, Stuart Fairchild, Jacob Hurtubise, Blake Dunn, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Frank Robinson, Barry Larkin, Tony Perez, Joey Votto
Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays, Washington Nationals, Louisville Bats, Chattanooga Lookouts, Dayton Dragons, Daytona Tortugas
25 comments
Trace got burnt 😂✌️side note rip my beloved reds it’s been fun😭
Is it the manger petering out? Or the overrated players not doing their jobs? It appears the players are tired
Tito benching Benson instead of Lux was a fireable offense. Hoping to God he retires this offseason
What a pathetic group of chokers , of course it’s over
Rumor on a message board is the Reds will be making a move or two in the offseason that the fans might not like. That won’t help with this season obviously.
Elly is probably dealing with the injured quad.
I FELT THAT “ I I II I I I IIIIiii” BUT WE ARE MAKING THE PLAYOFFS
This team over achieved all year. We have a descent minor league team at best, minus our starting pitching.
The Reds are losers. The owners are petty, cheap, and stealing money. They don't even try to win. They suck. The entire organization's is an embarrassment. Screw the Castellini's
Hard to quit smoking cigarettes Trace when you watch this Reds team for 6 months 😂
Nothing will happen if Cruz plays the way he has since all star break. If Cruz had stayed on track we would be in wildcard lead.
You need to have more than 2 solid arms in bullpen…period.
You have to at least hit over 250 as a team with top 12 in homers…period.
This season was over when they refused to sign a big bat,and that was spring.
This team will go nowhere until its sold,or mlb makes owners spend the money they share to field better teams.
Again, I predicted a while back that we'd finish several games below .500. Yes, we had some good moments in there over the last two months. Nonetheless, what this team (and manager) showed me earlier in the season is that we could not consistently beat the teams we should be beating. I'm okay losing a series here and there to teams that are in the lower end of the standings. It's baseball. It happens. But every series with this Reds team is a coin flip. I have no confidence in anything we do.
Definitely don't deserve to go too any playoffs guys!Sorry for saying that but that is the truest part!
You said16 game out into our division and do u think they are a playoffs team hell no!!
Really think that the great pretender and no contenders are or reds period
Really think that the great pretender and no contenders are or reds period
C’mon Charlie Brown, kick the football, I promise I won’t pull it away!!!! 🙄
Great show
Believe that Elly should have been put into the outfield like they did with marte because it takes off more pressure and playing more relaxed period!This can help his batting out big time!
WHERE TF IS JT MARTINEZ
Trace needs some aloe on that forehead. Woof