Reds at Braves (NL Wild Card Series) 9/30-10/2

[CincySportsFan]

Alright now that this thing is mercifully over, I can be honest now...

People want the players/manager to do things differently than they've done all year...ie: bunt and/or hit the ball the other way.  Granted it was a shortened season, but what in the world makes you think they can do it NOW, when they haven't done it in the previous 60 games?!?!?  

When the players/manager does do something differently than they've done all year...ie: double steal, and it fails...they want to rant about that.  It's a no-win situation.

Here's the way I look at it, you dance with the one who brought you.  If you're a team that made it to the playoffs by swinging away, you swing away.  You don't bunt.  You don't steal.  You don't do anything that you haven't already practiced and applied in-game during the regular season.  This year's Reds squad was built/trained for hitting the long ball.  Trying to turn them into a station-to-station, small-ball team in the playoffs is stupid, in my opinion.  If you want changes, it needs to happen in the off-season and in spring training.  Go ahead, try teaching Castellanos or Aquino to hit it the other way.  See how it goes then.  Trying to have them do it now is just a wasted at-bat.

[16thBBall Fan]

5 minutes ago, Carl Spackler said:

A squeeze play IS a sacrifice bunt.   And you're going to try something, in a do or die situation,  that is not part of your offense and obviously not worked on? That's not a recipe for success.   They hadn't got a bunt down all season and you're going to send the runner and hope they do in a playoff game.   

 

As I said earlier, NO WAY it could be worse than their hitting, NO WAY, so try to steal a run, good managers make decisions like that, instead of a little league double steal call!!

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

The Reds are apparently only team in MLB postseason history to not score a single run in a multi-game postseason series. (Which I guess means there have been some one-game tiebreaker series at some point or another.)

They also set a new MLB record for scoreless innings in a playoff series.

[Randy Parker]

32 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

LOL .. At least Votto got a couple of hits yesterday. What did the rest of those hackers do?  I think Suarez is the biggest disappointment this season.

Agreed on Suarez, although Votto was nothing to write home about.

[CincySportsFan]

8 minutes ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

The Reds are apparently only team in MLB postseason history to not score a single run in a multi-game postseason series. (Which I guess means there have been some one-game tiebreaker series at some point or another.)
 

To be fair, this is the first time that there's been a best-of-three series, isn't it?  So any other team would've had to have been shut out over 3 games, minimum, in the past.  (Not saying the Reds couldn't/wouldn't have done that this year, if given the chance, but still...)  Not exactly apples to apples.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

1 minute ago, CincySportsFan said:

To be fair, this is the first time that there's been a best-of-three series, isn't it?  So any other team would've had to have been shut out over 3 games, minimum, in the past.  (Not saying the Reds couldn't/wouldn't have done that this year, if given the chance, but still...)  Not exactly apples to apples.

Oh duh....that's a totally valid point. I was sitting and thinking, "Wow, they're the ONLY team that's ever done that?"

[CincySportsFan]

1 minute ago, Randy Parker said:

Agreed on Suarez, although Votto was nothing to write home about.

There wasn't a dang single person on offense that was worth even more than a footnote this year.  Even Winker, who was hot as anyone to start, faded in September.  Give him another 100 games to play and he might've ended up around the Mendoza line along with everyone else.

I absolutely hate the way baseball is seemingly built around the walk/strikeout/homerun scenario.  Feast or famine...there is no in-between.

[CincySportsFan]

9 minutes ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Oh duh....that's a totally valid point. I was sitting and thinking, "Wow, they're the ONLY team that's ever done that?"

Just did some quick searching on Google...

The 1921 New York Giants were shut out by the Yankees in their first two games (World Series), but came back to win game three 13-5, and eventually the WS in eight games.

The 2018 Atlanta Braves were shut out by the Dodgers in their first two games (Division series), but came back to win game three 6-5.  They, however, lost the series 3 games to 1.

Those are the only two other instances of a team getting shutout in their first two games of a postseason series.

So, the Reds weren't far off from making history.

[nkypete]

Are we done from seeing Bauer in a Reds uniform again?

[CincySportsFan]

2 minutes ago, nkypete said:

Are we done from seeing Bauer in a Reds uniform again?

Sadly, yes.

[CincySportsFan]

Does Castellanos opt-out, or does he come back?

[16thBBall Fan]

43 minutes ago, Carl Spackler said:

True,  but the two starting pitchers that the Reds faced had a combined ERA of 2.13.  

True, but they only pitched 13 of the 22 innings and they faced 10 other pitchers over the two games.

[Voice of Reason]

30 minutes ago, CincySportsFan said:

Does Castellanos opt-out, or does he come back?

 I don't know what his contract looks like but I would not want to be going into free agency with the way I hit this year if I was him.

[CincySportsFan]

1 minute ago, Voice of Reason said:

 I don't know what his contract looks like but I would not want to be going into free agency with the way I hit this year if I was him.

He's able to get $14 million coming back to the Reds.  Has the opt-out for 2021 and also 2022.

This year's stats translates to a 38 HR/92 RBI full season, despite hitting just .225

[Carl Spackler]

40 minutes ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

True, but they only pitched 13 of the 22 innings and they faced 10 other pitchers over the two games.

The guys that they faced over those other 9 innings had ERAs of: 4.50, 2.79, 2.78, 2.60, 1.10, 1.00 and 0.83 this year.   They didn't face any of the starters that put up that 5+ ERA. You couple that pitching with the Reds offense and this is not a surprising result.