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CINCINNATI — Looking up at the scoreboard and seeing the radar gun showing lower-than-normal numbers, Cincinnati Reds starter Hunter Greene tried just about anything he could think of — smelling salts, putting his hand in cold water, anything to get himself going.
“I was just trying to wake up,” Greene said after the Reds’ 5-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, extending their losing streak to eight games. “I haven’t done smelling salts in God knows how long and I had to pop a couple of those things today. That happens throughout the season. You’ve still got to go out there and figure it out and keep the team in it. It’s just one of those days.”
It’s been a lot of those days for the Reds, who lost all six games of this homestand.
“It’s all my responsibility now,” Reds manager David Bell said. “It’s a player’s game for sure, but that’s my job and we’re all working hard and it’s a team effort. We came up short today.”
The Reds have come up shorter than Eddie Gaedel recently. The numbers on the scoreboard haven’t been pretty, but they aren’t the only ugly numbers during the season and especially during the six-game winless stretch at home.
0 wins: Most importantly, the Reds didn’t collect a win in six games at home, where they are now 9-13. The team is 16-21 overall, the same record it had after 37 games last season.
.172 batting average: The Reds managed just 32 hits over those six defeats and 18 came in the last two games. The Reds managed just 11 hits in three games against the Orioles, despite missing the Orioles’ top two pitchers, Corbin Burnes and Kyle Bradish. The Reds are batting .211 for the season.
.225 average with runners in scoring position: That mark was actually better than the team’s overall average, but still not good. The Reds are hitting .262/.338/.423 on the season with runners in scoring position, so the bigger problem has been getting runners on second and third.
1 lead: The Reds led just once the entire homestand, taking a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning of Wednesday’s loss to the Diamondbacks on a Stuart Fairchild RBI single. It was the team’s first lead in 43 innings. Fairchild was thrown out at second trying to stretch his single into a double and the next two batters singled, which would’ve likely resulted in another run. Instead, the Diamondbacks answered in the top of the third with a Gabriel Moreno single and Pavin Smith double to tie the game. Graham Ashcroft then walked in a run later in the inning. The Reds didn’t lead Thursday but did tie it twice, each time falling behind the next inning.
Jonathan India reacts after striking out against the D-Backs on May 7. (Kareem Elgazzar / The Enquirer / USA Today Network)
3 runs against opponents’ starters: The Reds didn’t score a run against any of the opponents’ starters until the penultimate game of the homestand when they put up two runs against Arizona’s Jordan Montgomery. The third came Thursday off Arizona’s Slade Cecconi on a Jeimer Candelario solo homer. Opponents’ starters put up a 0.72 ERA over the six games.
3.19 ERA from Reds starters: In a flip-flop from last season, the Reds have gotten good starting pitching and poor hitting. Reds starters have a 3.77 ERA on the season, the sixth-best mark in the National League. Last year the Reds finished with a 5.49 ERA, only better than Colorado in the NL.
5 runs by former Reds: Tucker Barnhart, Eugenio Suárez and Kevin Newman, now all members of the Diamondbacks, went 6-for-24 (.250) with five runs, two RBIs and a home run in the three-game series. Barnhart scored three of those runs.
5 1/2 games behind in the National League Central: Not that anyone is looking for silver linings at this point, but it’s important to remember the Reds play in the National League Central, far from the most grueling of divisions. After Thursday’s loss, the Reds were 5 1/2 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs. Cincinnati entered its homestand 3 1/2 games behind Milwaukee and 2 1/2 games behind Chicago. The Brewers play the Cardinals on Thursday evening.
6 hits for Jeimer Candelario: Hey, it wasn’t all bad. Candelario, who has struggled in his first season with the Reds, saw his average go from .194 starting the series to .216. He had three hits Wednesday and another two Thursday, including his third homer of the season and his second at Great American Ball Park.
10-game road trip: The Reds left for San Francisco following Thursday’s game. They’ll play three against the Giants before heading to Arizona for three games against the Diamondbacks and then to Los Angeles for four games against the Dodgers.
11 runs scored in six games: That number matches how many runs the Orioles scored against the Reds on Sunday. Of the Reds’ 11 runs at home, all but two came in the three-game games against Arizona. The Reds still average 4.35 runs per game, near the league average of 4.36 runs per game before Thursday’s games.
(Top photo of Ketel Marte tagging out Elly De La Cruz: Katie Stratman / USA Today)
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Courtesy : https://theathletic.com/5483366/2024/05/09/cincinnati-reds-disastrous-homestand-11-numbers/