Reds August 2023 thread

[CJD]

(08-12-2023, 02:20 AM)guyofthetiger Wrote: Glad the Reds beat the Bucs tonight. We finally started hitting again. Abott pitched a great game too. Still think we are a .500 team though. Wish I could jump on the playoff bandwagon with this team.

I don't think there's any bandwagon, really. I think the vast majority of fans know this team has talent, but its streaky (because its young) and, at any time, our pitching may implode our chances of making the playoffs.

If things go well for us, we could stay in the playoff picture and maybe even make some noise once we're there.

If things go poorly, we fall down to 3rd place in the division and lose our playoff spot to the Brewers and, perhaps, the Cubs, Marlins or Dbacks (assuming Philly and SF maintain the first 2 WC spots).

We could go either way at this point.

They key will be winning the games we should win, such as these games against Pittsburgh today and tomorrow.

I just checked and Pitt is starting a reliever today, so odds are this will be a bullpen day for them. This has its pros and its cons for us. Relievers are generally worse pitchers than starting pitchers, overall. So we should be able to make our mark early. The downside is that, with a bullpen day, there is no real 2nd or 3rd time through the lineup where our batters can leverage familiarity to have an edge (you often see a starting pitcher's numbers skyrocket during their third time through the lineup because of this). 

Even still, Williamson is starting for us and he has been very good for the last month or two. If they can take this game and secure the series going into Sunday, that would be the next step towards reclaiming our playoff chances.