07-05-2021, 12:12 PM
(07-04-2021, 11:29 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: The Reds, . . . that is, The Cincinnati Reds, . . . have swept a series from all four division opponents this year. It's been a long time since that's happened mainly due to the Cardinals bullying the Reds for well over a decade. Years ago, in the old NL West, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Houston, LA, San Diego and San Francisco were divisional rivals and when the Dodgers came to town . . . the whole Ohio Valley was buzzing. Houston had Nolan Ryan then Biggio/Bagwell, SF had Willie McCovey then Will Clark, the Padres had Dave Winfield then Tony Gwynn, the Braves had Dale Murphy then Maddux/Smoltz/Glavine. There was a connection with these rivals. Then they moved Atlanta to the East, Cincy and Houston to the Central with long time NL East teams Chicago, St Louis and Pittsburgh. Shortly after, Houston and Milwaukee switched leagues so our old connection to the NL West was completely shut off. 86 games played every year against 15 teams outside of the division which means 76 games against the four teams within the division. As much as I hated the fights the last few years, I did kind of get a little excited that most of them came against division rivals. I missed that spark!
22-12 division record so far this year . . . 10-22 vs NL West with thankfully only three games remaining against the Dodgers in mid September.
5-4 vs Milwaukee with seven straight games coming up, four @ Milwaukee before the break and three in Cincinnati coming out of the break. They only play one three game series after that and that series is sandwiched in between 7 games against the Marlins in late August
6-4 vs St Louis with nine remaining
6-3 vs Chicago with 10 remaining
5-1 vs Pittsburgh with 13 remaining including nine of the last 18 games of the season.
Division records as of July 4th
22-12 Reds(34 division games played - 42 to go with 79 total games remaining)
23-14 Brewers(37 - 39 to go with 77 remaining)
20-20 Cubs(40 - 36 to go with 78 remaining)
13-17 Cardinals(30 - 46 to go with 77 remaining)
11-26 Pirates(37 - 39 to go with 79 remaining)
Starting staff falling into place
Bullpen having a good run with help coming down the road(Lorenzen, Santillan, Greene?)
Rookies playing well(India, Stephenson, Lopez, Gutierrez, Santillan, Osich, Hendrix)
Larkin mentioned that the front office looks to be active soon . . . expect Naquin, Aquino(I am tired of watching this man attempt to play baseball), Akiyama and some minor leaguers to be discussed in trades for bullpen help.
I doubt Naquin goes, but you never know. The guy I wonder about is Senzel. He never seems to find his place position-wise. The rise of India makes that even more apparent. His injury obviously hurts his value, but he could still be viewed as a high upside player by a team looking to sell off assets for a rebuild.
He's not exactly been a terrible player when healthy. He's a decent hitter and fields well for a guy that gets dragged all over the field positionally.
I hate to say it about such a highly regarded prospect, but I wouldn't even notice if the guy wasn't on the team at this point.
