A thorough and hearty hat-tip is due to Brady Singer, who did not allow a single earned run in his start for the Cincinnati Reds against the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday night in Great American Ball Park. A noted trade candidate with the deadline around the corner, Singer pitched pretty damn effectively, keeping Cleveland off the board entirely through 4.0 IP.
It was in the Top of the 5th inning, though, where Cincinnati’s foibles became realized. First, it was an error at short on a hot grounder hit to Elly De La Cruz. That was compounded by a subsequent grounder to Elly – a hot shot to his right by a left-handed hitter going the other way that seemed to pull the defensive positioning of the entire infield out of whack. Elly fielded it but sent a looping lob to Edwin Arroyo at 2B, who had taken his own meandering, roundabout path to the bag on what, in theory, could’ve been a 6-4-3 double play ball to get them out of a jam. Instead, Arroyo arrived later to 2B than the sliding Steven Kwan, all runners were safe, and the wheels had fully begun to come off.
Singer then walked a batter to load the bags, Travis Bazzana singled into LF to score the game’s first run, and back to back wild walks scored two more runners before Singer was lifted at the 100 pitch mark with the Reds down 3-0. Caleb Ferguson came on and yielded another unearned run on a sac-fly, and by inning’s end the Reds were down 4-0 in the most frustrating of ways.
Of course, being down 4-0 in the 5th and losing 6-1 means the offense did jack squat on the night, too. From the outset the team looked to be woefully overmatched as lefty Joey Cantillo toed the rubber for Cleveland. He’s a fine pitcher, no doubt, but manager Terry Francona’s attempt to play platoon advantages against the southpaw meant there was a stretch of the lineup that featured Noelvi Marte, Ivan Johnson, Edwin Arroyo, and Ke’Bryan Hayes hitting back to back. That’s a guy who entered with -1.1 fWAR – one of the four worst players in the game with a minimum of 150 PA – followed by two rookies who’ve never hit a big league home run and Hayes, who’s been the single worst hitter in the sport for three years running.
That unit struck out 8 times through 4.0 scoreless innings against Cantillo, who allowed nary a run. They struck out 16 times as a whole by game’s end, stranding 10 runners on base in the process.
This Cincinnati club has found ways to be slightly better than the worst team in the sport for most of the season, but time and time again just looks horrendous from the outset – both on paper and in play. On Wednesday night in Great American Ball Park, they put together one of their most indifferent, lackluster nights of the year just days away from the trade deadline, sinking to 50-57 on the season and, perhaps, sending Singer off elsewhere in the most frustrating of fashions.
They’re a bad baseball team in need of a hard, hard reset.
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