Reds Fall Yet Again to Brewers Devil Magic
Cincinnati's Offense Refuses to Show Up for Good Pitching Performances
Honestly, I don’t know how this keeps happening. Even though they’ve beaten the Reds almost every game they’ve played this season, I just do not think they are that much better of a team. The Reds are 1.5 games behind them in the division race and have only won 3 games out of 13 played against them this year. It’s ridiculous.
The Brewers have some incredible pitching, both starting games and out of the bullpen. Devin Williams, ‘The Airbender’, is Milwaukee’s star closer - and for good reason. He has been absolute nails when coming in against the Reds. Freddy Peralta looked like the greatest pill-tosser of all time striking out 13 Reds hitters in Wednesdays miserable showing.
The Reds will not play another game against Milwaukee in the regular season, and if they meet in the post season…. I’ll convince myself that the Reds are due a win.
Song of the Day
Reds @ Brewers Recap
LIL’ RED MACHINE:
Andrew Abbot; 6 IP, 0 ER, 9 K, 7 H, 1 BB
Monday, July 24
Reds 2 - 3 Brewers
The Reds only runs in this game came in the third inning off of a 450-foot bomb-job off the bat of Elly de La Cruz. Funny note about this: Elly had a homer robbed by Joey Weimer in center field in the first inning. As he came to the plate in his homer-hitting at bat, the scoreboard displayed the following “ELLY DE LA CRUZ: Almost hit a home run in the first - but didn’t”. He then crushed the ball over the promo SUV in right center field. On Wednesday when Elly came to the plate the scoreboard read “ELLY DE LA CRUZ: The Scoreboard Crew has no further comment at this time”.
Graham Ashcraft had a respectable outing, giving up only 2 runs and striking out 8 Brewers’ hitters. It would’ve looked a lot better if the Reds offense would have shown anything like its normal self.
Tuesday, July 25
Reds 4 - 3 Brewers
Andrew Abbot, in his fourth start against this Brewers’ lineup, threw 6 shutout innings. He’s now got a 1.90 ERA, and at this point I think it’s safe to say his good performance is not a fluke. He’s just that good. Typically a pitcher, especially a rookie pitcher, will get lit up if a team sees him more than once. Not Abbot. He just does his thang.
Jonathan India batted in TJ Friedl on an infield hit in the 4th, followed up by a Joey Votto single that scored Matt McLain. Nice to see those guys have some success.
Will Benson hit a two run homer in the top of the 9th inning that ended up being the difference in the game, as Christian Yelich hit a three run homer in the bottom of the inning to pull Milwaukee within one run before Alexis Diaz shut them down.
This game was fun because the Reds won, but only after the fact. It was stressful down to the very last pitch thrown.
Wednesday, July 26
Reds 0 - 3 Brewers
Not much to say about this one. Ben Lively threw a really nice game but was unlucky. The only mistake he threw ended up in the left field bleachers, and the Reds offense didn’t pick him up at all.
The Reds were 0-4 with runners in scoring position in this game. Rough watch.
Looking Ahead
The Reds go to LA to play the Dodgers in some late-night weekend games. Today’s game has first pitch at 10:10 PM.
The Dodgers are currently leading the NL West by 3 games, and have been hitting their stride lately. They weren’t any slouch when the Reds took the series against them in June, but they weren’t in rhythm like they are now. This will be another difficult test.
The obvious key to this series is not falling into another cold streak like the lineup did after the last series loss to the Brewers. The Dodgers offense is much better than Milwaukee’s and winning any of these games will require more than 4 runs scored.