To preview this Mets miniseries, I spoke with Amazin' Avenue and Chuck held court over at Metsmerized Online.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Maybe you read other blogs that do. This is not such a great match-up. The Mike Leake we know from Seasons One and Two is never more than a start away from becoming dependable again, but there hasn't been much to like about his recent episodes. Other than: his regressed stats, which were revealed in a really hacky series of therapist scenes, suggest he's not nearly this bad.
Meanwhile, Johan Santana is back from doing off-Broadway and, rather than losing steps, has learned a few.
Go Reds! Think positive, play the game, then win the game.
Dan Rubenstein heads to Columbus, Ohio to meet Hall of Fame legends Ricky Henderson, Frank Thomas, Johnny Bench, Wade Boggs, Rod Carew & more as they play contest winner Tim Wisecup in the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams.
The Reds are off to the Big Apple today for the first of five games in New York: two vs. the Mets and then three against the Yankees.
The Mets are just two games behind the NL East-leading Washington Nationals (as I write this Tuesday), and have the exact same record as the Cardinals...but they're not playing nearly as well. Everything about their numbers indicate that they are something closer to a 0.500 team. On offense, they've been above average--they've gotten on base very well, but haven't shown much power. Their rotation has posted good peripherals, but below-average performances...I think several guys are likely to turn it around. The Reds are facing the guys who are arguably the #1 and #2 pitchers on the staff.
The bad news (for Mets fans) is that the other parts of their team have been terrible. The bullpen has been catastrophically bad, especially among the late-inning relievers. And almost all data indicates that this is a very, very bad fielding team.
Runs: 0.97
Home runs: 0.95 LHB / 0.92 RHB
I'm reporting these because they're the most recent data. But this offseason, the outfield walls were moved in substantially. This means that the park should play as a much more neutral park--if not a hitter's park--than it has in the past. Early returns don't support this, but they're meaningless at this point due to small sample sizes. I'd assume it's neutral until the data show otherwise, and we might not know that for a few years.
It's easy to forget that Todd Frazier, in the eyes of Baseball America, was a Top 50 overall prospect and number one in the Reds' system prior to the 2010 season. Having started his professional career at short stop, he could be imagined almost anywhere on the field. With 16 games at AAA under his belt, having hit at every level, Todd's Time was close at hand.
Yet since the start of the 2010 season, Frazier has made 938 plate appearances at AAA to just 157 in the majors. His numbers at the plate, while trending up, didn't match the brilliance he'd shown at lower levels.
He turned 26. He's made appearances at 5 different positions between Louisville and CIncinnati. Frazier's versatility became a form of indecision on the part of the organization - and apparent doubt about whether his skillset fitting into one of their positions of need. A lot of it was having Rolen and Phillips under contract, but part of it may also have been that he didn't seem like he'd hit well enough to play the outfield.
Frazier's fits and starts in Louisville obscure the fact that he's a player we were pretty excited about a little over two years a go. What he's shown since is steady and incremental improvement. The bat has come along: from a sub-.800 OPS in 2010 as a Bat to an .879 OPS this season in the majors. He's gone from a major positional question mark to what appears to be a passable infielder in the majors - someone who can even be used in the middle infield in a pinch.
With Juan Francisco a Brave and Rolen on the DL, Frazier has his chance - deferred, but very real.
The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game
Chris Heisey is heating up, collecting 3 hits in his second straight game. With a night to forget for Johnny Cueto, that's about all that went right for the Reds. Honorable mentions to Alfredo Simon for two shaky but scoreless innings and Ryan Hanigan for his two hits.
A team doesn't have to string together lengthy winnings streaks to be successful. But good teams usually do anyway over the course of a long season. Back-to-back wins against good competition is encouraging. So is a 3-hit night from a left fielder.
While the team may not be able to pull even with the Cardinals before the end of the month, they can continue to demonstrate they're in it for the long haul. Nothing about their performance so far has been fluky:
If there's room to grow, the question is how much better the offensive improvement will be than the bullpen regression. The bullpen is among the best, if not the best, in the National League. If it stays that way AND the bats come out to play, then this is a first-place-caliber team.
If you think the team we've seen so far is the "real" Reds, then they may be good enough for 2nd place in the NL Central. It may even be a little bit better by virtue of not playing the Nats and Cards over 1/3 of the time. But "just good enough for 2nd place in the Central" isn't shaping up to be good enough for the playoffs.
Although none of this really matters when Johnny Cueto is on the mound.
