The Reds are 17-11 against teams with winning records, and are 4-12 against teams with losing records.
Obviously that needs to change but it's encouraging that the Reds are playing so well against the good teams. The Reds are 0-8 against the Astros, Braves, and Pirates. Two of the losses against the Pirates were a 1-0 loss and a 4-3 loss and that's when the offense was struggling mightily. The Reds could have easily won two of three in that series. Of the two losses against the Astros, Arroyo was given an early lead on a Griffey homerun (hasn't homered since) but couldn't hold it. The next day the Reds lost 5-3...Cueto didn't have his best stuff but allowed five runs in seven innings and the Reds offense failed to show up. Again, that's probably a game they win now. In the Braves series, Volquez threw a gem (6 IP, 1 ER, 9 K's) but received a loss after the Reds were shutout by Hudson. The next game the Reds lost lost 9-1 but it was 2-1 going into the 7th inning. The Reds lost the next game 14-7 as Arroyo had the worst start of his career. If only they could have squeezed out a couple wins in those eight games they would have above .500 right now.
The key to staying above is beating the teams you should beat and continuing to play .500 to slightly above .500 ball against the great teams.
