There's a reason for that. Reds wins have been blowouts...very few opportunities for Coco. He's 4 for 4 btw. Sox have been horrible. Very few winning opportunities. Astros....well, Lyon has been horrible. 8 opportunities, 4 blown saves. The talk around here is when they're going to make the change in closers. It'll happen quite soon IMO.
Okay, I'm exaggerating on the runs. But I've seen this Astros staff pretty much day in and day out. They are THAT bad. Once I saw that we held them to 2 runs...the win was in the bag as soon as I saw the bullpen being called on. Especially Lyon. Melancon has been pretty solid and Fulchino's been fairly decent, but the rest of the pen is quite capable of putting up historically bad numbers this season. The starters...Figeroa, Happ, Wandy have all been batting tees. Myers has been decent but I don't see it continuing. Norris has been extremely lucky but has gotten good results.
IMO this is the worst pitching staff in the bigs by quite a large margin. To be shut out by them for 8 innings, in a hitters ballpark, and to a rookie who throws basically nothing but straight fastballs (90-92...so not really a flamethrower)...thats something that concerns me. Yes we won, but we looked horrible at the plate all day long (until Brandon Lyon stepped in to prove his worth).
The one aspect of the Astros that people have overlooked is their offense. Some of these young hitters are stepping up and clicking. But it'll take Phillies-type numbers to offset their staff.
I'd put money on it being Fulchino as the new closer. But heck, when talking about scrap heap guys, we just got 1 hit by one today. Rule 5 pick from the Rays, .500 record and +4 era in AA & AAA. I don't know what it is about the Reds, but it seems like we always struggle mightily against guys making the MLB debuts or rookies getting their first look at us.
BINGO!
This team has played inconsistent ball the first month of the season, and had to do so with injuries to key players. We get Cueto and Bailey back. That is going to help, and I feel this staff will improve. In fact, I think this team will pay better as the season progresses. We're pretty much (record-wise) where we were at this time last season.
But IMO, no one is gonna walk away with this division. And it is gonna be one of the weaker divisions in baseball.
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
A good come from behind win. This is a good case of getting a good start that keeps you in the game until the offense figures it out. As long as you get good starts you will always be in the game. Lets hope Bailey can continue this and the Reds can gain some momentum from this win.
Reds Fan Since 1971
Is it just me, or does it look like Phillips is about to do some wrestling move where he throws his elbow down on Bruce. (not that I'm that familiar with freaking wrestling). :O)
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