It’s so hard to say “Reds Fan” and “Pessimist” in the same sentence these days. The Red’s three game losing streak came to a screeching halt last night as the Pirates of all teams topped the Red 8-4.

I know some people will say it looked like this before, but the Reds pitching staff now almost seems to be the kind of staff you’d expect to find on AAA team. I know Ramirez is only 22, but if he were on a good team, wouldn’t be down at AA or AAA. Randy Keisler has actually been a pleasant surprise, but based on his career numbers, he’s set to come back down to earth. Kent Merker has had success at the big league level but he’s 37 and probably won’t be around for too long. And Rickey Stone hasn’t a good year since 2003, and even that one was just good.

Those were the four guys who threw last night. The proofs in the pudding (numbers) so lets check out where the Reds staff is to date using the Hardball Times Team stats page.

First thing that strikes me as odd is the .510 slugging percentage. That’s almost .100 above the league average of .419. That’s bad. They’re line drive percentage is the worst in the league as well at .208. So even when the ball’s not going over the fance (at a league leading clip of 1.4 times every game), it’s being hit hard somewhere. The have the second worse groundball to fly ball ratio, so they’re not keeping the ball down like the have to. Pitching to contact is fine when the ball’s not going over the fence.

That’s all bad by the way.

This is over due, but if you haven’t checked out Red Hot Mama, who started her Reds blog a couple of months ago, be sure to stop by. Very good stuff.

Permalink | Posted in 2005 Season