Cincinnati Reds series preview: Communists invade

If ever the viability of communism as an economic system were going to threaten the American brand of capitalism, the Reds’ seemingly never-ending stream of on-field failure shows that communism may never get a hold in this country.

The Reds have won a measly 23 games—a total one better than the Royals’ syphilitic 22 wins—to their 43 putrid losses—again one better than the Royals necrotic 44 loss total. In short, some really bad baseball should be played this series. So bad, in fact, that the MLB decided to make sure these two teams only subjected the world to two miserable games.

Game times and pitching matchups are as follows:

• Tuesday, June 12 — 7:15 PM CDT — Sal Romano versus Ian Kennedy
• Wednesday, June 13 — 7:15 PM CDT — Tyler Mahle versus Jason Hammel

All stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball Reference

Sal Romano is a fastball-slider guy, whose change is, ummm, not good. His strand rate is garbage. His walk rates are higher than anyone who thinks Skyline Chili is chili. He does throw both a four-seamer and a sinker. When Ian Kennedy has to be the favored pitcher in a matchup, that’s a bad sign for his opposing pitcher.

Tyler Mahle had a bit of prospect buzz heading into this season, but he pitches for the Reds. The Reds can’t have nice pitchers. Mahle is a command-first guy, whose four-seamer and slider are all right but who struggles with a subpar change. His walk-rates were stellar in the minors, but they’ve jumped a bit since breaking into the bigs late last year.

The Reds position players have actually been fairly productive, at least for a team jockeying for the first pick of next year’s draft. Their 7.9 fWAR as a unit, puts them 15th in baseball. They’re slashing .251/.330/.387 with a .314 wOBA and 95 wRC+. Per the defensive component of fWAR they are the 10th-best unit in the game. Judging by DRS and UZR, they are the 10th (tied with Cleveland with 11 DRS) and 22nd (-6.0 UZR) best defense.