The Reds announced this morning that they’ve placed infielder Mike Moustakas on the 10-day injured list with a right heel contusion and recalled fellow infielder Max Schrock from Triple-A Louisville. It’s now been nearly a week since Moustakas started a game for the Reds, but because the Reds utilized him as a pinch-hitter both Monday and Tuesday, his IL placement can only be backdated to yesterday (May 19).
With Moustakas now shelved for at least the next nine days and Joey Votto still out with a fractured thumb, Cincinnati is sending Alex Blandino out at first base today. Jonathan India is lined up at second base, with Kyle Farmer at short and Eugenio Suarez at the hot corner. We’ll likely see various permutations of the infield alignment in the absence of both Moustakas and Votto, a pair of key bats in the heart of the Reds’ lineup.
Moustakas, 32, is out to a .241/.337/.437 start that actually checks in 10 percent better than league average, by measure of wRC+, in this year’s woeful offensive climate. He’s homered four times and kicked in five doubles as well while splitting his time between the infield corners. The Reds initially signed Moustakas to play second base, but the emergence of Jonathan India and the club’s decision to move Suarez back to shortstop to begin the year slid Moustakas back over to the hot corner — at least until Votto’s injury.
The 26-year-old Schrock will give the Reds an option at any of second base, third base or left field while they await the returns of Votto and Moustakas. Schrock, just 4-for-26 in a tiny sample of play at the big league level, is a career .262/.326/.351 hitter in 775 Triple-A plate appearances.
Ouch. Rough for Reds lineup, Move Suarez back to third and Senzel at short.
Suarez has started at third four out of the last six games. I agree that he’s not an adequate defensive shortstop.
I’m really at a loss to explain why the Reds can’t get it together. Is it the ballpark? They never seem to perform as well as they should on paper.
I think they have a tendency to go after mid tier names in free agency rather than be more patient and rely on the farm. They look better on paper than they are because they rely on overrated guys like Moose, guys in major decline like Votto and tons of dudes out of position.
Can I ask… what the hell happened to Luis Castillo? That seems like the main problem to me
When a 2 pitch pitcher struggles with 1 pitch, you’re gunna have a bad time.
He throws 4 pitches.
To answer your first question, it turns out defense matters. When you have Castey and Winker, two guys who should be DHing, in your COF, a mediocre 3B at SS, and aging 1B, and your best defensive IFer in CF, it creates a pretty bad defense.
I think it’s leadership. The A’s dont have one player hitting over 250 in their starting lineup and Giants have just 1 in posey. And A’s don’t have 1 pitcher who performed as well as Mahle yet them and Giants will contend to the end Bc both are winning franchises while reds are the opposite. It’s cultural winning/loosing is embedded in the franchise.
Indians are another good example
Cleveland’s had recent playoff teams, though. And they came about as close as possible to winning in 2016 without doing so.
Indians are a good example of a team that wins w inferior talent due to culture is what I meant. And obviously the rays
Bot is exactly right. The Reds have the talent to win the division. They don’t even seem to care. No spark/leadership. Bad defense. Suspect baserunning quite often. Hit into a lot of DPs. Add in a horrid bullpen and there you go. Bell is a bottom 5 manager too.
Suarez doesnt belong at short anyway. He should always be at the hot corner.
All the reds fans who’ve been hating on votto for past couple seasons are tight lipped now ! Reds needed him back badly before the moose injury. Now they are 2 sluggers down.
Losing Moose is a huge part of it. When they lost 7 in a row earlier this year, Moose missed all of those games. Now he’s missed this whole series vs SF and they got swept. So their record without Moose is like 2-13… just guessing without looking it up.
this is part of the larger problem: neither Moose nor Votto are particularly good hitters at this point
David Bell no genius either. Leadership from ownership throughout has never worked.
Need baseball minds for club president and general manager. No farmhands setting the league on fire for sometime now.
Be nice to see bell and Kroll go. Go hire someone out of a winning organization.
Reds have a nice core. Greene and lodolo seem legit. Mix w Mahle senzel Stevenson winker, india to a lesser extent. And I’m also high on Jose Garcia. They got the core – just no clue how to win baseball games.
They certainly didn’t figure it out today.
This might be the worst run organization in BB, with the Rox close behind.
They really had a very small chance of making the playoffs this year. They only played .517 last year, and lost Bauer, Bradley & Iglesias, and actually started the season without a SS on the roster.
They should’ve traded Castillo, Gray, Suarez, and Garrett. They’d have gotten something along the lines of 6 top-100 prospects. Add those 6 to a still productive farm, and add all that to the remaining core of Senzel, Stephenson, India, Winker and Antone, and it wouldn’t have taken long to rebuild.
Instead, they will hold onto everyone and hope to finish .500.