Reds at Indians, Game 3 - Preview and Lineups

Frustrating loss yesterday has to be quickly forgotten as the series moves to Cleveland tonight.

Mike Clevinger takes the mound vs. the Redlegs this evening. Clevinger is the only Cleveland starting pitcher that has had his fair share of struggles so far this season, allowing six earned runs in 11 innings (two starts). He’s given up four home runs and five walks to 11 strikeouts.

However, he definitely has a track record of success over the last three seasons. From 2017 through 2019, Clevinger has pitched 447.2 innings with a 2.96 ERA (153 ERA+) and a 3.32 FIP with a 10.3 K/9. Clevinger’s best season was probably 2018, if only because he kept that quality and was able to pitch 200 innings.

For the Reds, Tejay Antone takes the mound for his first Major League start. You may remember he made his Major League debut out of the pen last week, cleaning up a bad outing for new (and apparently injured) Reds pitcher Wade Miley. In that game, he pitched 4.1 innings of one run, one hit (a dinger) baseball.

Antone was ranked 19th in the Red Reporter Community Prospect rankings earlier this year (yeah, that was earlier this year, I promise). Doug Gray has some details on Antone over at Reds Minor Leauges, but the biggest thing of note there is Antone mentioning that he kept stretched out over the lockdown/quarantine, and thinks he’s got up to 100 pitches in him tonight. He definitely impressed with this stuff last week, so hopefully we see more of that tonight.

In minor transactions, Jose De Leon and Francisco Pena were added to the taxi squad for this trip,

Mike Moustakas out of the lineup again with a bruised quad. Manager David Bell mentioned in his interview last night that the quad had been bothering Moose for a couple of days, but got treatment on it and felt good to go yesterday before it began to creep back up again. He was scheduled for more treatment today, but apparently it’s still troublesome enough that he can’t go. It’s a big bat out of the Reds lineup, obviously.

Reds lineup

Cleveland lineup