Reds give up 6 dingers in 10-5 loss to Milwaukee

Another day, another loss. There were, however, a couple of good things to come out of this. Hunter Greene, despite the 8 runs on 9 hits, started seeing triple-digits on his fastball again. He also struck out 7 batters while walking only 1. He has unfortunately not become immune to the long ball yet, as he’s given up 10 dingers on the season. He’s going to figure it out. He’s just having to do this on the big stage where he can’t just blow it by everyone. The bullpen, very much depleted and over-used, held on long enough to get the Reds within striking distance until they finally surrendered 2 more runs in the bottom of the 8th for the 10-5 final. The Brewers are a buzzsaw right now, having won 14 of their last 17 entering today. The Reds just ran into them at the worst possible time.

Offensively, Mike Moustakas seems to be finding his bat. It’s a short sample, but he’s hitting .400/.455/.600 in his 6 games since coming off the IL. And that’s before you add in his 1 for 3 night where he added a walk and a double. Tyler Stephenson also had a good night in his second start since his concussion, going 2 for 4 with a solo dinger. I’m just trying to be a little positive in a time where nothing about this team is positive.

The bad part is that they’ve lost 20 of 21 games. They’re off to the second worse start in Major League history and the worst start in franchise history. They are the only team to have allowed more runs than their offense has total hits this far into a season (h/t Joel Luckhaupt for that one). The starting pitching has allowed 99 ER in 100 innings pitched, good for an ERA of 8.91 that would blow that futile record out of the water if it were to continue for a full season (it won’t). Anyway, things are bad and they’re going to stay bad for a little while. There are 137 games left of this. I’m still not sure if that is a threat or not.

Tomorrow starts a new series, and this time one that is a little more hopeful. They return home to play the Pittsburgh Pirates who, with their 10-14 record entering today, will be the first team they will have played with a losing record since Atlanta was 0-1 all the way back when the Reds were 1-0. Conner Overton will get the start, hoping to capitalize off of his strong start last outing. He’ll face off against JT Brubaker. First pitch is at 6:40 PM EDT. Go Reds.