We start a three-game series with the Reds in Toronto today.
The Reds are 60-64, fourth in the NL Central, and six games back in the Wild Card race. They are seventh in the NL in runs scored per game. And sixth in runs allowed per game.
I sent questions to Witt Terrell of Red Reporter, with the theme song for WKRP in Cincinnati playing in my head (Baby, if you ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me), and he was nice enough to send me back answers.
You have an old friend of ours, Santigo Espinal. How is he doing? What is his role on the team? I guess you have Yosver Zulueta as well, who was a Jays prospect I was interested in, but he only pitched in eight games and was sent to the minors.
Espinal has been mostly fine as the team’s go-to utility infielder, though his mere presence on the club is a bit of a sore subject for Reds fans. Cincinnati only moved to acquire him after they found out that top prospect Noelvi Marte had been handed an 80-game suspension for PEDs and that fellow top youngster Matt McLain would be essentially lost for the season with a busted shoulder. After a brutally slow start with the Reds, Espinal has actually been red hot of late – he’s gone 27 for his last 61 since July 8th with 4 homers, way outpacing Marte in that time.
Same question, but about Luke Maile who Minor League tried to get into the All Star game a few years ago.
Luke Maile was the quintessential backup catcher last year, good enough that the Reds opted to bring him back at a $3.5 million price in 2024. This year, though, has been pretty dang awful, and Maile has been banged up a bit, too. Still, he’s from the Cincinnati area and played college ball at the University of Kentucky, so he’s forever going to be in good graces around these parts (even if the club needs to find a different backup to Tyler Stephenson for 2025).
The Reds are 6 games back in the Wild Card race. Do you think they can make up the ground?
They just got mauled by the Kansas City Royals in a sweep at home this weekend, and lost Hunter Greene to the IL in the process. Hope is a very therapeutic yet dangerous thing, but I’m leaning very much into the fact that this club is cooked once again.
Can we have a quick scouting report on the starting pitchers the Jays are likely to face?
I’d love to! Wait…who are they, again?
With Greene’s injury, the trade of Frankie Montas at the deadline, and Graham Ashcraft’s place on the 60-day IL, the team’s rotation is in a bit of tatters at the moment. They’ll likely face Nick Martinez in the series finale, and Nick has been largely brilliant in his first year with the club (3.25 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 3.04 FIP). Rookie Carson Spiers will go at some point this series, too, and while he began his 2024 on a brilliant streak he’s been exposed a bit of late (20 ER over 28.0 IP across his last 6 G). Who starts the other game in this series remains to be seen, as the Reds could turn to a bullpen game or maybe, just maybe, turn to last year’s 1st round pick Rhett Lowder for his big league debut.
Who is your favourite Reds player to watch?
I can’t say anyone other than Elly De La Cruz. How could I? He throws harder than anyone, runs faster than anyone, hits the ball harder and farther than anyone, and plays the game precisely how I wished I’d been able to play it. Hopefully he busts out of his mini-slump this series for everyone’s sake, as watching him destroy baseballs and fly around the bags is truly a thing of brilliance.
I am guessing that Joey Votto will be called up for this series (it appears I was wrong, oh well, it isn’t the first time). I don’t really have a question, but would you like to talk about Votto for a bit?
Joey Votto is, quite simply, why I started writing about baseball a dozen years or so ago. His ability to outthink the pitchers who were attacking him is, was, and will always be one of the more brilliant aspects of this beautiful game I’ve ever encountered. He taught me the value of being on-base and simply refusing to be retired, and made me rethink the entire concept of a game that requires the opponent to retire you 27 times a game in order to win.
He’s one of my absolute inner-circle favorite players of all time, and that’s before you even entertain his qualities as a human being (and future announcer, we hope). Truly one of a kind, Joey is, and a future Hall of Famer.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the Reds or, for that matter Cincinnati (everything I know about the city I learnt from WKRP)?
The Cincinnati Reds are one of the 30 Major League Baseball teams! Isn’t that cool? It’s been pretty much what this iteration of ownership has leaned on for their entire 18-year run in charge of things. While fans of the team sure do wish they’d treat the club as more than that and, y’know, actually try to invest in a winner, said ownership really does simply enjoy the fact that they own an MLB franchise. There are only 30, after all, and they have one!
Thank you, Wict.