Red for the Hills

 

First place Cincinnati Reds. First place Cincinnati Reds with the same record as the Houston Astros. First place Cincinnati Reds with three of the most exciting rookies of 2023. I...I love baseball, man. I really do.  

This Reds team is so much fun, man. Like, one of the most fun teams in baseball. I thought they were fun when they were in fourth, I think they're even more fun now. Elly de la Cruz and Andrew Abbott have made this team even better since coming up. de la Cruz is hitting .359 with 23 hits and 10 RBIs. The dude just hit for the cycle this week, and that just feels like...chapter one stuff. You know? This guy might be a very big figure in Reds baseball, and this is just the beginning. Getting a similarly young infield of him, Jonathan India, Spencer Steer and Matt McLain is the cherry on top, with Nick Senzel in support on days where he's not in the outfield. McLain is hitting .309 with 47 hits in 36 games. Steer leads the team in homers with 11 and is 2nd in RBIs with 42. The youth of this team is making the difference.

The central piece right now, statistically speaking, seems to be T.J. Friedl. The Reds fans complained when Friedl didn't immediately get to work once plugged into this team, but he's come into his own this year, hitting .314 with 27 RBIs and 11 steals. He's missed some time with an injury, but he's in really good shape right now, and is showing how multifaceted of a player he is both on offense and defense. He may not be THE marquee guy for this Reds team going forward, but he's a sharp guy to build off of, and as the team's current WAR leader, he's pretty handy. Yes, having India, Jake Fraley, Nick Senzel and, of course, Joey Votto, also helps, but you can see the type of people that are gonna be populating this team for a while.

And then there's Andrew Abbott, who has solved some of the Reds' rotation issues by going 3-0 in his first 4 starts, with a 1.14 ERA though that time. Obviously the Reds have struggled with injuries this year, and this current incarnation of the rotation, featuring Luke Weaver, Brandon Williamson, Graham Ashcraft and Levi Stoudt, is not what the fans were expecting after starting the year with Greene and Lodolo healthy. But Abbott, and Williamson to an extent, have been promising new options for this team, and have been consistent in this time of inconsistency. I think they'd appreciate it if they got Greene and Lodolo back, maybe that'd make things a little less dire when defending their division lead against the best team in the NL, but even until then they've got a hell of a lineup.

The Brewers fast approach, I know, but...man, wouldn't it be awesome if the Reds stayed competitive this year? Wouldn't that be a cool, unexpected outcome?

Coming Tomorrow- A guy whose team got shaken up a bit by those fellas from the Bronx.