Steering into the Second Half

 

There are still important questions lingering as we head into the second half of the 2023 season. Will Ohtani or Arenado get traded? Is Corbin Carroll's shoulder alright actually? Did Eloy Jimenez just ruin any chance the Sox had of not losing 100 games? And, more importantly...guys, are the Reds actually a first-place team this year?

It's still something that perplexes me and boggles my mind. For the first few months this team was good enough to stay out of last but not good enough to top the Pirates or Brewers. And now the Brewers are middling, the Pirates fell apart and the Reds are in first. And as much as I wanna say it's solely because the other two dropped...the Reds have just been hitting insanely well since Elly de la Cruz got up. 

The single best thing the promotion of de la Cruz did for this team was bring forth the potential of this team to continue to have an infield consisting of Spencer Steer, Jonathan India, De La Cruz and Matt McLain. Four young, controllable, developing guys that are all doing insanely well right now. It's funny, when everybody left but India in his second or so year, I was worried that India would wind up as a backup somewhere else over time, but it literally just meant waiting til enough young farm products made it up as well. It's like what the Cubs did with Anthony Rizzo. Just waiting for a proper infield for him to fit into.

Steer, a year after being traded for Tyler Mahle, has been an excellent fit for this team, with 51 RBIs, and club-leading totals for hits, with 90, and home runs, with 14. Granted, it is a little disappointing to see a team with Jake Fraley and Joey Votto have a home run leader with only 14, but those two have been hurt and these guys are young. McLain is the real revelation right now, batting .300 with 64 hits in 50 games. McLain, T.J. Friedl and de la Cruz are all hitting over .300, and Will Benson, who was a steal from Cleveland, is close to them with .291.

And, yeah, Elly de la Cruz is hitting .325 with 16 steals in 30 games. Fraley also has 16 steals, but it took him 74 games to get to that mark. Something tells me Elly de la Cruz is just gonna...do things like this. Like, oh, stealing a ton of bases, stealing home, hitting like hell. We're just gonna have to get used to this.

With this lineup impressing me as much as it has, I really hope the pitching can even out. It's worth not only waiting for people to come back, but potentially investing in a rental for the 2023 stretch run, if that is indeed a thing that can happen this year. Hunter Greene will likely be back for August, but if they can get a true innings eater that won't run up their ERA like Ashcraft and Weaver have, that'll make a difference. But that's also a matter of if the Reds are still in a position to compete in two weeks, which is hard to say, considering how close the Brewers are to them in the division.

I really want the Reds to make a run this year, only because it'd be an incredible feat from a young team that's struggled for too long. And because nobody could have predicted it'd happen.

Coming Tomorrow- A guy I guessed was gonna be traded last year around this time, but thanks to injuries he stuck around.