The Reds have ridden their pitching to a 4-game win streak but how they’ve done it will surprise you.
Is there reason to worry?
Nick Lodolo resurrected his wipeout slider from the injured list on Monday, using it to devastate the St. Louis Cardinals lineup for 5.1 IP in his first start in 16 days. It was the latest in a string of excellent outings from the Cincinnati Reds pitching staff, backing up Hunter Greene’s rock solid 6.0 IP on Saturday and the bullpen – and big offseason acquisition Nick Martinez – frollicked as the Reds swept the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday.
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As of Tuesday morning, the entirety of the Cincinnati pitching staff has been valued at 6.8 fWAR, meaning only three teams in all of baseball (Philadelphia, Boston, and Kansas City) have a more valuable overall staff, to date. It’s a combination effort, too – Cincinnati’s starting pitching unit ranks tied for 9th with 4.6 fWAR, their relief unit 4th best with 2.2 fWAR.
The Reds sunk money into their revamped bullpen in a big, big way, with Martinez, Brent Suter, Buck Farmer, and Emilio Pagan. While there have obviously been bumps along the way with some of those players in particular, the overall unit has begun to play its part brilliantly. On the starter front, the Reds brought in Frankie Montas to boost an emerging young core, and that emerging young core is emerging, man.
Still, there’s one thing that has begun to befuddle me about how these Reds pitchers are getting their work done.
Once again, the tiny Great American Ball Park ranks as the single most homer-friendly in the game, per Baseball Savant’s park factors. That’s a title it has held in every single season since 2020, and I’m almost certain if I had the time to go back and check beyond 2020 I’d find that it led almost every single year in its existence. It’s a tiny park, fly balls fly well there, and more often than anywhere else you’d expect fly balls to turn into front-row homers.
Here’s where I squint and scratch my head. Cincinnati’s bullpen owns a league-worst 35.0% fly ball rate, a full 2.8% lower than Toronto in 29th. At 39.0%, the team’s starting unit ranks slightly better at 24th overall, but the combined pitching staff total of 37.5% ranks as the second lowest ahead of only Toronto (barely, as they sit at 37.2%).
Yet somehow, Cincinnati’s pitching staff owns a meager 9.5% HR/FB rate, and only 3 teams in all of baseball have a lower mark – including the Royals, whose home park has consistently rated as one of the hardest-to-homer parks since its inception in 1973.
