RC+ Preview: Reds vs. Padres, Sonny Gray and a mystery pitch

by Steve Mancuso — August 20, 2019 in Game/Series Preview

The Reds and Padres no longer have identical records by virtue of San Diego’s one-run win last night. The Reds will try to bring the situation back to parity tonight with Sonny Gray on the mound.

Amir Garrett is back with the Reds after serving his 8-game suspension. Also worth noting it’s storming in the area as of 4:30 p.m.

Pitching Matchup

Sonny Gray has been soooo good this year. He’s among lead leaders in a bunch of important categories, none more important than xwOBA, where he’s substantially better than league average. If you haven’t read Matt Wilkes post from this morning about pitch spin-rates, much of it is about Gray, who has elite spin-rate numbers on his curveball, fastball and slider.

One thing to watch based on last game, in which Gray shut out the Cardinals for 5 innings with 10 strikeouts, is a certain pitch that Chris Welsh called a two-seam fastball. That’s how Trackman categorized it, too. But Gray hasn’t really thrown a two-seamer. So maybe it was a new thing for him or maybe he just took a little bit off his 4-seam fastball. Gray saved this pitch for the second and third times through the lineup. He threw it 18 times, 15 of those were in the 4th and 5th innings. It came in at 91-94 mph just off the plate and moved to the corner. Three RH batters, probably thinking it was Gray’s slider about to break outside, stood there like Ernie Harwell’s house at the side of the road and took it for strike three.

Here’s Gray throwing it to Paul Goldschmidt to end the 3rd inning. (click here or on picture to play video):

Here is Gray throwing it to Paul DeJong in the 4th:

Finally, Gray rings up Yadi Molina later in the 4th on the same pitch:

We’ll have to watch for the mystery pitch tonight.

Here is Gray’s pitch arsenal:

Cal Quantrill is a rookie making his 13th start. He’s the second 24-year-old starting pitcher the Reds will face this series. Quantrill has a nice ERA so far, but his xFIP and SIERA point higher. We know pitchers end up closer to their xFIP and SIERA than their mid-season ERA. He’s been a league average pitcher, which is pretty good for a rookie.

Quantrill’s pitch arsenal. Lots of sinker.

Reds Lineup and Stats [updated]

Still no Jesse Winker. Raise your hand if you had Josh VanMeter and Freddy Galvis as the Reds #1 and #2 hitters two months ago. Superman still batting fourth. Tucker Barnhart is batting 5th and that might raise a few eyebrows but consider this. Since Barnhart returned from the disabled list on July 26, he’s batting .349/.446/.587. That’s an wRC+ of 160. His walk (12%) and strikeout (16%) are roughly equal. And to shrink the sample size even smaller, Barnhart has done almost all that damage against RHP (wRC+ of 207).

Will the Reds catcher keep that up. No way. But why not give it a try? Compare what Barnhart has done in the past month to Nick Senzel, who over the same time is batting .238/.265/.375 for a wRC+ of 61. Those numbers help explain David Bell’s lineup tonight.

Ignore the Statcast graphic column on Pos. Iglesias is at SS, Galvis is at 2B, Barnhart is catching and Brian O’Grady is playing LF. Senzel is back in the lineup after sitting out with a bruised elbow from an HBP.