Home run bats, Mahle and Antone power Reds to 7-1 win in series opener

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Look at that. The Cincinnati Reds have won 6 in a row and are 26-26. It’s the first time they’ve been at least .500 since August 3 when they were 5-5. 

The Reds 7-1 win over the first-place Chicago White Sox couldn’t have gone much better. The bats produced 6 runs early and 25-year-old Tyler Mahle and 26-year-old rookie Tejay Antone shut down the South Siders powerful offense. Lo and behold, the Reds have scored 7 or more runs 3 times in the last 6 games. They hadn’t done it once in the previous 26 games. 

Sure, Chicago was a day removed from celebrating clinching their first postseason berth in a while. It won’t be a surprise to see a different White Sox team tomorrow. But if they plan to even up the series and prevent the surging Reds from getting over .500, the White Sox will have to deal with a motivated Trevor Bauer and a newly charged up offense. 

The Pitching

Tyler Mahle gave the Reds 5.2 strong innings tonight, leaving with the score 6-1. Mahle shut out the powerful White Sox lineup through the first five innings, with 8 strikeouts and allowing just two walks. His command abandoned him a bit in the 6th inning, giving up a leadoff double, walk and a hit batter to load the bases. He then recorded two ground ball outs. In total, Mahle threw 100 pitches. He recorded swings-and-misses or called strikes on 24 of the 58 fastballs.

On the day the Reds signed Wade Miley and everyone else was writing that the Reds had “filled their vacancy” in the rotation, I wondered if something had happened to Tyler Mahle. I wrote here “Anointing Miley the fifth starter seems odd considering a case can be made that Tyler Mahle pitched better than Miley last season. Miley as the #5 starter could easily weaken the Reds rotation instead of improving it.” It was right there in the stats if you looked beyond ERA: 

K%: Miley 19.4%, Mahle 23.2%
BB%: Miley 8.5%, Mahle 6.1%
GB%: Miley 49.7%, Mahle 47%
Age: MIley 33, Mahle 25

If Miley replaces Mahle, the Reds rotation gets worse.

— Steve Mancuso (@spmancuso) December 17, 2019

Tyler Mahle’s development and performance in 2020 has backed this up, punctuated by his huge performance tonight. 

With two outs and runners on second and third, manager David Bell went to Tejay Antone from the bullpen. After walking the first batter he faced, Antone struck out White Sox slugger Luis Robert on three sliders off the plate to snuff out the threat. Here is the pitch breakdown for the Antone-Robert at bat. 

Our David Kelley wrote this about Antone’s slider a couple weeks ago: “Antone’s most impressive pitch is his Slider that runs away from right-handed batters and jams lefties with a whiff rate of 56.5% and a 0.072 xBA.”

Antone pitched two shutout innings in the 7th and 8th. Sal Romano pitched a clean 9th inning but gave up three hard-hit balls. 

The Bats

Nick Castellanos put the Reds in the lead early when he turned around a Jonathan Stiever slider and knocked a 404-foot home run into the second deck of left field. It was the Reds right fielder’s 13th homer this year,  a solo shot, making the score 1-0.

The sweet, sweet sound of a no-doubter. pic.twitter.com/JsAH5nQefN

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) September 18, 2020

Tucker Barnhart followed with a shot of his own down the right field line, making the score 2-0. It was Barnhart’s third home run in 27 plate appearances in September.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Tuck 💣. pic.twitter.com/KcgdkLgcjW

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) September 19, 2020

Joey Votto joined in the homer parade later in the 3rd inning, banging a long far one to center field, making the score 3-0. It was the longest of the three at 413 feet and Votto’s fourth homer in the last eight games. 

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Still bangs

|＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿|
(•◡•) /
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— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) September 19, 2020

Finally, later in the 3rd after Eugenio Suarez and Mike Moustakas had walked, Jesse Winker crushed a ball 447 feet into deeeeeep right center. It ended a streak of 32 consecutive plate appearances for Winker without a hit. It also ended Jonathan Stiever’s night with the score 6-0.

It's raining dingers in Cincinnati tonight, folks. pic.twitter.com/6wvX2H4wg8

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) September 19, 2020

The Reds added on a run in the bottom of the seventh when a walk by Shogo Akiyama and long double by Votto made the score 7-1. It was Joey Votto’s first 3-hit night of 2020. 

The Reds return back to GABP for another game with the White Sox. It’s a Fox national broadcast game. Game time is 7:07 pm ET. Trevor Bauer will pitch against Dallas Keuchel. 

Keuchel spent most of his career pitching for the Houston Astros, where he won the AL Cy Young Award in 2015. He pitched last year for Atlanta and made nine starts so far in 2020 for the White Sox. He’s on a 3-year, $55.5 million contract through 2022. The Reds faced the 32-year-old LHP twice before, once in 2016 and once last year. He’s coming off the 10-day IL where he was sidelined due to back spasms. 

Keuchel has always had a low strikeout rate by modern standards. His career K% is 18.9%. This year it’s fallen to below 15%. League average is 23.2%. But Keuchel has been effective through minimizing hard contact and inducing ground balls. He throws an equal mix of Cutter, Changeup and Sinker (87.3 mph). No real fastball or breaking ball to speak of. Think of him as a rich man’s Wade Miley.

Featured image: https://twitter.com/Reds/status/1299520262640197635/photo/1