Congratulations, Cincy – Now Who Pitches?

After another victory (and a Cardinals’ loss) last night, the Reds’ playoff odds are up to 97 percent. They hold a seven game lead in the NL Central with 18 games to play, and can comfortably begin to look forward to the playoffs. Barring an epic collapse, they’re going to be playing baseball in October as division champions. Now, all they have to do is figure out what their playoff rotation might look like.

It’s a little weird for a team with such a strong certainty of making the post-season to have no real idea of who might take the hill for them in a few weeks, but this is the situation that the Reds find themselves in. More than anything else, they need to spend the rest of the regular season figuring out who to hand the ball to.

The top two spots are easy: Johnny Cueto and Bronson Arroyo will start the first two games of any Reds playoff series, in some order. Who will go after that is anyone’s guess, however.

Right now, the guys pitching after those two in the rotation are Travis Wood and Homer Bailey. Both are enjoying some success, but are early in their careers and certainly won’t have the “proven veteran” label that managers love to have when the season is on the line. Wood’s ERA is a lot better, but in actuality, he and Bailey have pitched in nearly identical ways: their walk rates, strikeout rates, and home run rates are all very similar.

You would think that, if forced to choose between the two, Wood would have the edge based on his much lower ERA, but since returning to the club in mid-August, Bailey has been one of the team’s best pitchers. Meanwhile, Wood has faded a bit after a brilliant beginning to his big league career, and has only gone more than five innings in one of his last four starts. Managers are big on trends, and Bailey is certainly on an upward track at the moment, while Wood appears to be regressing. That could tilt things in favor of the right-hander if Dusty Baker feels like he has to choose between them.

Given that those two have the lowest FIPs of the Reds’ group of starters, you could argue that Wood/Bailey shouldn’t be an either/or situation, but that both have earned rotation spots. However, the Reds almost certainly need to leave a rotation spot open for Edinson Volquez. Even though his season has been up and down as he attempts to return to full strength after arm surgery, he dominated the Pirates (7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 10 K) in his first start since being recalled from the minors, and when he’s on, he’s the best arm on the staff. Unfortunately, he’s been off more than he’s be on this year, and his recent performance comes with the caveat that it was against Pittsburgh.

That’s five names for four spots, and that doesn’t even touch on Aaron Harang (who could start, but almost certainly won’t). Of the five, only Wood is a left-hander, which may play in his favor depending on the match-ups. Clearly, though, much is still to be settled, and how the team’s starters fare down the stretch could go a long way to influencing who gets the ball in October.