Postseason Ends Quickly for the Punchless Reds

Cincinnati is named for Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a patrician of the early Roman Republic, and a historical figure to whom a few legendary tales have been attributed. The story goes that Cincinnatus was called into duty, exercised absolute authority as dictator, then gave up his power and went home quietly. If postseason baseball can serve as an homage, the baseball team representing his namesake city got the “quietly” part of it right at least.

The Braves completed their two-game sweep of the Reds in convincing fashion on Thursday afternoon, winning 5-0 and advancing to the National League Division Series to face the winner of the Marlins and Cubs. Luis Castillo wasn’t quite as sharp as Trevor Bauer was in his Game 1 masterpiece, but he threw effectively for 5 1/3 innings, striking out seven and allowing just a single run.

In the end, the only real difference between Castillo’s solid start (game score of 57) and Bauer’s historic one was that Castillo (and the bullpen) allowing runs ended agony after just nine innings. The Braves went up against Castillo swinging and swinging hard, an approach that proved effective, though they only managed to string enough hits together to score a single run, a double to center that scored Austin Riley from second. The .400 BABIP against Castillo (six of 15) could be described as only slightly unlucky; given the expected batting average of the balls put into play against him, we’d expect the Braves to have ended up with 5.3 hits on-average.

On the flip side, the Reds proved to be a bit unlucky against the Braves pitchers, putting 17 balls in play and only notching two hits. Based on the xBA of Cincinnati’s 17 balls in play, we would have expected two or three more of them to land as hits than actually did, with an average of 4.5 hits.

This was nothing new for the Reds, either, and it’s fitting that the team’s biggest weakness in 2020’s regular season proved to be their downfall. Going back 1910 for the NL and 1913 for the AL, the years strikeouts officially became a tracked stat, the 2020 Reds had the second-lowest BABIP of any team (.245), trailing only the 1968 Yankees (.241). And they really do have a case for rotten luck, too. I track BABIP vs. zBABIP for teams as well as individual players and from 2002-2019, the years for which we have advanced data available, the average zBABIP “miss” compared to BABIP was seven points. For the 2020 Reds, that miss was 57 points. Now you’d expect to see more volatility in 60 games than 162, but even if you simply track the total hit shortfall, a quantitative measure, the Reds almost did in 60 games what it took everyone else more than twice the games to “accomplish.”

The difference of three or four hits in fortune between the Braves and Reds could have proved meaningful in a scoreless or 1-0 game. But the delicate ripples of luck didn’t affect the final outcome as Raisel Iglesias’s two walks and two home runs allowed — a 107 mph Marcell Ozuna sizzler followed by an even hotter Adam Duvall line drive shot a few batters later — gave the Braves four insurance runs and Mark Melancon a ninth inning that was more of a casual tuneup than a high-pressure showdown.

Ian Anderson‘s great rookie story continued into his first postseason start. While San Diego’s addition of Mike Clevinger was the splashiest move at the deadline, Anderson was as valuable a de facto acquisition as any player in baseball and for the Braves, it was a life preserver. Mike Soroka’s ruptured tendon and the general lousiness of much of the rest of the rotation left Atlanta’s starting depth paper-thin, which isn’t what you want in a postseason with no mid-series off days. Outside of Max Fried and Anderson, Atlanta’s starting pitchers combined to go 4-14 with a 7.33 ERA over 163 1/3 innings, for -0.6 WAR. To finish 35-25 with that pitching depth was nothing short of a miracle.

Anderson struck out nine batters over six innings of work, getting the win, with the only flaws being a couple of walks and a pair of singles to Eugenio Suárez and Freddy Galvis. His Game Score of 75 is the 17th-best postseason debut for a pitcher 23 or younger, just behind Soroka’s 76 is NLDS Game 3 last year. (Sadly, former Brave Bill James only ranks third in this list of Bill James Game Scores.)

Whether the Braves end up facing the Cubs or the Marlins, the rotation will provide a greater challenge, with Atlanta in a worse position to find starting pitching for five consecutive games on five consecutive days than most of the other teams in the playoffs. But to unpack that, you’ll have to wait for our NLDS previews. For now, the Braves advance, while the Reds’ offseason begins.