Cincinnati Reds start July playing .500 ball, affirming their mediocrity

The Cincinnati Reds have shown themselves to be a .500 or worse team all season long.

The Cincinnati Reds started the season 8-4, but have been playing up and done since then.  They haven’t played a complete month at .500 yet this season.  In fact they have been at least 2 games under .500 for each month.

After the hot start to the season, the Reds went 3-9 to close out April.  The low point of the month was the Milwaukee Brewers sweeping the Reds in Milwaukee.  The Reds’ pitching gave up 29 runs during the three game series.

In May the Reds started 6-1 including a sweep of the San Francisco Giants at Great American Ballpark.  Then the Reds promptly lost seven in a row after splitting a series with the New York Yankees.  Losing those seven to the Giants, Chicago Cubs, and Colorado Rockies essentially finished off the Reds’ run of early season respectability.

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The Reds began June going 5-2 to climb back to within one game of .500 before falling apart again.  After that strong start, the Reds lost nine in row, six to the Los Angeles Dodgers and three to the San Diego Padres.  That losing streak left them 29-39.

That is where the Reds found themselves to start July.  Their pitching staff was struggling and their record was showing it.  They also only scored more than five runs once in the last ten days of the month.

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After ending June out of the race, the Cincinnati Reds have started July in similarly mediocre shape.

Once July began the Reds were .500 for the month every other day.  They never won or lost more than two in a row.  That is until the Washington Nationals came to town after the All-Star Game.

The Reds split two with the Cubs, four in Colorado against the Rockies, and the first two against the Diamondbacks in Arizona.  That was a positive end to the first half.  All three of those teams are in the playoff race.

The Reds won the last game before the All-Star Game in Arizona.  Then things came back to earth.  The break probably did harm to the Reds’ momentum.

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When they came back they quickly lost three in a row to the National League East leading Nationals.  All three losses came about because of bad starts by the Reds’ pitchers.  The only good spot is that neither of the starts were by Opening Day starter Scott Feldman or the newest Reds’ rotation member, Sal Romano, who had a rough MLB debut.