Cincinnati Reds’ Brandon Finnegan proves that he is the ace of the staff

Two starts into the 2017 season, Brandon Finnegan has shown himself to be the ace of the Cincinnati Reds.

That’s right, even with a bad start in his second game of the year Finnegan has proven himself to be the ace of the Cincinnati Reds.  There is more to being the ace of a staff than being great every time out.  There is a bulldog mentality that Finnegan has in spades.  He has been that way since he debuted with the Kansas City Royals.

In his second game out Finnegan only made it through two innings.  It was how he left the game for the bullpen, though, that made all of the difference.  He threw 69 pitches of which 34 were balls, but the Reds were still in the game.

Over two plus innings of work, gave up five walks and four hits.  He struck out four of the six outs that he recorded.  However, he needed to be saved from his wildness in the second inning.

He allowed five batters to reach base in the first two innings before getting in real trouble in the third.  He allowed two singles and two walks, surrendering his first run of the season.  Then Michael Lorenzen came in to save the Reds from a large deficit.

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What’s important here, though, is that Finnegan stayed in relative control of the game when he had virtually no control.  He didn’t give up a home run and he didn’t give in to batters.  Of course, no one wants to see their ace pitcher walk five batters in a single game.

The Cincinnati Reds hope more games are like Brandon Finnegan’s first start of the season in 2017.

Finnegan was the only starting pitcher to take the ball every time his turn in the rotation came up in 2016.  The Reds need that sort of consistency from him again in 2017.

More importantly, they need him to produce like he did in his first start of the season.

In Finnegan’s first start of the season he pitched seven innings of one hit, one walk baseball.  58 of his 88 pitches were strikes.  That means in seven innings in his first start he pitched fewer balls than in two plus innings in his second time out.

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Even with that awful second game, he still kept his WHIP at a respectable 1.22 and his batting average against at .156.  Those are numbers that will keep him in the running for a win most times out, if he can maintain them.  The Reds just want to see a little more control and consistency from their would-be ace.