Cincinnati Reds’ West Coast Woes – the End of a Promising Season

(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

The Cincinnati Reds’ run of competitiveness in the 2017 season came to a crashing halt when they played the National League West.

The Cincinnati Reds are 10-19 against the National League West in 2017. That includes going 0-9 so far against the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. The Padres are 11 games below .500 this season.

Imagine a scenario in which the team you cheer for sweeps your arch nemesis, not only do they sweep them, but they take four games from them. Now, imagine that same team losing nine out of the next nine. Weird, right?

It’s just completely odd. Now, was it easy for you to do? You must be a Reds fan.

Of course you are, you’re reading this blog. You get the point!  No one would have predicted what happened to the Reds’ season beginning on June 9th.  The end of the month wasn’t too awful, but the middle was horrendous.

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After the sweep of the Saint Louis Cardinals on June 8th, the Reds were 2 games back of first place in the National League Central.  They were also only one game below .500.  Granted it did take sweeping the Cardinals to come from five under to just one under.

The Reds had never been more than five games back and that was just for one game in mid-May.  For the most part they had been within 3 games, including 10 days early in the season where they were alone in first place.  Then the unthinkable happened.

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The Cincinnati Reds lost a combined nine games in a row to the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

After sweeping the Cardinals in Saint Louis, the Reds flew to Los Angeles.  They lost all three games by a total of 21-13.  The second game was the most heart wrenching as it was lost by the Reds’ closer, Raisel Iglesias.

Hoping for lesser competition, the Reds traveled to San Diego and they were swept there as well.

In that series the Reds lost the three games by a combined score of 19-7.  The pitching was slightly better, but the offense was worse.

Then the Reds returned to Cincinnati to once again face the Dodgers.  They were swept by the Dodgers for the second weekend in a row by a combined score of 21-10.  That is eerily close to the previous weekend’s combined score.

Next: Looking back at the Mike Leake deal

After those nine games, the Reds were 10 games below .500 and 7 1/2 games out of first place.  They also fell to last place in the Central for the first time since a single day at the end of April. The Reds are a defeated team and now live in the NL Central cellar.