Cincinnati Reds: Three takeaways from doubleheader vs KC Royals

The Reds won one and lost one on Wednesday night versus the Royals.

The postponement of Tuesday’s game resulted in a seven-inning doubleheader on Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium. The Cincinnati Reds dropped the first game versus the Kansas City Royals by a score of 4-0. However, the Redlegs rebounded to take the nightcap from KC behind a masterful performance from Trevor Bauer. What did we learn?

It was a night of give and take for the Reds. Poor defense, a bloop single and a questionable strike zone put the Royals up early in Game 1 of the doubleheader and Brad Keller did what Brad Keller does – he stymied the Cincinnati offense. Keller went the distance and didn’t allow a hit until Tucker Barnhart found the outfield grass in the top of the sixth inning.

In Game 2, the story was Trevor Bauer. The Reds right-hander followed the lead of Keller from Game 1 and quieted the Royals bats. It wasn’t until a line drive to right field by Adalbereto Mondesi in the bottom thee fifth inning that Kansas City got its first and only hit of the night. The Reds blanked the Royals 5-0.

The Reds were playing their first game since Friday, after a player tested positive for COVID-19. Major League Baseball exercised an abundance of caution and kept Cincinnati off the field until last night in the Show Me State. Speaking of which, what did the Reds show us or not show us during last night’s doubleheader?

2. Luis Castillo is NOT the pitcher we thought he was.

A lot of fans, myself included, believed that following last year’s All-Star performance, the Cincinnati Reds had found their ace. Now, that statement is still very much accurate, but the title of ace belongs to Sonny Gray not Luis Castillo. Yes, Trevor Bauer is the most dominant pitcher in baseball right now, but it’s highly unlikely the Reds will retain him after this season.

Castillo came out flat in yesterday’s contest against the Royals. A relatively routine throw from shortstop Freddy Galvis to Joey Votto was mishandled by the Reds first baseman, allowing the Royals leadoff runners to reach base safely. Whether it was a good throw or not is debatable, but Votto still should have picked it cleanly.

After that, a series a misfortune continued for Castillo and he never seemed to recover from it. It took nine pitches for La Piedra to induce the light-hitting Nicky Lopez into a ground ball out, he then walked Hunter Dozier on six pitches. If you’re keeping track, we’re up to 19 pitches with only one out.

Jorge Soler battled Luis Castillo and rocketed a double into left field, scoring the runner from second and advancing Dozier to third base. On his 28th pitch of the inning, Castillo surrendered an RBI single to Ryan O’Hearn and the Reds fell behind 3-0 early. Castillo recorded the final out of the inning on his 37th pitch, a strikeout of Alex Gordon.

Lance McAllister of 700 WLW had a frightening observation during last night’s game. Luis Castillo, in 17 starts since July 26, 2019 has an ERA of 4.91. That’s not the makings of an ace. Blog Red Machine’s contributor Scott Boyken made his own observations regarding Luis Castillo’s struggles of late. This current trend is not promising.

3. The layoff did not hurt Jesse Winker one bit.

I was very interested to see how Jesse Winker would respond heading into last night’s doubleheader. Would we see the version of Winker that had been wreaking havoc on opposing pitchers over the past two weeks or the version of Winker who started the season 2-for-23 (.087)? Thankfully for Reds Country, it was the former.

While Jesse Winker didn’t hit the cover off the ball in Game 1, he was the only consistent presence in the Cincinnati lineup. Winker battled Royals starter Brad Keller on three different occasions and each time walked away with a base on balls. After Game 1, Winker’s average (.365) didn’t change, but his on-base percentage jumped from .484 to .507.

In Game 2, Jesse Winker went just 1-for-4, but that one hit was a two-run big fly in the top of the third inning that put the Reds on top of the Royals for the first time since Joey Votto’s walk-off double on August 11th at Great American Ball Park.

Winker is in the zone, and I don’t know when he’ll come out of it. The left-handed slugger is hitting .357/.493/.732 with six home runs and 10 RBIs through his first 22 games. Since breaking a six-game hitless streak on August 4th, Winker is 18-for-33 (.545) with an on-base percentage of .643 and an OPS of 1.825. Currently, Jesse Winker leads all of MLB with a 1.225 OPS.

The Cincinnati Reds sit in fourth place in the NL Central with a four-game set against division-rival St. Louis looming. The Cardinals are playing catchup after their season was paused due several players testing positive for COVID-19. St. Louis is sitting 4.5 games back of the division-leading Chicago Cubs, while Cincinnati trails the North Siders by five games. The upcoming series is huge.