Cincinnati Reds: Three takeaways from doubleheader vs KC Royals

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.