Cincinnati Reds: Three takeaways from series win vs Chicago White Sox

1. Robert Stephenson does not need to pitch in clutch situations.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. While Trevor Bauer was far from perfect on Saturday, the evening was nightmarish for Robert Stephenson. The Reds reliever came on in the 8th inning with his team trailing just 2-0. When Stephenson left the mound, the White Sox were up 5-0 and any life that the Reds had left was sucked out of Great American Ball Park.

Stephenson surrendered back-to-back-to-back home runs off the bats of Tim Anderson, Yasmani Grandal and Jose Abreu. Now, let’s not act like those are three horrendous hitters. Anderson is an emerging star, Grandal is one of the best hitting catchers in the game and Abreu may well take home the AL MVP.

However, if the Reds are going to keep Stephenson on the roster, and I’m of the mindset that they should, he cannot be put in those types of high-leverage situations. To be sure, it’s not as though Bob Steve was run out there with a one-run lead in the ninth, but I’d argue that Stephenson has no business in any game down the stretch in which Cincinnati has a chance to win.

In my opinion, while I’m a big fan of Stephenson, he needs to be given the role of long-man should Cincinnati fall behind early and need to replace the starter. You might say, “Then why even keep him on thee roster”, and that’s a fair question. But, we saw what Stephenson was capable of last season, and I’m not ready to give up on him yet.