New stat rewards Reds' rotation domination but exposes bullpen weakness

It should surprise no one that the Reds’ starters had a .517 win percentage entering play on July 4. After all, the club has been flirting with .500 for much of the 2025 season, and the rotation features a slew of solid, but not overly impressive, options. Wins, though, have been declared dead for years. Instead, ESPN analyst Brandon Doolittle proposes a new stat: game score wins. And this metric shines a light on the true value of the Reds’ staff.

Doolittle’s metric uses Bill James’ game score, which uses factors such as innings completed, strikeouts, walks, and more to assign a value to a starting pitcher’s performance. Doolittle then assigns a win to the starter of each game with a higher game score. By this measure, the Reds have the second-best winning percentage in the Majors and have outdueled opposing starters 61.2% of the time.

The Reds’ rotation has consistently outperformed opposing starters, so why is the team still struggling?

Andrew Abbott, predictably, leads the way in terms of game score. He has two of the top 20 games this season, but each member of the Reds staff has at least one game with a game score better than 80. (The average game score is 50.) More than a quarter of the starters’ above-average game scores have resulted in a loss.

In other words, the Reds’ rotation regularly puts the club in position to win before handing off to the bullpen. The staff does its job in a head-to-head sense. From there, things go downhill. Scott Barlow, for example, has received the ball with the Reds in the lead in 19 games. In those situations, he has a 6.00 ERA. Lyon Richardson, who has hit the skids lately, has a 6.48 ERA with the Reds in the lead.

A solid game score, of course, does not always result in the team grabbing the lead. However, in late and close scenarios, the bullpen is falling flat as well. Richardson and Graham Ashcraft have an ERA north of 5.00 in such situations. The offense isn’t much help either, producing a .583 OPS in late and close scenarios, which is third-worst in the Majors.

How far the Reds go this season will largely depend on the support the stellar starting pitching gets. Clutch hitting and a stout bullpen could be the difference between a Wild Card run and disappointment.