Reds broadcaster Jeff Brantley just exposed Pete Crow-Armstrong's biggest flaw

When "The Cowboy" speaks, Reds Country listens. Perhaps Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong should start tuning in to Cincinnati Reds' broadcast, because his biggest flaw was just exposed by Jeff Brantley live on air.

Brantley took a break from his radio gig on Friday and saddled up next to Reds' television play-by-play announcer John Sadak for Cincinnati's series opener against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. During Crow-Armstrong's first plate appearances of the game, Brantley gave the Reds — and any team for that matter — the blueprint to keep the Cubs' star from wreaking havoc.

Reds broadcaster Jeff Brantley just exposed Pete Crow-Armstrong's biggest flaw

During Crow-Amstrong's second-inning at-bat against Reds' starter Andrew Abbott, the Cubs' outfielder agressively went after the Cincinnati starter. Abbott peppered Crow-Armstrong inside with back-to-back breaking balls, both of which induced a swing and a foul. The next pitch was down in the dirt, but Crow-Armstrong still swung and missed for strike three.

During the at-bat, Brantley and Sadak were talking about the similarities between Crow-Armstrong and former big leaguer Vladimir Guerrero Sr. Brantley remarked about how Crow-Armstrong will swing — and sometimes connect — on shoe-top level pitches. Brantley then offered some advice to the Reds pitching staff.

"You throw it where he can't reach it. And that's exactly where this pitch is," Brantley said. "After all those inside pitches, you can see those hips open early, that ball bounced a good foot in front of home plate. When you have an aggressive hitter, especially a young aggressive hitter that's going good, he does not want to walk.He doesn't want anything to do with a walk. He wants to hit it out and have everybody stand up. So use that to your advantage."

Brantley isn't necessarily giving away trade secrets. One look at Crow-Armstrong's Baseball Savant page reveals that he's among the worst in MLB in chase rate (44.0%). Only Chicago White Sox infielder Lenyn Sosa is worse (47.9% chase rate).

In other words, don't throw Crow-Armstrong strikes. Now obviously you can't just feed the Cubs' outfielder a steady diet of fastballs off the plate, but every time Crow-Armstrong steps into the batters' box, he should get a heavy dose of breaking balls. If Cincinnati wants to neutralize Crow-Armstrong in this series, they'd do well to listen to "The Cowboy".

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