{"id":72446,"date":"2024-05-06T22:31:58","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T02:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=72446"},"modified":"2024-05-06T22:31:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T02:31:58","slug":"reds-offense-rock-bottom-orioles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/06\/reds-offense-rock-bottom-orioles\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds Offense Hits Rock Bottom Against Orioles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cincinnati Reds had a weekend series to forget against the visiting Baltimore Orioles. After a six-game road trip to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/02\/cincinnati-reds-record\/\" target=\"_self\">end the month of April<\/a>, the Reds came back home for a quick six-game homestand. The first part of this homestand has been one to forget, as the Reds offense is hitting rock bottom.<\/p>\n<p>A three-game series sweep is bad enough, but the offensive production during those three games was even worse. In the ninth inning of Sunday\u2019s game, the Reds avoided being shut out by scoring their only run of the day. That lone run also avoided the team tying a franchise record dating back to 1932.<\/p>\n<p>Just once in franchise history, in 1932, has a Reds team scored one or fewer runs in a three-game series at home. With a shutout on Friday and one run scored on Saturday, the Reds came two outs away from tying that record Sunday afternoon. The offense as a whole struggled all weekend with a team slash line of .122\/.168\/.144.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Reds making History&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/pain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#pain<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iwmE1LoAu5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/iwmE1LoAu5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WINCINNATI (@WINCINNATI_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WINCINNATI_\/status\/1787251498151301352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Reds Offense Hitting Rock Bottom<\/h2>\n<p>Heading into the season, the Reds offense was seen as a strength. But 34 games into the season, it is the complete opposite. Now, that is all without saying that three of their primary hitters have yet to play a game this year. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/friedtj01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TJ Friedl<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mclaima01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt McLain<\/a> have both been on the injured list. Plus, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/marteno01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Noelvi Marte<\/a> is serving an 80-game suspension from Major League Baseball. So just how bad is the Reds offense right now?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">At .209, the Reds now have the worst batting average in MLB. And it&#8217;s dropping fast. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fdFXtowmEz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/fdFXtowmEz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Petraglia (@Trags) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Trags\/status\/1787251833250971842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As a team, the Reds have put together a batting average of .210. That ranks dead last in all of baseball. Five players with a minimum of 70 plate appearances have an average of over .200. The Reds are also ranked in the bottom three for strikeout percentage throughout MLB.<\/p>\n<p>So can it get better for the Reds? Of course, it will. The Reds are in a serious rut currently on offense. But that\u2019s not to say they will continue to hit around the .200 line all year. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/delacel01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elly De La Cruz<\/a> has cooled down after his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/30\/elly-de-la-cruz-record\/\" target=\"_self\">impressive month of April.<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/steersp01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spencer Steer<\/a> has slashed just .137\/.224\/.235 over the last two weeks. Don\u2019t expect those two to continue their downward slide.<\/p>\n<p>The Reds are in desperate need of their offense to turn the corner. Their pitching has held its own so far this year, but you can\u2019t expect them to hold their ground with no support all season long. It\u2019s only going to get tougher for the Reds.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cincinnati Reds had a weekend series to forget against the visiting Baltimore Orioles. After a six-game road trip to end the month of April, the Reds came back home for a quick six-game homestand. The first part of this homestand has been one to forget, as the Reds offense is hitting rock bottom. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4479,"featured_media":72543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1071],"tags":[258,5899,4783,5847,5868,6395],"class_list":["post-72446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reds","category-mlb","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-elly-de-la-cruz","tag-matt-mclain","tag-noelvi-marte","tag-spencer-steer","tag-tj-friedl"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}