Cincinnati Reds vs San Diego Padres – May 22nd, 2024

San Diego Padres at Cincinnati Reds – May 22, 2024 – First thing’s first, if you haven’t yet, go check out our series preview here. A big win last night over the San Diego Padres to start the series off. It’s exactly how you would want your favorite baseball team to open every series, with a W. A cheeky little 3 hit, 2 run night that resulted in a shutout win. We still can’t hit. But maybe…just maybe they’ll start to win those games that they can’t hit in.

Houston, we have a little problem – Another hit by pitch of one of our players sent them out of the game – this time, it’s Jake Fraley. Rake was hit on the wrist last night and immediately left the game. David Bell threw a tantrum, as he should’ve, out of sheer frustration of losing another one of his players. It’s been frustrating. The initial x-ray of Jake Fraley came back negative, but you have to take it with a grain of salt, TJ Friedl’s initial x-ray also came back negative & then an MRI revealed a fracture. Let’s hope for the best. My goodness, it’s been a fuckin’ brutal year, boys & girls.

Cincinnati Reds RHP Nick Martinez

Nick Martinez is back in the “opener” role until fellow Nick, Nick Lodolo, can be back and healthy in the rotation. Nick Martinez has been beat around as a starter, there’s nothing more to say. It’s night and day difference – as a starter, he’s pitching to the tune of a 6.86 ERA with 31 hits given up with a 1.619 WHIP. As a reliever? Night and day difference. 1.04 ERA in 17.1 IP, 0.692 WHIP and only 10 hits given up. I would’ve rather seen David Bell start Brent Suter especially after seeing the success that Andrew Abbott had yesterday. I gotta be brutally honest as you know I always am, folks… I’m fading Nick Martinez tonight. Especially against his former team. The Padres have been a little cold offensively of late, but Martinez is going to be in consistent trouble with Cronenworth, Merrill, and Arraez, and 2 of those guys have a great chance to be on for Manny Machado on another warm, muggy day in Cincinnati. I don’t like this matchup.

Cincinnati Reds Lineup Card 5/22/24

The first thing I think when I see this lineup is…whew. Whew. WHEW. It’s almost inpalpable seeing how bad a lot of these guys have been this year. Not a single dude other than Elly de La Cruz with an OPS above .800. That has to be a record for the Cincinnati Reds since they’ve played at Great American to only have ONE guy with an OPS above .800. Spencer Steer struggling as bad as he has lately has hurt. Tyler needs to keep on keeping on. This offense has to get going.

San Diego Padres RHP Michael King

Have you ever heard of Juan Soto? It’s a sure thing Michael King has. He was apart of the New York Yankees package that sent Juan Soto from San Diego to New York. Michael King has 5 pitches he throws, primarily his four seam fastball, sinker & changeup, but he will also throw his sweeper. His fastball gets beat around pretty bad, so I would fully expect him to throw predominantly offspeed tonight. His sinker is his best pitch by far. The Reds have really struggled with starters that have the repertoire that King has, I fully expect him to go well over his K totals for the day, if you’re a betting man. With no Jake Fraley likely, & Spencer Steer still nursing his ankle he hurt back in Arizona, I’m looking for some contact guys like Santiago Espinal to have a big day. This is a really good matchup for Will Benson, too. This is a guy Tyler Stephenson traditionally beats up, too. Let’s hope Spencer Steer is a full go today, this is a great guy for him to get back on track with. Sidenote: Michael King has given up the most homeruns in Major League Baseball so far.

San Diego Padres Lineup Card

Padres posted their lineup at 4pm today. Very left handed heavy in anticipation of facing Nick Martinez at least 3-4 innings.