The Cincinnati Reds continued their awful start to the season Friday night, falling to the Cardinals 4-2 for their tenth straight loss after winning their first two games. At 2-12, they are easily the worst team in the majors so far this season. Not surprisingly they are bad on both sides of the ball. The major leagues average a .230/.307/.366 slash line in 2022. The Reds offense comes in at .184/.255/.278. If pitchers were still allowed to hit, that would be a pretty good batting line for one. The pitching staff allowed a .269/.368/.440 slash line. While the .440 slugging percentage would not be terrible in a normal year, in this season with a lack of home runs it’s monstrous. The .365 OBP allowed is just awful in any era.

If you look at the batting stats linked above, the 3-4-5 hitters are all under .200 in batting average, and the 4-5 hitters are below .200 in slugging percentage. The best table setters are batting at the bottom of the order.

Most of the pitching woes comes from the starters, with that group owning a .309/.403/.517 slash line. Everyone hits like an MVP against them. The relievers control hits and power, but but walk so many batters that their .227 BA allows balloons to a .332 OBP allowed.

There are some good hitters on the club. I suspect Jonathan India, Joey Votto, and Tommy Pham to come around at some point. The pitching is tougher to call. Hunter Greene has the velocity to be great, but batters get hits when they do make contact. It may already be time for this club to be thinking about next year.