Tipsheet: Resurgent Reds climb into wild card race as the Cardinals sink (2024)

After the Reds pummeled the Cardinals during their three-game sweep –- outscoring them 19-4 –- Cincinnati outfielder T.J. Friedl liked the vibe in his clubhouse.

“We’re clicking at the right time," Friedl told reporters. “Now is a great time to play your best baseball.”

The Reds are trying to do just that. They have won four games in a row, seven of their last 10 and 13 of their last 21. At 60-61, they are one victory away from getting back to .500 for the first time since May 3, when they were 16-16.

“We’ve had tough stretches this year. It’s part of baseball,” Reds second basemanJonathan Indiasaid. “These last couple of months, we need to find a way, and we are going to.”

Added pitcher Emilio Pagan: “We’ve kind of said it all year, and it can kind of get stale. I’m sure it’s frustrating for fans to hear, ‘We’re going to go on our run, and other teams will start to struggle.’ It’s kind of the nature of the season. It does kind of feel like we’re starting to flip the script a little bit.”

Meanwhile the Cardinals are one of those teams struggling. They are picking a terrible time to play their worst baseball.

After winning two of three games from the Atlanta Braves coming out of the All-Star break, they have posted an 8-14 record.

Watching them flail helplessly in the Great American Band Box was painful, since that cozy stadium is essentially a batting cage. The Reds demonstrated that by bludgeoning the Cardinals pitching staff, piling run upon run.

The expanded wild card format gives more teams a chance to play meaningful games late in the season. While the Cardinals fumble that opportunity, the Reds are seizing it.

“Momentum, we know that’s real,” Reds manager David Bell said. “We just have to keep going, it’s that simple," Bell said. "I know it sounds ridiculous. Just keep going, keep playing, don’t worry about anything else. Continue to believe in what we’re doing. Continue to work like our guys do, they’re great at that.”

Writing for The Defector, Ray Ratto managed to contain his enthusiasm over the National League Central teams jockeying for wild card positioning:

If ever a team with a losing record could manage the postseason it would be one of these nightmares. That they are packed together like decomposing pilchards in the lower half of the National League standings is fitting, because only one of them, Cincinnati, seems to have the capability to make a run; naturally, that is the one team that never does. The Cardinals' idea of trade deadline gambling included bringing in Erick Fedde and former Cardinal Tommy Pham (again, being freed from the White Sox is its own reward), but they are adhered to .500 like a crazed limpet. The Pirates' frantic attempts to clone Paul Skenes still look like Bailey Falter, and the Cubs have been a .450 team for two months, thus convincing us that they are a .450 team in reality. None of these four teams should be allowed even to entertain the fantasy of October, but we are trapped in a league that has more spots than legitimate candidates. It feels like Election Day.

After their distressing no-show in Cincinnati, the Cardinals have the Los Angeles Dodgers coming into town. Meanwhile the Reds will bring plenty of life into their weekend series with the upstart Kansas City Royals.

TALKIN’ BASEBALL

Here is what folks are talking about Our National Pastime:

Mike Axisa, CBSSports.com: “As recently as June 28, the Arizona Diamondbackswere under .500 at 39-43, and 3 1/2 games behind the third wild-card spot with four teams ahead of them. They were 11 1/2 games behind theLos Angeles Dodgersin the NL West. Last year's National League champs slogged through the first three months of the season and looked like a fringe contender at best. Now on Aug. 14, the D-backs are the hottest team in baseball, having won nine of their last 10 games and 17 of their last 20 games (three losses by a total of four runs). Their 29-10 record since June 29 is the best in baseball by four games. Arizona is now in the top wild-card spot and six games up on a postseason berth. They're only 3 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West. The D-backs have done this even thoughChristian Walker, their Gold Glove first baseman and cleanup hitter, has been out with an oblique strain since July 30. Stalwart catcherGabriel Morenowent down with a groin strain last week.Paul Sewald struggled struggled so much he had to be removed from the closer's role.Jordan Montgomerystill hasn't gotten his year on track after signing on the eve of Opening Day. And yet, Arizona continues to pile up wins, including three walk-off wins in their last nine home games. They haven't lost a home series since late June. Heck, they haven't lostanyseries since late June.”

Dan Szymborski, FanGraphs: “The Dodgers, as is often the case for the team, have had more than their share of pitching injuries, with the IL rotation of Walker Buehler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Emmet Sheehanlikely superior to most team’shealthyrotations. With so many injuries, the Dodgers promoted Ryan to the majors. He was solid (if occasionally wild) in his 5 1/3 inning debut against the Giants, and his one-run, eight-strikeout effort against the Astros guaranteed he’d get more starts as long as he performed. Unfortunately, he was only able to make two more starts before he hit the shelf; he was removed in the fourth inning of Saturday’s game against the Pirates due to forearm tightness. The returning Buehler is expected to start on Wednesday, giving the team a rotation of him, Tyler Glasnow, Jack Flaherty, Clayton Kershaw and Gavin Stone— at least until someone hurts an elbow, tweaks an oblique, or gets run over by a cartoon steamroller. The Dodgers have been enormously resilient in the face of their injuries, making their 71-49 record, the best in the National League, even more impressive than it would be otherwise. But they likely don’t find the scene in their rear view mirror to be a pleasant one, with the Diamondbacks and Padres both going on a tear in recent months. Despite going 15-10 over their last 25 games, a 97-win pace over a full season, the Dodgers have seen their eight-game lead slashed in half.”

David Schoenfield, ESPN.com: “In his first 58 games, (Aaron) Judge hit 18 home runs. In his next 59, he hit 24, so his pace has been picking up throughout the season. Also note his month-by-month batting averages after a slow start in April: .361, .409, .318 and .483 so far in August. Yes, he's completely zoned in and it looks like he'll go over 57. But there's another mark that I'm really interested in: Can he slug .700? He's at .699. Nobody has done that since Barry Bonds in 2004, and nobody has done it outside of that 1994-2004 era since Ted Williams in 1957.”

Will Leitch, MLB.com: “The bad news is that (the Cubs) exhausted all their games against their South Side rivals, the White Sox. (They went 4-0, of course.) The good news is that they have series against fourotherlast-place teams in the Blue Jays, A’s, Rockies and Marlins. They also have seven games against the Nationals. Of the Cubs’ remaining 40 games after Wednesday’s series finale in Cleveland, onlynineare against teams with winning records, including none until they host the Yankees from Sept. 6-8. The Cubs have crawled their way back into the Wild Card picture over the last week. The path moving forward is beginning to clear up for them.”

Ray Ratto, The Defector: “Minnesota is remarkably light on .204 hitters who normally hit .260, but if they can't guarantee Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, and Carlos Correa will play in October, their stay will be Twins-level short, both because they are the Twins and that's what they do and because they will be without the heart of their offense. Their starting pitching is a plus by the metrics but it's hard to imagine it overwhelming either Baltimore or New York, or even Bobby Witt, Jr. Their best arm is in fact closer Jhoan Duran, who throws a billion miles an hour, and their best choice to get a clutch strikeout is Griffin Jax, all of which is to say that the Twins come by their wild card-level anonymity honestly. If there is a quintessential wild card team in every sport, the Twins are MLB’s.”

Matt Snyder, CBSSports.com: “Christopher Morel homered in each of his first two games with the Rays. Since then he's been brutal. I understand stuff like measuring bat speed can be useful, but at some point, a player just shows you who he is. He's now played in 333 games at the MLB level. I'm not suggesting to give up on a 25-year-old player, but if you think he's special, maybe you're misapplying metrics.”

Patrick Dubuque, Baseball Prospectus: “The 2024 Chicago White Sox aren’t real. They can’t be. It makes as much sense for a team to fail—and to be allowed to fail, on so many distinct levels—as it does for us all to be trapped inside some fever dream of James Fegan, staring with our eyes taped open at a man staring at this baseball team with his eyes taped open. Imagine being on the ground floor for this, for each blowout, eachPedro Grifolpress conference, each Reinsdorf-Tennessee dalliance. If this were real, every White Sox beat reporter would be wasting away as if they’d swallowed radium.”

Jeff Passan, ESPN.com: “Though as if (Shiohei) Ohtani didn't do enough already, he now has added elite baserunner to his résumé in 2024. Ohtani always has been sneaky fast, and he swiped 20 bags last year and topped out at 26 in 2021. Already he's at 32, one behind Milwaukee'sBrice Turangfor second in the big leagues, and he has been caught only four times. The possibility of him hitting 15 home runs over the final quarter of the season is probably more realistic than him getting to 50 steals, but if this is Ohtani's last season as purely a full-time hitter, becoming the first 50/50 player in MLB history would be a hell of a way to close it out.”

MEGAPHONE

“For every 15 Tommy John surgeries that are happening in today's game, there might've been one every year in my era, that I heard of. I don't think it has anything to do with velocity. You know, I threw 95 to 100, Nolan Ryan threw hard,Pedro Martinezthrew hard, Roger Clemens threw hard, there's lots of pitchers that threw hard and none of them had Tommy John surgery. And they all threw a lot more than today's pitchers. They would throw 250-260 innings and 135 pitches a game, so I don't know why there are so many injuries in today's game, I really don't.”

Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, to CBSSports.com.