Road-weary Reds hoping to put recent series woes behind them
SEATTLE – About the best thing the Reds might have to say about traveling 2,000 miles to play in the cold, get sick and lose a series is that they won’t have to worry about any more of these tough West Coast swings after the middle of May.
That, however, doesn’t do much to lessen the sting of losing a series for the third time in their last four sets – this one cinched with Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to the Mariners with Seattle’s temperatures dropping into the 40s with the setting sun.
Maybe that contributed to starter Hunter Greene laboring with his slider and needing 98 pitches just to get through four innings or Frankie Montas’ trouble with the splitter in similar conditions the night before in a twoinning start.
“I definitely don’t want to use that as an excuse. It is a reality,” Greene said of the difficulty finding better grip in the cold, dry air. “That’s the thing about traveling and you’re in different climates. But as professionals you’ve got to be able to combat that in some way.”
Just like that, the Mariners have their first series win of the season, and the Reds have a tired bullpen.
That doesn’t even count the $45 million third baseman Jeimer Candelario missing the game with a flu bug going around the clubhouse.
West Coast trips are rarely good times for teams from the Midwest and East, between time changes, the extra travel and sometimes even the regional differences in weather.
“It is definitely a different climate,” Reds manager David Bell, a former Mariners player, said. “I know from spending years here. It’s just different. It doesn’t mean any team has an advantage over the another. But when you don’t play here all the time, you
kind of forget exactly how it can affect (games), whether it’s pitches of fly balls in the outfield.”
But all the Reds’ West Coast travel comes before May 20 this season. The only series they’ll play outside the Eastern or Central time zones over their final 115 games is a stray three-game series in Colorado the first week of June.
“It could be an advantage down the road,” said reliever Brent Suter. “It’s TBD, totally, on that, but it kind of feels like getting a workout done early in the morning and getting the hard part of the day done.”
Compare that to the longest road trip of last season, to Anaheim, Arizona and San Francisco, to finish off the month of August as the heat of their unlikely playoff chase was starting to get uncomfortable.
The Reds went from wild-card playoff position and 31⁄2 games out of first in the NL Central to two spots back of the final playoff position and 7 games out of first thanks to a 1-5 stretch on the back end of that visit west.
“These trips are always a lot physically, with time changes and other stuff,” Stephenson said. “Just to knock them out early and towards the end of the season not really have to worry about any of that, that can be a positive.”
They still have to get through a tough Texas-san Diego trip that opens at the end of next week and a gantlet a week later involving series in San Francisco, Arizona and to Los Angeles for four games against the Dodgers.
“Not ideal,” manager David Bell said, “But yeah, once we get through it, it’ll be good.”