Not Dallas Braden news

Alternative title:  The Reds, wtf?

I want to tell you that the Reds are a poor offensive team with bad pitching.  I want to explain how mindblowingly terrible their lineup is and then openly wonder why Dusty Baker has a job that pays him in legal tender.  I then want to transition into a Carlos Lee fat joke.  However, I can do none of these things because Lee's player page on Yahoo is causing an integer overflow in the Weight field and crashing IE6.

In terms of total runs scored, the Reds are 14th in the league, which aside from being marginally above average sandwiches them between the Cardinals, Marlins, Rangers, and Tigers; four teams with a reputation for scoring runs in bulk.  They're in the middle of the MLB pack in virtually every offensive metric.  This isn't bad for a team that spends less on payroll than the Royals.

Their pitching has less upside.  Their 5.28 ERA is third worst in baseball, and their .328 BABIP is tied for last place with the Brewers.  I went to BABIP instead of other, more meaningful statistics here because it turns out the internal numbers aren't quite as bad as the narrative would like.  They're in the bottom third of the league in WHIP and various other ratios, total bases, etc.  But we're not talking third worst across the board.  The end result is an average offense and poor but not catastrophic pitching.

So how the fuck do they have a winning record?  They're 16-15, which is second amongst the six teams in the NL Central if you actually count the Astros and Pirates as official major league baseball teams.  That record is 7th best in the NL, ahead of the Marlins, Brewers, Mariners, Rockies, of which on paper all seem much better than the Reds.  Now, you might say "small sample size!"  or "check the schedule!", but the Reds have already played six games against the Cardinals, and they've also had a series each against the Mets, Dodgers, and Padres (three of the better teams, in my opinion, in the NL).  They've only had one series against the lowly Astros (and swept them) and Pirates (and got swept).  Despite the relative weakness of the lower half of their division, they haven't had an easy schedule thus far.

I think the most interesting but easily accessible stat is that the Reds lead baseball in reliever wins.  That's nine wins via late-inning offensive comebacks, versus only seven for the starters.  They've won 9 of their last 13 games (sweeping the Astros, winning series against the Mets and Cubs) and of those 9 wins, 5 had their winning runs scored in the 7th inning or later.  Even the 14-2 beatdown they have the Cubs on the 8th involved 11 runs after the 7th inning.

Are we witnessing a clutch offensive resurgence for Cincinnati?  For the month of May, the Reds are ninth in baseball in total runs, sixth in homeruns, ninth in OPS, yet had the second worst K/BB rate.  Here are the "last week" Yahoo stats for the three guys at the top of the lineup.

Orlando Cabrera:  .385/.429/.500  4, 2, 1
Brandon Phillips:  .320/.364/.680  6, 2, 1
Joey Votto:  .417/.481/.833  7, 7, 0

Not bad.  This is what's been expected of Votto, but Brandon Phillips showing some power is a nice change from demonstrating that power by swinging at the air really hard.  Orlando Cabrera getting on base is just a bonus.  The leadoff spot was supposed to be where Drew Stubbs could develop into the Great White Hope, a 6'4" speedster that white baseball writers could salivate over (I'm unable to source where I read something about Stubbs and his "graceful" gait, but I'm pretty sure it was a Yahoo writer).  This is the same writing universe where Steve Nash is god's gift but apparently Rajon Rondo has some nebulous character issues and Deron Williams/CP3 are selfish, where JaMarcus Russell is "lazy" and doesn't deserve another shot but Brady Quinn just needed a change of scenery, where Tim Tebow's religious beliefs are national news and somehow unique from every black NFL player's religious beliefs, where Ricky Williams is a standard joke but Tim Lincecum is business as usual, where if Joe Mauer currently had the rate stats that Geovany Soto did he'd be plastered on the front Yahoo page every single day until his OBP went back below .450, etc.  Anyway, Stubbs is batting .181, which qualifies as slumping poorly enough to get you replaced by Orlando Cabrera.

There are indicators suggesting the pitching is improving.  In two starts this month Aaron Harang has kept his ERA under 8, and Mike Leake continues to impress (another win and QS on Sunday).  If Harang can sniff his former success, and if one more pitcher (like, say, Aroldis Chapman....c'mon Dusty, you know you want to ruin this guy's career sooner rather than later) can post some respectable numbers, the Reds could become a serious contender in the NL.