The Cincinnati Reds continue their road trip, as they go to San Diego, California, to take on the Padres. The Reds are coming off of their first losing series, and look to rebound in this one. With that, here is the series preview.
Game 1 (Monday, 10:05 PM ET, FS Ohio): In the first game of the series, Edinson Volquez will pitch for the Reds, while Mat Latos will pitch for the Padres. Let's talk about Edinson first. Even though he has done pretty well against Padres batters through out his career, he has not done well this season. On Opening Day he looked very poor, and in his last start allowed a 4 run 1st inning, but was lights out from there. In order for him to go to 2-0, he will need to pitch much better. Now let's talk about Mat Latos. Only 4 Reds have faced him in their careers, all of them without a hit. Latos has a 1-0 record lifetime against Cincinnati, but that means nothing. The Reds have a good opportunity to take advantage of him, as he does not know how to approach them all that well. Also, the Reds need to take advantage of Latos by making him work. This is his first appearance of 2011, after he was on the DL for pain in his right shoulder. If the Reds make him work, his shoulder will feel weaker, and will have to be taken out of the game sooner.
Game 2 (Tuesday, 10:05 PM ET, FS Ohio): Sam LeCure will take the hill for Cincinnati, while Clayton Richard will take the hill for San Diego. LeCure has only faced Rob Johnson and Ryan Ludwick in his career, Johnson has not hit off of him, while Ludwick has a .333 average in 3 at-bat's. So LeCure has not faced many Padre hitters, and has never faced the Padres in his career. As for Clayton Richard, he has faced plenty of Reds, and all of them have had success against him for the most part. Cairo, Hanigan, and Bruce all have at least a .600 average against Richard, while Votto, Phillips, and Heisey all have a .500 average against him. As long as LeCure can pitch well, as well as the bullpen, the Reds should be able to score some runs in this game and win it.
Game 3 (Wednesday, 6:35 PM ET, FS Ohio): In the final game of the series, Travis Wood will pitch for the Redlegs, while Tim Stauffer will pitch for the Pads. Only 5 Padre batters have faced Wood in their career, none of them having more than 4 at-bat's against him. But let's forget about the stats for a second, and just talk about Travis Wood so far this season. He was great in his fist start against Milwaukee, going deep into the game and only allowing 1 run. Then, in his 2nd game against a much weaker Arizona team (sorry D-Backs), he did absolutly terrible. His location was his bug issue, while he did not walk too many batters, he did allow quite a bit of hits, a home runs. He needs to be better in this game if he wants to get the win. Okay, now we will talk about Tim Stauffer. Tim is 2-0 lifetime versus the Reds, but has not faced many current batters. In-fact, he has only faced 8 Reds batters, none of them having more than 6 career at-bats.
All-in-all, I think the Reds should win at least two games of this series. The two they have the best chance of winning is the 2nd and 3rd game. But, any of these games could go either way, be prepared to watch (well, if you stay up that late to watch them play) a fun and exciting series.
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