Five reasons the Atlanta Braves will take out the Reds

All we’re hearing from the pundits is how the Reds pitching will prevail over the Atlanta Braves… hold on that thought.

We have seen how great pitching beats great hitting.  That happened in the 1995 World Series as the Atlanta Braves took out the Cleveland Indians.

Of course, that included three Hall of Famers throwing darts that kept a high-powered offense off their game for most of the way.

Still, most commentators are siding with the Cincinnati Reds as the favorites to upend this Braves squad and their franchise-historically-best offense.

But let’s take a step back from that for a bit, for there are lots of reasons why this club should be all over the Reds this week.  Here’s just five of them:

5. The Reds lineup has holes to exploit.

It’s one thing to pitch well, but your team also has to be able to score.

Full year stats make this point, but it’s the September numbers that really matter the most here.  There are just four hitters in the Reds lineup that are pounding the ball right now — when they actually connect, that is.

Joey Votto, Eugenio Suarez, Mike Moustakas, and Tucker Barnhart are all slugging .500+ since September started.  You don’t want to make mistake pitches to them.

At the same time, none of them has a batting average above .260 (excluding Votto, it’s .240 and less).

Jesse Winker was destroying baseballs in August… then teams figured him out and he went from a red-hot 1.257 OPS to a meager .552 in September.  His walk rate leaped from 12% to 20% — meaning that pitchers were finding that he’d often chase pitches… but if he walks, so be it.

The rest of their lineup has been nearly that anemic this month.

If there’s a strikeout needed, then Suarez, Brian Goodwin, Winker, Nicholas Castellanos, and Jose Garcia might accommodate.  All have September K-rates above 30%.  Even Votto was at 26%.

Shogo Akiyama is hitting .317, but with no power whatsoever (no homers, .365 slugging).  He’s the only true on-base threat (if the Braves can avoid walking Votto and Winker).

So if the Braves pitchers can keep the ball out of the Happy Zones for Votto/Suarez/Moustakas/Barnhart, they should have a very manageable time.