Five reasons why the Reds can win the NL Central

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Only a few days ago, the consensus of experts was that the Milwaukee Brewers were the surest of sure bets to win their division. They were coming off a streak of 11 consecutive victories, and they had the game’s most intimidating pitching staff.

Their usual-suspect National League Central challengers, the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, cooperated by suffering through disastrous Junes. The Cards went just 10-17, the Cubs only 12-16, and the Brewers finished the month by beating the Cubs three straight by a combined 31-12.

Just to top it off the Brewers beat their nearest challengers in the NL Central, the Cincinnati Reds in the opener of a seven-game All-Star break wraparound series Thursday in Milwaukee.

Fast-forward just 72 hours and the picture has changed substantially. The Brewers have lost three straight to the Reds – in Milwaukee, yet – and they go to Cincinnati next weekend sitting on a suddenly precarious four-game lead.

Worse for the once-prohibitive favorites, evidence is beginning to build that the Reds are serious about challenging the Brewers.

Much hangs on that series coming out of the All Star break. Once it’s completed, the Brewers and Reds will meet just three more times, in Milwaukee in late August.

Although the Brewers held first place through all but a few days in June, momentum is moving in Cincinnati’s direction. Since June 1, the Brewers have played at a killing 24-14 .632 pace. Yet the Reds have matched them win-for-win with an identical 24-14, .632 record since that same date, capped by those three straight victories in Milwaukee.

Here are five reasons to believe in the Reds’ chance of overtaking Milwaukee.

Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady with the Super Bowl trophy. Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /

Tom Brady, Phil Mickelson, Helio Castroneves and Joey Votto?

At age 42, Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to an improbable Super Bowl upset of the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in February. In May, Phil Mickelson, 50, became the oldest Major winner in history when he took the PGA.

A few weeks later, Helio Castroneves won his fourth Indianapolis 500 at age 46.

Plainly this is the year of the uber-veteran big-event hero. In baseball, nobody fits that description as perfectly as Joey Votto, the Reds first baseman.

At age 38, Votto fits solidly into baseball’s esteemed senior citizen class. He’s a former MVP (2010), he’s a seven-time leader in on base average, and he’s a career .300 hitter.

But save for a brief appearance in the COVID-inspired 2020 expanded pseudo playoffs, he hasn’t been to the postseason since 2013. The Reds have never won a postseason series in which Votto has played. On the other hand, Votto’s never played in a postseason series during a year in which stars of a certain advanced age stood out so dramatically.

Like Brady, Mickelson and Castroneves, this 2021 season could be Votto’s year for a glorious resurrection.

Jesse Winker, Jonathan India and Nick Castellanos, the core of Cincinnati’s superior offense. Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports /

The Reds can actually hit

Milwaukee’s performance to date has largely been constructed on its solid pitching. But the Brewers have a decided weakness as well, and it’s at the bat.

At the break, Milwaukee stands seventh in runs scored per game and 10th in OPS (.694, 17 points below the league average). Meanwhile, they have struck out a league-worst 880 times, identifying the Brewers as a team with a large potential weakness.

The Reds can hit. At 4.85, they are third in runs per game, trailing only the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. They are fourth in OPS (.745, trailing the Giants, Dodgers and Atlanta Braves). And the Reds make contact, having struck out 788 times. That’s below the league average of 794.

They’ve driven in 412 runs, 38 more than the Brewers, and their .248 team batting average ranks second behind only the Washington Nationals. The Brewers, for the record, are dead last in batting average at .220, a figure of historically low proportions.

The Brewers are living on home run power. Yet the Reds have 1,243 total bases, 110 more than the Brewers. They’ve also out-scored the Brewers by 39 runs.

A key element in any team’s sustained success is the ability to hit the ball. The Reds are simply superior to the Brewers in that respect.

The Reds are better within the NL Central

Nearly 100 of every team’s games are played against divisional opponents. Not only does Cincinnati have the best in-division record of any NL Central team, at 24-13 they are tied with Houston for the best record within their division in all of MLB.

The Brewers, at 24-16, are close, meaning that a lot of the story of the remainder of the2021 NL Central season will be told in head-to-head meetings.

The Reds have 38 divisional games left, the Brewers have 35. But Cincinnati has one potentially fascinating advantage. An opportunistic 13 of those final 38 divisional games are against the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates. Nine of those 13 Pirate games – including the final three — will be played in September when pennant pressure ratchets up.

The Brewers play Pittsburgh nine more times, but they do not see the division’s tail-end club at all after mid-August. Instead they play the Cardinals, a team that can never be taken for granted, in 13 of their final 35 divisional games.

And just to be more dramatic, while the Reds are closing out the season with three games against the Pirates, the Brewers will be finishing up against the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers …. in Los Angeles.

If the Reds are at all close entering that final weekend, it could be an invigorating bi-coastal finish.

The Res have more games remaining against last place teams and fewer against first place teams. Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports /

Cincinnati has the easier non-division schedule

Outside the NL Central, the Reds have 34 games remaining, the Brewers 35. But based on the teams’ 2021 performance to date, Cincinnati has decidedly the easier schedule.

The collective winning average of the 34 Reds opponents-to-be is under .500, .498 to be exact. The Brewers must navigate through a .534 winning average of their 35 opponents-to-be. That’s a 36-point percentage advantage to the Reds.

Why is Cincinnati so much better-positioned on the schedule? The Reds play seven games against last-place divisional teams – all of them versus the Miami Marlins – and only eight against leaders of other divisions. That includes six versus the New York Mets and two versus the Chicago White Sox.

The Brewers, by contrast, face last-place teams in other divisions only twice after the break, and they’ll get those two out of the way early. They face the Kansas City Royals Tuesday and Wednesday, July 20-21.

And Milwaukee has a challenging 13 games remaining against other first-place teams: seven with the Giants, three with the White Sox and three with the Mets.

The final two weeks of Milwaukee’s season could hardly be more imposing. Beyond seven games with the Cardinals, they have three each with the Mets and Dodgers.

The Reds spend those same final two weeks with six games against the Pirates, four against Washington and two against the White Sox.

Luis Castillo is getting hot

Castillo entered 2021 as a purported leader of the Reds pitching staff. He was 15-10 in the last full season, 2019, and carried a 3.21 ERA through 2020.

Castillo’s 2021 season began disastrously. Through May he was 1-8 with a 7.23 ERA, only twice lasting into the sixth inning. Since June 4, however, the old Castillo has returned. His 2-2 record is as deceptive as many wins-losses numbers are these days. Castillo has a 1.47 ERA in his seven post-May starts with 42 strikeouts in his 52 innings of work.

He hasn’t allowed more than three runs and six hits in any of those seven starts.

A key has been the restoration of his control. Through May, Castillo had averaged 4.6 bases on balls per nine innings. Since June 4, he’s reduced that figure nearly by half, to 2.75.

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Castillo’s return to form doesn’t level the pitching playing field between the Brewers and Reds, but it narrows it some. The Reds’ obvious weakness compared with the team they must catch is on the mound. If Castillo can deliver the kind of second half Reds fans have come to expect – and the kind they didn’t see in April and May – it enhances Cincinnati’s chances of competing on a more than equal footing with the Brewers.

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