CINCINNATI — For righty Hunter Greene, the hardest part of the Reds’ putrid start to the season was the night last week when he gave up eight runs and got eight outs. For second baseman Jonathan India, it was watching from the dugout, his right hamstring aching, as his team dropped game after game. For shortstop Kyle Farmer, it was the moment, in the midst of 34 at bats without a hit, he found himself standing in the shower, dressed in his cap, uniform and cleats, “trying to wash all the demons away,” he says.
Winning is a communal experience. Losing is a collection of tiny, individual tragedies. And so far this season, Cincinnati has done a lot of losing. The team’s 9–24 start puts it on pace to lose 117 games, which would be the third worst season since the start of the 20th century. The Reds’ team ERA is last in the majors at 6.29; the Pirates, the next worst pitching team, have a 4.89 ERA. Recently, those Pirates have done their part to mask at least some of the ugliness. Cincinnati has its won three straight games, and six of its last eight, with five of those wins coming against Pittsburgh, another of the league’s worst clubs. At this time last week, following Greene’s shellacking and the last game before they played Pittsburgh, the Reds were 3–22, on pace to finish with a 20–142 record, which would’ve been eight more losses than the 1899 Cleveland Spiders—the worst team ever. At one point Cincinnati went 99 innings without holding a lead.
The Reds can’t possibly maintain this level of futility. But it's only May. There are four and a half months to go. How can they keep putting themselves through this?
