Atlanta Braves first potential postseason opponent: the Reds

Atlanta Braves batters would face a Reds starting staff that’s among the best baseball.

While there were days the Atlanta Braves had to choose from a lot of less than wonderful rotation options, the Reds rotation leads the NL with a 3.49 ERA, 3.57 FIP, 11.02 K/9, and features the lowest average exit velocity.

Even though they play half the games in the Great American Ball Park, which has a park factor of 106, their starters give up the fewest homers per nine in the NL. Trevor Bauer leads the NL with a 1.80 ERA, and Luis Castillo is eighth with a 2.86 ERA.

In his first seven starts, Sonny Gray pitched to a 1.94 ERA, struck out 55 batters, and walked 15 in 47 2/3 IP. Two rough starts in September sent him to the IL, but he returned last night to allow one run on two hits in five IP, striking out eight and walking one.

Their starters go deep into games, don’t walk many, and strike out a bunch, the exact combination to give the Atlanta Braves lineup fits.

Cincinnati has run 19 different relievers through their pen, and that inflates statistics a bit. At the deadline, they addressed that by adding Archie Bradley, so the pen isn’t as generous as it looked at one time.

The bullpen is solid, if not spectacular, and their key relievers are strikeout pitchers.