Mike Minor continues his frustrating season as the Reds lose to the Cardinals

When the Cincinnati Reds traded Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez in March, General Manager Nick Krall said a benefit of the trade would be increased financial flexibility that he planned to use before the start of the season. Two days later, the Reds traded for starting pitcher Mike Minor, one of the Reds’ biggest acquisitions since 2020.

Minor, the third-highest paid player on the Reds, represented an effort by the Reds to try to stay competitive in 2022. Over halfway through the season, Minor has a 6.65 ERA, and he took his seventh loss in nine starts this season. On Saturday, Minor allowed five runs in four innings as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Reds, 6-3, at Great American Ball Park.

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"You have to really mix it with good off-speed and good fastball location," Minor said. "I didn’t have any of that tonight. They made me pay."

Minor is currently the sixth-best starting pitcher in the Reds’ six-man rotation. While the Reds could lose Luis Castillo or Tyler Mahle at the trade deadline, Justin Dunn is nearing the end of his Triple-A rehab assignment. Dunn, a 26-year-old who played in the Futures Game in 2019, is expected to get an opportunity in the Reds rotation in the last two months of the season.

That leaves Minor’s role on the Reds up in the air. The 34-year-old left-hander isn’t expected to carry much value on the trade market. Last year, two veteran starters similar to Minor didn’t fetch much in return.

Last summer, the Cardinals traded for similar veteran left-handers in J.A. Happ and Jon Lester. St. Louis dealt a young MLB reliever who was having an up-and-down season for Happ and a backup MLB outfielder for Lester.

If the Reds don’t trade Minor, his spot in the rotation could depend on how many starting pitchers the Reds trade. With Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft, Nick Lodolo and Dunn, the Reds already have four young pitchers who they want to see in the second half of the year.

Entering Saturday night’s game in front of a crowd of 27,190, opposing hitters only had a .197 batting average versus Minor in the first time through the order. The second time around against Minor, they're hitting .359.

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"I missed a lot over the plate," Minor said. "A lot of pitches where I was trying to go one side and it was on the other side. They were pitches I knew not to throw, but I left them over the plate. My changeup wasn’t good early on. Then I didn’t throw many sliders or curveballs. Fastball location was pretty bad."

That trend continued on Saturday against St. Louis. Following two scoreless innings by Minor, the Cardinals took a 5-2 lead by the end of the fourth inning. Beginning with his second time through the order, Minor consistently fell behind in the count and then left pitches over the middle of the plate.

The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the third on an RBI single by Cardinals All-Star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. The following inning, left fielder Tyler O’Neill and Goldschmidt combined for back-to-back homers as St. Louis took a 5-2 lead.

Minor missed the first two months of the season with shoulder soreness. Since his season debut on June 3, Minor has allowed at least four runs in seven of his nine appearances.

"He still hasn’t been pitching that long (this year)," manager David Bell said. "Very delayed start to the season. He is at a point in his career where he knows exactly what he needs to do to be successful. Sometimes your body won’t get there fast enough, right? I think it’s still been a process for him to get to feeling all the way back to normal."

Minor threw 85 pitches, but Bell pulled him from the game after the fourth inning. Minor allowed eight hits while walking four batters and hitting another Cardinals’ batter.

While Minor took a few positive steps forward with a solid start to July, he hasn't stayed at that level in either of his last two starts.

"I kept missing outside by a couple inches (with my pitches)," Minor said. "Kept missing, kept missing, I was just trying to throw a strike."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mike Minor makes frustrating start in Reds loss to the Cardinals