Reds benefiting from youth movement with Graham Ashcraft, Alexis Diaz | Doc's Morning Line
The Cincinnati Reds are 9-6 since 3-22. What goes down, must come up. This isn’t Newton-ian logic. It’s progression, or whatever we call the opposite of regression. (And playing the Pirates seven times in two weeks.) Just as no one expected Trevor Story to keep hitting three homers a night, no one believed the Cincinnati Reds could be as awful as 3-22.
Well, nobody but the national shriekers who decided the Reds were the worst team of all time. Child, please.
The Big 162 cuts both ways. The greatest leveler in sports offers hope to the terrible and reality to the hot-streaking. The Reds might still be four games behind the 4th-place Buccos, but they’re better than the Buccos. If that thrills ya.
Nine-and-six after 3-and-22? With India, Senzel, Lodolo etc. still not playing and Votto just returned? Does that make sense to you?
Opportunity seized. We wouldn’t have seen Connor Overton if Nick Lodolo hadn’t strained his back. We wouldn’t have seen Graham Ashcraft if Overton hadn’t woken up Sunday feeling as if he’d been hit by a truck.
We assume player personnel people always know what they’re doing. Mostly, they do. But guys slip through cracks. They get labeled, they get buried in the minor leagues by perceptions, and by kids who throw harder than they do, younger players whose “potential’’ still gleams.
The newest shiny object always gets more attention. Guys like Overton, the polish wears off. They spend a lot of time wondering when their next shot will come. Or if it will.
Lately, the Reds have benefited from those circumstances. New blood can be inspired blood. Desperation is a great motivator. Look at the players who have helped them lately. Overton, 28, 15 major-league innings before this year, eight minor league seasons, everywhere from Batavia to San Jose. Gets the call, is now 1-0 in four starts, 1.82 ERA and everyone’s praising his maturity. As if it just fell from the sky.
Brandon Drury, 29, has played in 539 MLB games, but hadn’t played in more than 120 since 2018. Last year, he had 88 plate appearances for the Mets. He has 126 already this year, and leads the Reds in homers and RBI and had an OPS of .842. Which, let’s be honest, is as productive as Nick Senzel could have hoped to be.
Alexis Diaz, 25, seemingly arrived from nowhere, showing closer makeup, albeit in a small sample size.
Yesterday, it was Ashcraft. He is far more shiny than Overton or Drury, but no one believed he’d be in The Show yet. Yet there he was Sunday, in trying circumstances, helping the Reds win in Toronto.
It makes you wonder how many other guys are in the minors, scufflin’, hoping they get a(nother) shot. Some will. Others will move on, destined to spend forever wondering what-if.
Overton, Drury, Ashcraft and Diaz have made the last few weeks interesting. Unlike Hunter Greene, we have no idea how long their runs will last. But for the moment, things are pleasant. Which beats the alternative.
Now, then. . .
SEIZING THE DAY, PART 2. . . It’s damned hard to win a major championship in golf. Even very good players never do, or haven’t yet. Rickie Fowler. Colin Montgomerie, for you OGs. Rory McIlroy hasn’t won a major in eight years, Jordan Spieth won three, but none since ’17.
Justin Thomas won his second major Sunday. It took him five years and one incredible comeback. Thomas was behind by as many as eight shots yesterday, before he won in a 3-hole playoff. Nobody comes back from 8 down on Sunday to win a major.
Watching the PGA Sunday was to see tension made flesh. Golf does strange things to a man’s mind. In major championships, unspeakable things. Every shot by every contender on the back-9 was an exercise in terror. The ultimate was would-be winner Mito Pereira, a Chilean playing in his second major. Dude held it together with the pack chasing him all day. Until he didn’t.
He was up by a stroke on the 18th tee when he made a swing I hadn’t seen him make all day. A strange, sweeping motion, with an incomplete follow-through. It landed in a creek. Ahead by a shot standing on the tee, Pereira made double-bogey and finished 4th.
Thomas, meanwhile, was nails. He played his last 13 holes, including the three playoff holes, in 6-under par. Willpower, personified. When it was finally over, the pressure bent him over. Great Sunday afternoon, as usual, for the PGA Championship. Which despite its status as a clear Number Four among majors, almost always delivers better entertainment.
AS FOR TIGER. . . Is it possible he’s more admirable in withdrawing defeat than in major championship glory?
He withdrew after a 3rd-round 79 that was not as painful to watch as it was for him to play, but not by much. After an opening 74, it took everything Woods had on Friday to make the cut by a stroke. The weather turned cold and windy, an already aching Tiger ached even more.
“I just can’t load it,” he said. “Loading hurts, pressing off it hurts, and walking hurts, and twisting hurts.’’ Woods sounded older than he played. But there was something ennobling and inspirational about watching him make the cut, then try to play through his physical misery. His golf character has never been more obvious.
SPEAKING OF ENTERTAINING. . . Votto called his shot Sunday, at home, after six weeks of struggling and sickness. Still wasn’t entirely satisfied:
“Hitting the ball that close to the line is not really my style, but it ended up being a good result, Eventually, breaking balls, off-speed pitches need to be hit closer to the right fielder. Then, the fastballs need to be closer to center field. But I think that's coming.”
SEC COMMISSIONER ON NIL: There are some concerning trends,” Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey told Yahoo Finance. “We're not seeing name image and likeness activity — we're seeing just straight payments. And I think it's important that we recenter ourselves on what's supposed to be happening here and the desire to keep that activity out of recruitment to benefit young people economically but to do so in a healthy way.”
The NCAA has put in some new guidelines, designed to impose order on boosters and “collectives’’ and what seems now to be wanton paying of recruits. Is the NCAA up to that sheriff-ing? Trying to police 130 schools?
History suggests not.
The question locally is, can UC keep up? Are there thick-walleted donors willing to pay to keep up with the Sabans, to say nothing of the Jimbos?
How much is enough?
Big-money boosters already have been asked to help fund major upgrades to the infrastructure. UC already has spent lots of UC money to pay for football stuff, from the general fund. If this is now a financial arms race, do the Bearcats have the “collective’’ will to stay apace?
Not just for now. But for the foreseeable future. Alabama has everything it needs to stay huge. Except oil money. Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M has that. Is it a coincidence that Saban singled out the Aggies for buying players?
Is it sickening to know that you’re paying $4.50 a gallon at the pump to subsidize oil-company greed, and that some of that cash is finding its way into the wallets of the big-money boosters who are “collectivizing’’ to outspend the quasi-am football world?
Just asking.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . .
The Beach Boys most underrated tune, IMO. Maybe you’ve never even heard it.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds roster: Graham Ashcraft's MLB debut delivers jolt
