Reds Notebook: The upcoming Spring Breakout, and Yankees fans might lose their minds after hearing Reds’ Opening Day announcement more…
The Cincinnati Reds may be without their top prospect for a while this year after Noelvi Marte was suspended for 80 games, but their farm system is still pretty strong and two times this week they’ll be playing in the Spring Breakout series that will feature a team of the Reds top prospects taking on a team of Texas and Cleveland prospects.
Thursday evening the Reds and Rangers will kick off the series for Major League Baseball. The two will face off at 6:05pm ET and the game will be available to watch on MLB.com. On Saturday night the Reds will take on the Guardians at 7:05pm ET and that game will also be available to watch on MLB.com. You can see the roster (at least as it stands today) for the games here. While those games aren’t big league contests and technically not a part of “spring training”, they are two of 16 games the organization is playing in the next 13 days before spring training wraps up. They are also two of seven games that fans will be able to watch the rest of the way.
Reds players share Joey Votto memories
– “He’s a hitting mastermind”
– “I’m very grateful for him, and he was a little angel on my right side that I needed to propel to where I needed to be. Thank you for showing what it takes and showing where I want to go.”
– “Everything he does is so focused. Being able to be behind the scenes and learn from him and see him do that, it’s kind of just incredible. It’s something that I try to just pick his brain. Listen to everything this guy’s saying because he’s a Hall of Famer.”
It’s not just the Reds medical staff
One of the things that often pops up in discussion when guys are out, or injured, or something like it, is how the medical staff and or team don’t exactly give it to the fans straight all of the time. Or that they don’t get it right the first time.
The New York Yankees are having a little bit of a public relations problem when it comes to Aaron Judge. On Sunday he seemed to be pulled from the game early and after the game they said it was planned that way. The next day they said he was just dealing with your general mid-spring stuff. Yesterday the team announced he had an MRI to check on his abdominal section (it came back clean, for the record).
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Yankees fans might lose their minds after hearing Reds’ Opening Day announcement
It actually has to be a joke at this point, right? Like other teams across the league take extremely detailed notes on which of their players were former Yankees, and then make decisions with no other intention than to infuriate New York? Because what’s the other explanation?
On Sunday, the Cincinnati Reds made sure to interrupt Yankees fans’ day of rest by naming their Opening Day starter about three weeks ahead of schedule with plenty of spring training games left on the docket.
Reds manager David Bell revealed former Yankee Frankie Montas will be toeing the rubber at the Great American Ballpark come March 28, and it’s just absolutely nothing more than a troll job when you consider Montas’ spring performance.
The right-hander has allowed four earned runs on seven hits and one walk while only striking out three batters. He surrendered two homers, too. And this came after a sterling spring debut. Now, the Reds don’t exactly have a promising rotation, but how was this the choice?
Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft, Andrew Abbott and Brandon Williamson represent a young pitching core that could be the future of this up-and-coming organization. Instead, Bell picked the guy who’s pitched 1.1 innings since the start of 2023.
Montas is universally disliked among Yankees fans, and while not exactly fair for the veteran pitcher since it was Brian Cashman’s fault for acquiring him in the first place, he had a chance to redeem himself by signing a cheap one-year deal with the Bombers to rebound in 2024 after offering nothing for 1.5 seasons.
Instead, he took the money to join the Reds, and Yankees fans are reminded what a colossal waste of time it was to see him in pinstripes. Montas, who the Yanks traded for before the 2022 deadline while he was dealing with shoulder issues, appeared in nine games (eight starts) across two years, totaled 41 innings, and logged a 6.15 ERA, 4.90 FIP and 1.56 WHIP.
Though the trade cost the Yankees nothing, it represents another failed Cashman deal that fans can’t help but complain about incessantly as each cringeworthy update crosses the timeline.
Never in our wildest dreams would anybody have even thought Montas could’ve earned an Opening Day nod with one of the worst teams in MLB, but he somehow arbitrarily managed to do it with one of the best young clubs in baseball.
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