Last Year, Reds closer Alexis Diaz placed himself on the doorstep of the elite closers of baseball, after picking up 37 saves in 40 opportunities with an ERA just north of 3. Expectations were high for a Reds team that some experts picked as a potential playoff team headed into 2024. Unfortunately for the Reds closer, this Spring Training was a bit of a wake up call and sadly it appears that those struggles have followed him into the regular season.
A Rough Spring for Alexis Diaz
While Spring Training is mainly for getting stretched out and staying healthy, ideally your better players will look like MLB caliber players. This Spring, Alexis Diaz struggled with his command, and unsurprisingly, poor results followed.
In just under 8 innings, Alexis Diaz let up a whopping 9 earned runs. Causing alarm, 3 batters took Diaz deep, nearly matching his total for all of last season. While players are frequently working on different pitches and are more focused on getting ready, many fans hoped Diaz would turn the corner once the season started.
However, the first appearance would quickly turn into a nightmare.
A Brutal First Appearance
On Saturday, with the Cincinnati Reds clinging to a 6-4 lead over the visiting Washington Nationals, the team turned to Alexis Diaz with the hopes of moving to 2-0 to start the young season. Sadly for the Reds, the result would be a disaster.
The inning started with C.J. Abrams walking on 4 straight pitches before Diaz was able to strikeout Lane Thomas. Jesse Winker would single in Abrams (who had stolen second) before the wheels really started to fall off.
Joey Meneses would single moving Winker to third and Joey Gallo worked the second four-pitch walk of the inning, loading the bases for Keibert Ruiz. With the tying run only 90-feet away, an Alexis Diaz fastball badly missed the target and grazed Ruiz’s shirt. The hit-by-pitch would send the tying run across the plate and marked the end of the day for Diaz.
Brent Suter came in to try and stop the bleeding, but a sacrifice fly from Eddie Rosario sent the Reds home a loser for the first time in the 2024 season.
Looking Forward
Last year, Alexis Diaz was too good for his job to be in jeopardy, but it will be something worth monitoring as the season progresses. The Reds are seen throughout the baseball world as a fringe playoff team, playing in what is seen as a weaker division, so any slip-ups could be the difference between playing baseball in October or an early start to the off-season. Meanwhile, the Nationals are expected to be one of the weaker teams in the sport, making the loss a bit more of a painful pill to swallow.
For now, the Reds will have to hope that Diaz is just taking a little longer to get ready and that sooner than later he will bounce back to his old self. If he can’t, the team can’t afford to blow too many more saves and might have to start re-evaluating the back end of their bullpen.
One thing potentially working in Diaz’s favor, the likely internal options to challenge for the closer role, Lucas Sims and Fernando Cruz, also let up runs during the game. For the Reds, they’ll have to hope that their bullpen is able to start stringing together quality appearances, or a season that looked to have some potential might be headed down the drain.
Let us know your thoughts on Alexis Diaz, the Reds bullpen and baseball’s opening weekend in the comments below!
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