Cincinnati Reds‘ manager Bryan Price has to be wondering if it’s déjà vu all over again as his undefeated team squares off against the equally unbeaten Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Reds started the season 3-0 last year like this year. The 2015 Reds would advance to 4-0 before suffering through a 98-loss season.
The Reds actually swept the Pirates last year to begin the 2015 season. This year the Pirates swept the St. Louis Cardinals to start their season.
Tonight’s battle of the unbeatens features starting pitchers Alfredo Simon for the Reds and Francisco Liriano for the Pirates.
Simon will be making his season debut start. During his All-Star 2014 season as starter for the Reds, Simon started four times against the Pirates with a 2-1 record and 4.32 ERA in 25 innings.
Against current Pirates’ players, Simon has surrendered just two homers in 183 plate appearances. Current Pirates are batting .253 against him with Gregory Polanco hitting best at 4-for-9 against Simon.
Among current Reds’ hitters with more than 10 at-bats, only catcher Devin Mesoraco is hitting above .250 against Liriano with five hits in 13 at-bats. Liriano has also walked Mesoraco seven times.
The Reds-Pirates is also a battle for small-market relevancy. The Reds endured nine straight losing seasons from 2001-2009 before opening a window to two NL Central titles and a Wild Card berth in four years from 2010 through 2013. That window now appears to be cemented shut for awhile.
The Pirates sustained 20 straight losing seasons from 1993-2012 before running off three Wild Card berths in a row. They are in a position for a fourth straight post-season berth this year.
The Ohio River neighbors are truer rivals in geographic similarity and market-size than the rest of their division foes. The two teams will most likely have to gauge their success against each other rather than the rest of the division.
That is unless Punxsutawney Phil emerges from winter slumber one year only to find his shadow has been replaced by a hard salary cap agreed to by the alliance of big-market owners, the players’ union and the high-dollar agents who all function together to make parity in baseball an anomaly and not the norm.
Robb Hoff writes about the Cincinnati Reds for OutsidePitch MLB. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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