Reds Phenom De La Cruz Statis-Pro Card Debut in stunning beat down of Giants

The story of recent weeks, Elly De La Cruz of the Reds, debuts in our Statis-Pro game. So far he is destroying right-handed pitching and struggling against left-handed pitching, thus the 14/86 indicates in the first game against the Giants RHP Logan Webb he converts 86-88 into singles with runners advancing two bases. in the second game against LHP Sean Manaea an 11-14 is converted to a strikeout.

Compared to the vet on the team, Joey Votto, he does strike out a ton (38-66) and does not walk much (67-68) but other than that you couldn't get much better than him on speed (A/A), fielding (next to best CD4 at both shortstop and third base) and as a switch hit power hitter (SP) he gets a hit or at least a deep drive that usually goes out in hitter friendly Cincinnati on 11-37. In Cincinnati an 11-63 is a homer on a deep drive, but for the second game in San Francisco only a 11-33 will go out. 

Results follow below.

As exciting as using De La Cruz's cards was, and fun as it was to have him go 4 of 10 with a homer in his first 2-game series, there was no way to anticipate the absolute beat down they would give the Giants in his first two game series. As we show on our game tracker, the Reds were 7-23 in our season, before a 6 game to 0 sweep of the Phillies and now this 5 game to 1 win over the Giants to improve to 18-24 in our league. The 7-1 win in the opener counted as a 3 games to 0 sweep due to leading by more than 5 runs after 8 innings, however the 10-3 win did not because they needed to score four runs in the ninth so only led 6-3 after 8 innings.

The Giants meanwhile dropped from 8-4 and a tie in first place to 9-9 and tied for 4th place with the Mets, who coincidentally are their next series on the grid.

Here is the tracker schedule for the Reds. I do have typo on their last game - they won it 7-1 not 7-0 so will fix.

And here it is for the Giants.

Here are the Reds batters from the roster sheet we keep 

 

Jose Barrero

Will Benson (Bat: L)

Curt Casali

Elly De La Cruz

Stuart Fairchild

Jake Fraley (Bat: L)

TJ Friedl (Bat: L)

Jonathan India

Luke Maile

Matt McLain

Wil Myers

Kevin Newman

Henry Ramos (Bat: S)

Matt Reynolds

Nick Senzel

Spencer Steer

Tyler Stephenson

Jason Vosler (Bat: L)

And here are the Giants batters.

Patrick Bailey (Bat: S)

Joey Bart

Matt Beaty (Bat: L)

Michael Conforto (Bat: L)

Brandon Crawford (Bat: L)

J.D. Davis

Thairo Estrada

Wilmer Flores

Mitch Haniger

Bryce Johnson (Bat: S)

Joc Pederson (Bat: L)

Roberto Pérez

Heliot Ramos

Darin Ruf

Blake Sabol (Bat: L)

Casey Schmitt

Austin Slater

Cal Stevenson (Bat: L)

David Villar

LaMonte Wade Jr. (Bat: L)

Brett Wisely (Bat: L)

Austin Wynns

Mike Yastrzemski (Bat: L)

Click for the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. Click here for 60 of the all-time great MLB teams, or on teams of many of the all-time great players on teams by nation or state with one sheet for each team. Or click on the 2023 pitchers and 2023 batters in card form. You simply print two teams cards and then either print theaster link above and fast action cards in master link or buy the dice to start playing. 

Greatest Statis-pro game of year kicks off Padres hosting 1st Place LA and MIL

Only those who play the free Statis-Pro Baseball will understand the thrills that went into the plays at the plate, deep drives and other plays that went into the beginning of the Padres season ending home stand against the two 1st place teams - the Dodgers and Brewers.

The game ended on a "37" on Fernando Tatis' card, the first in his strike-out range as a 35 or 36 would have been a DEEP drive and potential game-tying homer to force a 13th inning.

As a result the Dodgers move with a 1/2 game of the Brewers for the crucial first round bye, and the Padres move a half game behind the Reds and Cardinals for the final wild card spot, so would miss the playoffs by a half game if the season ended today (see standings below).

Scherzer pitched a dominant 7.1 innings of four hit ball and left after walking Tatis with the Dodgers leading 2-1. Darvish had fought through a lot more pressure by inducing four double play grounders in the first five innings to keep it close.

Tatis stole and scored on a Machado single, and then Grisham singled. However, the bottom of the 8th inning ended on a Clutch Defensive opportunity for Dodgers SS Seager to determine if a go-ahead single went through the infield, he knocked it down for a and got a force out, or he made a diving catch and doubled the lead runner off. As a Clutch Defense 5 (the highest, 1-5) he made the diving catch to end the inning with the score tied 2-2. This is only fair since in the top of the 8th with Seager at the plate he smashed a ball up the middle that 2nd baseman Frazier (a Clutch Defense 5 traded for from the Pirates) likewise made a diving play) to keep the Dodgers from being ahead.

With Bellinger starting the top of the 10th, Trea Turner singled him to third and then stole second. Betts then beat out a grounder to short to give the Dodgers a 3-2 lead, and then Betts stole 2nd to put 2nd and 3rd with no outs. However, Adams (PB: 2-9, the best) struck out Muncy and Smith, and then induced a pop foul by Pollock to keep it there. 

And then Mookie Betts took over in extra innings. In right field he gunned out the game-winning run at home in both the 10th and 11th inning, first nailing Marisnik trying to score from second on a single and then Machado trying to tag and score on a deep fly ball. Machado would have scored to win the game on an 11-41 (better chance than of getting a 2-out hit), and out at the plate on a 42-88, and Betts drew a 43 to barely beat him.

Bellinger hit a DEEP drive that could have won the games in extras. A deep drive leaves the Padres Stadium on a random number of 11-34, and is a deep flyout on a 35-88. Bellinger drew a 38, out of most parks.

In the 12th he singled Bellinger home, stole second, and scored himself on a Muncy single for the 5-3 win. 

Final Statis-Pro Rosters and Transactions: Braves, Mets, Cardinals, Nationals and Reds

The following are the rosters of Statis-Pro baseball cards we are using for the divisional games in our "South & East" Division. During the season we keep up with big trades, to keep the rosters pretty close, but we don't move the players cards in and out with all the changes in modern Major League Baseball.

1. If a player is on the roster and we already had a Statis-Pro card (or temporary card) in our deck for the games we'd been playing, then obviously the remain in the game and under "Last Update" it simply says "Roster."

2. If a player we had on the team was injured but is at least rehabbing (including in the minors) to prepare to play again we keep him in the game and note the last transaction update below.

3. If a player was sent to the minors or injured within the last two months then we leave them in the game.

4. We ditch a player if they were released or traded, were not on the roster and are on 60-day DL and not yet rehabbing, or if they were sent to the minors more than 2 months ago and have not returned. Most if these players we ditch, but a key player like deGrom we keep in the stack and just mark them to check the tramsactions wires regularly to see if they start pitching again.

5. "Temporary Card" indicates the player did not actually have a projected 2021 card, but due to playing a good bit we added a temporary "fringe" card for the player. Fringe cards appear after these 5 rosters - and entail using a pitcher's projected ERA or a batter's projected OPS and the corresponding card at the end of this blog.

Reds Clinch With Blowout + 8 2-3 No Hit Ball

 Our most "boring" three series of the year wrapped up our NL inter division round robin. Basically the Reds and Brewers still needed the chance to beef up their records against the hapless Pirates, and the now depleted Nats against the also relegated Marlins.

However, the first of these final games yielded some suspense, as the Reds needed to go at least 2-4 vs. the Pirates, or the Phillies would snatch the last qualifying spot and the Reds would drop to relegated.

The Reds clinched with a 10-3 sweep in the first game, as rookie of the year candidate Jonathan India reached base 4 of 10 times in the series in which 12 of the Reds 13 hits went for extra bases. The Reds then passed 5 other teams when Mahle, Sims and Garrett went through the line-up 3 times allowing only one baserunner, a walk. Polanco then spoiled the no-hitter with a 2 out double in the 9th off Garrett, but the Reds won 4-0 to take the series 5 games to 1 and improve to 44-40. 

With that win we have a phenom in the standings below - all 10 teams would make the 6-team playoffs if the season ended today. The 5 teams the Reds passed are all 2 games above .500, meaning they are all in a tie for 6th place. The Nats and Cubs likely fall now that they are playing with their depleted rosters, but still a thrilling final run.

Here are the final records for the relegated teams and then those that will continue in our 2 divisions. Results of the final 2 relegated series below.

The best in our game played the worst, so no surprise the Brewers won 5 games to 1 to knock the Pirates below a .300 winning percentage to end their season.

Four Pirates errors resulting 2 unearned runs to waste a great outing by Keller in a 3-1 Brewers win. In the second game former Rays SS Adames had 2 doubles and 2 homers in his last 4 at bats and led a 9-0 sweep. The Brewers will enter divisional play with a 3 game lead over any other team in either division.

Marlin Bryan de la Cruz debuted with a double on a 2 of 5 game and 12-11 win in 11 innings the nightcap after Corbin pitched the Nats to a 1-0 win in 10 innings in the opener.

Now thar these "boring" three series are over the 5 relegated teams are done for the season. The actual contenders start to go through 20 divisional series (4 for each qualifier, one each against each of their "South & East" and "North & West" Divisional foes).

At that point the 2 divisional champs get byes and the next four best records overall play wild card series, while the worst 4 records will be dropped.