Hunter Greene Returns Off IL to Pitch Against Cubs

Watch Hunter Greene Returns Off IL to Pitch Against Cubs - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00in Cincinnati. Hunter Green off the IL now for the Reds, the ace of the staff who is having a

00:06tremendous start to this year before a groin injury placed him on the IL. His first start

00:11since early May, a 4-2 record, a 2-3-6 ERA and an NL Cy Young contender at full health. Hunter

00:19Green back to face the Chicago Cubs, one of those four teams around the National League

00:24with at least 30 wins. Of course, the best record so far within this division. How do you break

00:29down the matchup today between the Cubbies and the Reds? Yeah, hopefully if we can see the same

00:34sort of picture Hunter Green was before the injury, that would be fantastic. 65-degree

00:38temperatures here at Great American Ballpark, wind blowing out really to left center field

00:41around 8 miles per hour, so decent hitting conditions tonight. But again, Hunter Green,

00:46do you trust a guy coming back off? Is that groin, you know, fully rehabilitated, which means

00:50that maybe you weren't going all out in your rehab starts or getting back to Major League

00:54Baseball. I usually tend to shy away from those type of situations, even though the expectations

00:59are he's healthy, he should pitch fine. You take a look at Matthew Boyd over the past

01:0229 innings over the last month at .372 ERA and a .322 XFIP number, which really checks out

01:08well. Now, over those last 30 days, 95 batters, he really does well against lefties, which he's

01:13only faced 24 of those. He's handled those, but the right-handed batters have gotten to him.

01:17However, though, it's one of those things where left-handed pitchers are quirky. Outside of very

01:21select teams here, most teams don't handle them all that well. Espinal's got a high

01:25weighted on base percentage, Austin Hayes and Tyler Stevenson, but everybody else limited at

01:29bats and not a lot of success. And that includes Eli De La Cruz. He has had 33 at bats and he's not

01:35even a lefty. He's a switcher. So we're batting from the right-hand side, an 032 ISO and a weighted

01:39on base percentage of 242 and a K rate of close to 25%. If we look again at that Cubs lineup, it does

01:46present itself much better. But again, what are we getting out of Hunter Green in this game to try

01:51to focus? I can see where it's roughly a pick them. That does make some sense. And where the

01:54eight and a half is to me, too many questions, too many variables here to me give an honest answer

01:59about this game tonight with the Cincinnati Reds. I get it, DRS. We'll see what Hunter Green has. You

02:04hope that he is healthy for my Cincinnati Reds, who I need to get to 80 wins this year. Right now,

02:11the Reds are 25 and 26, a game below 500 against Chicago. The best record in this division, 30 and 20.