San Francisco Giants vs. Cincinnati Reds: Series Preview

The San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds face off for the first time in 2017. It will be their first of two series against each-other in a span of 10 days.

The San Francisco Giants are coming off only their second series win of 2017, but it was a big one. The Giants pulled out a big win in extra innings on Wednesday night against their arch-rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Now, they take on the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds are currently third in the NL Central, sitting at 14-14. They have quite an interesting setup. Their Bullpen has worked the most innings of any unit in baseball, but have a pretty good ERA, a 3.30 that’s good for 8th in baseball.

On the flip side, their starters have worked the least amount amongst units (that’s usually how that works), and have the worst ERA for starters in baseball. They are sitting at 5.72, have the highest HR/9 in baseball as well.

Their offense is pretty interesting as well. They are eleventh in baseball in runs scored, and have a top five slugging percentage in baseball.

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It’s safe to say things will be interesting in this series, given how offense friendly Great America Ballpark is. Here is how the starters will line up:

• Friday 5/5: Matt Cain (2-0, 2.30 ERA) vs. Bronson Arroyo (2-2, 7.20 ERA)
• Saturday 5/6: Ty Blach (0-1, 2.55 ERA) vs. Amir Garrett (2-2, 4.50 ERA)
• Sunday 5/7: Johnny Cueto (4-1, 4.86 ERA) vs. Scott Feldman (1-3, 4.83)

Sunday will be a fun matchup as Johnny Cueto returns to the mound at Great America Ballpark for the second time in a different uniform.

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The key to this series for the San Francisco Giants will simply be that they need to keep the Reds offense off the board, and make sure they take advantage of the bad pitching. Hopefully the offense gets a good wake-up this series.