Yep, the Cincinnati Reds play again today

This time, it’s in Cleveland!

Freddie Benavides has never technically been a manager of a Major League Baseball team. However, he has served as the bench coach for a manager who got ejected more often than Barry Bonds saw pitches in the strike zone, so he’s quite familiar with being given the task on very short notice.

The Cincinnati Reds officially fired David Bell on Sunday, and it the wake of the news promoted Benavides to interim manager status for the remainder of the 2024 regular season. Said regular season continues this evening in Cleveland as the Reds and Guardians play a meaningless baseball game with one team already playoff bound and the other a moribund lump.

In other words, I expect it to be a rockin’ gamethread around Red Reporter. Obviously, right?

When I began writing this yesterday, Jakob Junis was set to do the starting for Cincinnati on the night, doing so with an $8 million mutual option to be decided upon after the season. Considering how well he has pitched for the Reds down the stretch, I wonder if another excellent outing will push him, like Nick Martinez, into the likely opt-out bucket of Reds arms in a few weeks.

According to The Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith, though, Junis will have his start pushed back a day for ‘personal reasons,’ so Carson Spiers will now toe the rubber to start what will surely end up yet another game that leans on the bullpen.

Tanner Bibee will go for the Guardians, who already have won 90 games this year and clinched their division. Speaking of which, here’s Reds front office guru Nick Krall when discussing his fired manager and the complexities of trying to win games in Cincinnati:

Small market. 90+ win Cleveland.

Whatever, Nick.

Lineups below for this exhilarating Tuesday night contest.