Joey Votto: How All-Star’s Injury Impacts N.L. Central Race
By Matt Shetler
When it was announced a couple of days ago that Cincinnati Reds All-Star first baseman Joey Votto would be lost from the Reds lineup, it changed the face of the National League Central race and impacted the Pittsburgh Pirates a great deal.
Are the Bucs now the favorites to win the division? On paper it looks that way.
That doesn’t mean they will, but they have a much better chance to do so now.
The bottom line is that next to the Pirates Andrew McCutchen and the Los Angeles Dodgers Matt Kemp, Votto is the next most irreplaceable player in a National League lineup.
We saw what happened to the Dodgers when they lost Kemp. They went from the best team in baseball to a team that is currently only five games over .500 and 2.5 games out of first in the National League West.
We also know how the Bucs would fall apart without Cutch in the lineup.
The same thing applies to Votto.
The Reds don’t win consistently without his bat in the lineup.
So far in 2012, the Reds are a 2-3 team without Votto in the lineup and over the past four seasons, they are a 23-28 team without the 2010 MVP in the middle of their order.
What that tells you is that this Reds team won’t be pulling away from the Pirates anytime soon. Currently, both the Pirates and Reds sit at 52-40. Would anyone be surprised to see them lose five or six games off that 12 games over .500 mark by the time Votto returns?
Not at all. The Reds aren’t that good of a team to be able to survive the loss of a player with the pedigree of Votto at this point in the season.
That alone makes the Pirates the favorite. The schedule plays into their hands and if they can continue to take 2-of-3 from everyone, they have as good of a chance as any other team in the division.
The Cardinals bullpen is awful and they have to run average arms like Jake Westbrook and Kyle Loshe out there every five days. They sit a mere two games under .500 and would have to put together some serious winning streaks to make up five games in the standings in the next month.
The same goes for Milwaukee, who’s at three games under .500 really isn’t a threat in the division at the moment.
Right now, the Votto injury has opened up the door for the Pirates.
Whether they kick it in and walk through is another story altogether, but the opportunity is there for the Pirates top open up some distance between themselves and the Reds over the course of the next three-to-four weeks.