After taking the series in dramatic fashion over the Washington Nationals to start the year, the Cincinnati Reds hit the road for the first time today as they begin a series against the Philadelphia Phillies. It’s supposed to rain much of the afternoon in Philadelphia, but clear up a few hours before the scheduled first pitch at 6:40pm ET.

There were two pretty big splits last season for Andrew Abbott. The first was that he was dominant against left-handed hitters. He held them to a .495 OPS and gave up just three extra-base hits to them in 20 games and 85 plate appearances. Righties performed better, putting up an .800 OPS against him while walking more than twice as often and making more (but not tons of) contact.

Despite pitching his home games at Great American Ball Park, Abbott was much better at home. With that said, it was more of a fact of the matter that his BABIP was nearly twice as high on the road – .399(!) to .207. On the road he had nearly identical walk and strikeout rates, and he allowed six fewer home runs while having just five fewer batters faced on the road as at home. But that BABIP difference led to an OPS different of 179 points.

There are pretty big splits for Sanchez. As a lefty, he is dominant against left-handed hitters. Teams don’t send many lefties out to face him, but the ones who do get that chance probably shouldn’t. Last season they put up a .401 OPS against him. Right-handed hitters were solid against Sanchez, posting a .765 OPS against him. They don’t walk much at all, but show good power and hit .260. He threw nearly three times as many innings at home as he did on the road in 2023, so there’s a sample size issue here but his ERA was nearly twice as high at home (3.93) as it was on the road (2.08).

Sanchez didn’t throw a cutter in the past, but this spring he showed one off in his one game that had pitch tracking, throwing it 15% of the time. His velocity was also up nearly 2 MPH in that game back in late February.

Things haven’t exactly gone well for Sam Moll while on his rehab assignment (shoulder impingement) with the Triple-A Louisville Bats. He pitched in two of the three games that the Bats have played since their season started on Friday night. The first time out he allowed two runs on three hits in an inning of work. On Sunday he allowed another run on two hits in an inning of work. His velocity is down by quite a bit. He’s averaged 91.0 MPH on his fastball through the two appearances. Last season he averaged 93.9 MPH on his fastball. There’s a reason he’s rehabbing, but being down nearly 3 MPH isn’t a great thing to see.