Cincy’s Tough Decision: Cingrani or Leake?

The Ace for the Cincinnati Reds, Johnny Cueto, was placed on the disabled list on April 14. Tony Cingrani was later on brought up from AAA to fill his spot.

Since Cingrani has been up, he has been nothing less than fantastic. Tony has started five games, lasted 28 innings (that’s 5.6 innings per game on average), has a nice 2.89 ERA, has surrendered only 25 hits (on average, five hits per game), nine earned runs, and fanned an impressive 37 batters, on average he records an amazing 7.4 strikeouts per game.

The worst outing Cingrani has had came on May 4 against the Chicago Cubs. He still put together a nice start, six innings, four runs, three walks, three hits, and nine strikeouts. Think about that, the worst game he has pitched, he only gives up four runs and three hits.

Cingrani has not yet given up more than four runs in a game. The most amount of hits he has surrendered-five. Three times this season, Tony has recorded eight or more strikeouts.

Now let’s talk about Mike Leake. Leake started the year as the fifth starter, now he is battling to keep a spot not only in the rotation, but in the big leagues.

So far, Leake is 2-2 with a 4.32 ERA. Leake has looked great at times, like he did in April against the Phillies. In that game he pitched seven innings of shutout, three hit baseball. He has not really had a terrible game, the most amount of runs he has given up in a game is five.

Leake is still a great starter, but it would be hard to keep him up when comparing him to Tony Cingrani.

Cingrani has a better ERA, has more strikeouts, has a better record, and better pitches.

It will be tough for Dusty and Walt to decide who should stay up, but as of now, Cingrani would probably be the man to stay up.