Cincinnati Reds have become victims of the Big Donkey Curse
The Cincinnati Reds have had tough sledding to make the playoffs since moving into Great American Ballpark.
The Cincinnati Reds pitchers gave up more home runs this year than any pitching staff in MLB history. That was the latest saga in what has become the Big Donkey Curse. The Big Donkey Curse is the way that the Reds have been unable to win a postseason series since they moved to GABP.
Adam Dunn made his ML B debut in the middle of the 2001 season. He quickly earned the nickname Big Donkey despite the fact that he was an above average athlete. Dunn was the Reds’ best slugger when they moved to their new digs, GABP, to start the 2003 season.
Dunn could enter the Baseball Hall of Fame before Joey Votto. Aside from those two, the only players that seemingly have any chance to beat Votto to the Hall are Brandon Phillps and Jay Bruce. Right now neither of them is trending towards the Hall, though.
Want your voice heard? Join the Blog Red Machine team!
The Big Donkey Curse is that everyone believes he can hit home runs at GABP, giving confidence to visiting hitters.
Even though the Reds gave up the most home runs in the history of MLB this season, they didn’t have the worst pitching staff ever. They also didn’t hit a ton. That points towards visiting teams being overly confident at GABP.
They surrendered a total of 258 home runs. 140 home runs left GABP. GABP is an average National League park. That means the visitors believe that they are better in GABP than the numbers suggest.
This all started with the career of Adam Dunn. The Big Donkey began the era of walks and home runs and the visitors are following him. The Reds need to counteract this somehow.
The Reds’ two best pitchers, Brandon Finnegan and Dan Straily, also were the two most guilty of allowing home runs. How the Reds get around this will be a deciding factor this off-season. The Reds can ignore it, move Finnegan to the bullpen or just get some sluggers and lean in to the home runs.
More from Blog Red Machine
This article originally appeared on 
