This is game 2 of a 3-game set at Great American Ball Park, and both clubs arrive banged up in different ways. The Phillies are without Adolis Garcia and Johan Rojas for the rest of the season — Garcia had season-ending surgery on a torn lat, and Rojas is out following elbow surgery — while the Reds are without half their rotation depth with Brandon Williamson and Graham Ashcraft both on the 60-day IL.
Philadelphia's slide is the bigger story right now. The Phillies have dropped 4 of their last 5, capped by that 1-15 disaster in Kansas City, and it's a rough gut check for a team that's still just 2 games back of Atlanta in the NL East. Interim manager Don Mattingly turned this club around after a 9-19 start under Rob Thomson, but a stretch like this is exactly the kind of thing that can unravel momentum in a hurry.
Cincinnati isn't exactly rolling either, but there's more going right lately. The Reds took 2 of 3 from Baltimore over the weekend, and rookie third baseman Sal Stewart has been raking all year, hitting for the kind of power and average that's got him in the Rookie of the Year conversation alongside Burns. Terry Francona has been publicly unbothered by the outside noise around a team that's fallen off the pace in the NL Central, and a night with his best arm on the mound is as good a spot as any to build on that.
Both teams have flashed contender upside this year and both have looked lost for stretches, too. Wednesday's not a must-win in July, but for a Phillies club trying to keep pace in a tight division and a Reds team trying to prove its record undersells them, it's a real measuring-stick night.