Once the strength of the team, the starting pitching staff turned out to be a major weakness in 2017. Just a year after Andrew Zellner and J.T. Perez looked like Cincinnati’s version of Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, both starters stumbled and the supporting staff also had some trouble.
It begins with Zellner. He just didn’t have it in his senior season. His struggles were so pronounced he was even taken out of the starting rotation for a bit. It was a major letdown after the right-hander was a first-team All-American Athletic Conference hurler in 2016. In all he went 3-5 with a 5.