Here's your fun stat of the day: If the Cincinnati Reds had a league average BABIP (.292) instead of their historically low BABIP (.237), they would have 47 more hits this year than they do (it would probably be more given that they'd have at least 47 more PA as a result).

Back of the napkin assumption math suggests that in total, it's probably about 60 additional hits if the BABIP played out at .292 over those extra PA you'd pick up).

That would raise the team average by more than 35 points.

Bad luck is killing this team.

The old saying that it's better to be lucky than good certainly applies here.

The Reds hitters have been historically unlucky when it comes to making contact and turning that contact into hits.

The 2020 season is a small sample size, which makes it even more glaring.

We'll add one more: Since 2000 the lowest team BABIP is .269 by the 2010 Blue Jays. If the Reds had a .269 BABIP this year they would have an additional 33 hits this season.

Matching the WORST in the last 20 seasons would give them 33 more hits. Think about that. Try not to cry

We're going to add again, because we like everyone being miserable, too.

From 2000-2019 the Blue Jays of 2010 had the worst team BABIP at .269. The Reds are at .237. That's 32 points between worst and 2nd worst.

32 points is the same between those Blue Jays and team #386/600

There's "these guys aren't good" and then there's whatever the heck kind of curse this is.

The gap between this and the other worst team of the last 20 years of BABIP is the same between that team and 386 of the other 599 teams. That's not a "these guys suck" issue.