text: Jon Niese was OK — not great, not awful, about what you expect from a #5 starter. He allowed an eye-popping 12 hits in 6 innings but no walks and 4 runs. I think that is termed a “quality start”. Looking away from the numbers and at him as a human, Niese seemed to do a good job of getting on top of the ball and finishing his pitches early in the game, but gradually dropped his arm angle a bit — causing his fastball to flatten and his curveball to be tipped off. He threw the curve only sparingly the first two times through the lineup, then started to use it more the third time through, but it hung often and he gave it away by coming more over the top. He did throw maybe two or three sharp curves, but the rest hung high or never bit enough to make it into the strike zone — he was cutting off the follow through on it. It seemed that the Reds batters realized they could sit on the fastball and slider, which both were flat and moved mostly horizontally; without vertical drop, a slider (or cutter, whatever he wants to call it) is generally ineffective.