The law of averages and the pain of inevitability have haunted Cincinnati Reds pitching since that glorious 2012 season - the one that saw the same five pitchers combine for 161 of 162 starts, felled only by a Todd Redmond spot-start in a day/night doubleheader. Injuries, ineffective outings, and an insistent reliance on rookies have been the dominant stories for the starting rotation for most of the time since then, with the previous two years specifically awful in that regard.
Last year, sixteen different pitchers started games for the Reds. In 2016, fifteen different starters were used.