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The Phils start their series with the Reds on Wednesday. Cincinnati comes into the playoffs with the best offense in the National League this year, having scored 790 runs in the regular season. The Phils were second in runs scored with 772.

The charts below report results for the eight Phillies regulars and the eight Cincinnati players who have seen the most time at each position this season. The eight Cincinnati players are lefties Joey Votto and Jay Bruce and righties Ramon Hernandez, Brandon Phillips, Orlando Cabrera, Scott Rolen, Jonny Gomes and Drew Stubbs. Three other players for Cincy have also started at least ten games since the beginning of September but aren’t included on the list. All three of them are righties — catcher Ryan Hanigan, infielder Paul Janish and outfielder Chris Heisey.

For the 16 players (eight for the Phils and eight for the Reds), here’s the percentage of plate appearances in which they have walked and singled this season:

Votto is the king of the walks for the group, but things look good for the Phils overall — six of the bottom eight slots on the list belong to Cincinnati players. Not only that, but we’ve finally found somebody who walks less than Polanco. Polanco finds himself atop the list of the players most like to single in a particular plate appearance.

The percentage of hits that a player has that goes for singles is obviously a different number than the percentage of plate appearances in which he singles. Werth is the player in the group that has had the lowest percentage of hits go for singles. He has 164 hits on the year and only 89 of them (54.3%) were singles. Rolen and Votto are right behind him — Rolen saw just 57.5% of his hits go for singles and Votto 57.6%. Polanco is at the other end of that list. 78.8% of his hits went for singles and nobody else is real close. Hernandez (72.0%) and Orlando Cabrera (71.5%) are next.

Here’s the plate appearances that ended in a single or a walk and the percentages of plate appearances with a double or triple:

Ruiz is the most likely member of the group to get on board due to a walk or single. He walked more than Votto, and while Votto is more likely to get a hit overall (27.3% to 25.9%), Ruiz was more likely to single.

Werth’s 46 doubles leads the group and the league. Rolen was just 19th in the league in doubles with 34, but came to the plate 115 fewer times, so his rate of hitting doubles and triples isn’t too far behind Werth.

I don’t think you want to overlook Orlando Cabrera’s place on the doubles/triples list. The numbers above show he never walks and the numbers below will show he never homers, but he gets more than his share of singles and doubles despite the .263 average for the year.

Here are the rates for home runs and strikeouts:

Drew Stubbs struck out a higher rate than Howard last year and it wasn’t very close. Stubbs whiffed 168 times in 583 plate appearances for the year (28.8%) while Howard struck out in 157 of 620 (25.3%).

Five of the top seven spots on the home run list belong to the Reds. Their top guy, Votto, has a better home rate than the Phillie with the best home run rate (Howard) and their second best guy (Bruce) has a better rate than the second-best guy for the Phils (Werth). The other three spots belong to Reds.

Any idea who is going to get Votto and Bruce out for the Phils? Me neither. JC Romero and Antonio Bastardo sure look like they’re the guys who are going to try. Amaro suggests the problems in Romero’s lower back that forced him from the final game in Atlanta won’t be an issue in this article. Bastardo has faced two batters in his post-season career, striking out Jason Giambi with two outs and the bases loaded in the eighth inning of game four of the 2009 NLDS and allowing a double to Andre Ethier to start the seventh inning in game one of the ’09 NLCS.

You kind of get the feeling that Manuel remembers the double he allowed to Ethier more than the strikeout of Giambi. We will see.

The same article says that Ruiz will be okay after getting drilled by Tim Hudson yesterday.

Here’s my latest guess for the NLDS roster:

Hitters (14): Ruiz, Schneider, Howard, Utley, Rollins, Polanco, Ibanez, Victorino, Werth, Francisco, Valdez, Sweeney, Gload, Dobbs

Pitchers (11): Halladay, Oswalt, Hamels, Blanton, Kendrick, Lidge, Madson, Contreras, Romero, Bastardo, Durbin

Dobbs is the guy I feel least confident about. I’m going to be surprised if one of the other guys is left off. I wouldn’t be that surprised to see Baez, Brown or Herndon take the Dobbs spot.