Sure, Aroldis Chapman and his 105-mph fastball lit up everybody’s radar gun, but the backbone of the Cincinnati Reds – the team’s perform-like-clockwork starting rotation – has pretty much flown under the national radar all season.

They’re a colorful bunch, from Mat Latos’ body-covering tats and his 70-plus snakes and lizards to Bronson Arroyo’s long, blond hair and guitar and Homer Bailey’s cowboy boots and that blue lariat he’s been known to take from his locker to lasso somebody. But to the outside world these guys have been seen up to now in just shades of gray.

“This team has gone under the radar all year,” Arroyo, the veteran starter said Monday afternoon. “We’ve been a little quiet over here. It’s kind of the culture. Obviously we don’t play in a huge market and we haven’t gotten into the playoffs much in the last 20 years.

“Guys are starting to get a little more notoriety now. Homer throwing the no-hitter helped out a good bit. And no one missing a start all year has made a nice case for that, as well. But we probably will stay (unnoticed) until we get past the hump of the first round (of the playoffs).”

While they haven’t quite cleared the hump, they’ve walked over the San Francisco Giants the past two games the way Hannibal tromped over the Alps back in 200 B.C.

Coming into this afternoon’s game at Great American Ball Park, the Reds have a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five division series. They’ve taken command of this playoff match-up thanks mostly to the heroics of a couple of their starting pitchers.

When Johnny Cueto, the ace of the staff, was abruptly forced off the mound with back spasms after eight pitches in Saturday night’s series opener, the Reds didn’t panic. Instead they showed just how much they had Johnny’s aching back.

Reliever Sam LeCure kept the Giants at bay for 1 2/3 innings until Latos – who had been scheduled to start tonight – loosened up just enough to take over in one of the more improbable efforts of the playoffs. He threw four innings of relief and gave up just a lone home run.

“It’s very difficult for a starter to do that, but it wasn’t difficult for him – trust me,” said Arroyo, who noted that when the former San Diego Padre’s name was announced before the game, the Giants crowd, which knows him only too well, booed lustily.

“(Mat) was clapping. He couldn’t wait to step on the mound in San Francisco.”

With such a Terminator-like effort from Latos, the hitters then flexed enough to give Cincinnati the 5-2 victory.

And Sunday night Arroyo turned in the performance of his career, throwing seven innings of one-hit, shutout ball in what would end up a 9-0 Cincinnati win.

Now Homer Bailey – 12 days removed from his no-hitter against Pittsburgh – starts for the Reds.

Monday afternoon, manager Dusty Bakers and a few of the starters talked about the rotation. Cueto did not spend much time chatting. He was going back and forth to the training room and finally left with a bottle of pills rattling in his pocket.

“We don’t know when he will be back or even if he will be back,” said Arroyo. “But we have guys who can step up — we are deeper than people think.”

The rotation went 120 days with each of the five starters taking the mound as expected. They were the last team in the majors to use a sixth starter.

The starters led the National League in innings, and partly because they lasted so long in games, the bullpen wasn’t overworked and finished with the best ERA (2.59) in the league.

“You may never see another pitching staff do what we did again,” said fifth starter Mike Leake.

Bailey agreed: “We had four guys with at least 200 innings and sub-4 ERAs. That showed how strong we are across the board.”

Yet, if some of their stats look alike, not much else does, laughed Arroyo, whose locker is flanked by those of Bailey and Latos:

“All five guys in the rotation are totally different, personality-wise and stuff-wise. We’re totally different creatures.

“Homer and I are almost as far apart on the spectrum as you can get. He ropes. I play guitar. He’s a Texas guy. He loves to hunt and kill animals. I don’t kill animals. He’s a hard thrower. He throws a lot of four-seam fastballs. I don’t.“

He described the 24-year-old Latos – brought in this year in a trade with San Diego – like this: “He’s young, full of energy. He comes to the park early, likes to bounce around and talk to everybody. He’s got reptiles all over his home and his wife is tweeting 24 hours a day.”

As for Cueto, who has talked about learning baseball in the Dominican Republic with a stick as a bat and a piece of old leather tied with string as a glove, Arroyo said:

“He grew up totally different. Probably a lot poorer than the rest of us. He probably had to play the game just to feel he had a chance to survive in the world. He’s the least thinker of all of us. He goes out with brute power, man, and just says. ‘Here it is, see if you can hit it. See if you can hit my 95-mph slider.

“He doesn’t have as much of a game plan as the rest of us, but as he’s shown, he doesn’t need it.”

Baker said he likes it that his starters are so diverse:

“You don’t want everybody to be cloned to be the same on your team. We’ve got guys from different walks in life, different countries, different states. One guy drives a truck, one a BMW. I’m glad they’re different … and most of all, I urge them to be themselves.”

And no wonder.

When they are themselves, they are one of the best — and most colorful — rotations in baseball.