Blake Dunn After his Game Winning Hit
This offseason, the Reds made a couple of huge moves to try and fuel a winning season and their first playoff season in five years. After coaching the Reds for the last six years, head coach David Bell was fired and replaced with former Cleveland Guardians Assistant Terry Francona.
In addition, the Reds acquired many players, including LF Gavin Lux from the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had just won a World Series with the team. The Reds also traded star 2B Jonathan India for pitcher Brady Singer in what was a blockbuster MLB trade. Additionally, the Reds acquired former Golden Glove with the Yankees Jose Trevino to be a backup catcher, and lastly, they got back Matt McClain, who was injured all of last year.
Last week, the MLB started, and the Cincinnati Reds season kicked off in similar fashion to many of their respective season. Following a 1-2 start, the Reds had a magical outing vs. the Texas Rangers in which they won 14-3. This came on the backbone of a home run from second baseman Matt McClain and two home runs from Superstar short stop Elly De La Cruz. Additionally, both players contributed four runs apiece.
However, after starting out 2-2, the Reds went on to lose the next two games to the Rangers, totaling zero runs in both games. Then, in the series opener vs the Milwaukee Brewers, the Reds scored zero runs again. This three-game losing streak in which they didn’t score a run for three straight games was the first time a team had done this since the 1920s. Following these three games, the Reds finally got a run but still lost 2-3 to the Brewers. Finally, in the next game, the Reds beat the Brewers 11-7 off of pitching from Brady Singer and home runs from DH T.J Friedl, CF Blake Dunn, 1B Christian Encarnacioin-Strand, and C Jose Trevino. However, after a strong performance, the Reds seemingly used up their momentum and couldn’t get the job done in the series finale vs the Brewers, losing 2-8 off of poor starting pitching from Carson Spiers, who allowed four earned runs.
With the season still early and the Reds 3-7 at the time, there was time, but the Reds needed to make improvements and quickly.
Fortunately, the Reds have improved slightly and won their last two outings vs the San Fransisco Giants. After ending the first three games vs. the Giants 1-2, winning these last two puts us at 3-2 vs them. The Giants have started the season strong with an 8-3 record to date. In the first win vs the Giants, we won 2-0 on the backbone of Hunter Green, who pitched a perfect 8.2 innings allowing zero runs. Then, our bats finally came through with a great game-clinching hit by Jacob Hurtubise in the ninth inning to wheel in two runs and ultimately run away with the win. Then last night, the Reds won 1-0 by way of stellar pitching by Nick Lodolo with a great zero-earned-run six-inning performance and then our bullpen of Graham Ashcraft and Emilio Pagan performing perfectly through the last three innings. Additionally, Spencer Steer had two hits and our single run to go away with the game in photo finish fashion.
Today, the Reds are 5-7 and slowly creeping their way back to .500. After the start this team had, being in the position we are in seems fortunate and well off. That said, there is a lot of work still to be done, and we are only 7% of the season through. For the Reds to have a successful season, they will need to start to hit better and continue their dominance in pitching and fielding.