Jonathan India had a great series against Los Angeles which included a grand slam that seemed like the defining moment for the entire series.
by Chris Ball
Loveland, Ohio – The Reds Have Won A Series For the First Time Since Late April and 4 Straight For The First Time Since July of 2023
A brutal west coast road trip. Loss after loss. Injuries, slumps, implosions. And then the Dodgers came in town. It was a recipe for disaster and a season-ending coffin nail.
Until it wasn’t.
The Reds’ improbable three game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers maybe won’t turn out to be enough to save the season, but dang if it doesn’t feel like the start of something special. Yes the Dodgers have some of their own offensive issues to speak of but their star power and talent can’t be denied. The Reds’ pitchers neutralized some of the league’s best hitters in Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman and they hit around big money pitchers like Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Three straight wins over a team like that should be enough to quiet the doubters and doomsayers for a little while more.
What’s so impressive is the way the Reds are winning. Their bats have come alive again. They are getting contributions from guys like Jonathan India, who looked so overmatched at the plate at times that it was almost sad to watch. He had a great series against Los Angeles which included a grand slam that seemed like the defining moment for the entire series.
Spencer Steer is swinging the bat like he did earlier this year. Jeimer Candelario was improving, got hurt, but returned Monday night and promptly hit a game tying home run. For most of May the Reds got next to nothing from anyone who wasn’t Tyler Stevenson or Elly De La Cruz. But now, they are getting contributions from several different guys on any given night.
No conversation about the Reds’ recent success would be complete without the acknowledgment that none of it would have been possible without how impressive their pitching (both the starters and bullpen) has been. Whether it’s Greene, Abbott, or Ashcraft they’ve turned in solid innings that have put their club in a position to win. The major difference now is that the Reds’ bats have shown up to take advantage of those opportunities. And when that’s happened, the bullpen has been able to step in and lock down their leads and convert them into wins. Alexis Diaz had a very impressive save against the Dodgers, as did Lucas Sims in a victory against the Cardinals on Memorial Day. After having such a difficult and frustrating early season, Lucas Sims has a 1.46 ERA over his last 15 appearances.
Many Reds fans have nightmares about the dreaded “bullpen days” last year that were made necessary by the numerous injuries to the pitching staff. But this year the story has been much different with the major additions the team has made to their bullpen. Nick Martinez proved that when he carried the Reds to a win in one of those bullpen days against the Dodgers this past weekend. He threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings and in the last series facing them he tossed 5 innings while giving up only 1 run.
And on top of that, Nick Lodolo returned to the rotation. He pitched very well against the Cardinals, allowing only 1 run in a little over 5 innings and only walked 1 batter. Having him back makes the rotation compete again, and it could be one of the top units in the league if they all remain healthy.
The Reds are playing as complete a game of baseball as they have in weeks. Though you may not be able to quantify it, you have to wonder how much relief this group of players has gotten from winning their first back to back games, and their first series, in more than a month. We’ve talked before about how they’ve shown flashes of playing great baseball for a game, only to have it all fall apart for the next few games.
Not so much anymore.
This version of the Reds is one that is playing looser, with more energy, and clearly more confidence. And the city is responding as there were plenty of loud and rowdy fans to watch those wins over the Dodgers and Cardinals. If not for the multi-game losing streak earlier on they might not be in such a hard place as Cincinnati actually did not play all that terribly in their recent road trip out west. But this winning streak is surely helping to propel the Reds out of the hole they dug for themselves, and we can only hope that the best is yet to come.
“The team is coming together. It seems like things are clicking.”
- Nick Martini
Baseball is made up of a very long season that can’t be defined by a game, a series, even a month. While it’s impossible to say that this stretch of beautiful baseball will propel this team into contention, if they do make the playoffs or turn it around, it’s going to be very easy to look back on these wins as the moment when it all began.
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Christopher Ball is a longtime Loveland resident and an attorney. He graduated from Loveland High School in 2003 and was a member of the football team before going on to become a coach’s assistant at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. He has been following and rooting for the Reds and Bengals since the early 1990s and has been through the many ups and downs that fandom has wrought over the years.
