Reds Beat: Why Things Aren’t Nearly As Bad As They Might Feel After 2-4 Start

CINCINNATI — Many of those who will ultimately determine how good this Reds team will be in 2025 are not wringing their hands in despair after a 2-4 start to the season and back-to-back 1-0 losses to send them on the road to face Milwaukee and San Francisco.

It’s natural to jump to the conclusion, even a new manager, that the Reds will struggle again to consistently hit and win games in 2025 after winning just twice in a six-game season-opening homestand.

The team lost back-to-back 1-0 games at home for just the second time since 1900 and the first time since 1907.

So, why is there real hope that things will be different this season despite a dismal offensive start to 2025?

At 2.47, the team has the fourth-best starting ERA in Major League Baseball, allowing 10 earned runs over 37 innings. Only Tampa Bay, San Diego and the Dodgers are better.

The bullpen, aside from one blip on Opening Day against the Giants has done its job and given a chance for the Reds to win in their last at-bats.

Elly De La Cruz and Matt McLain have already demonstrated just how dynamic they are offense and defensively when in the lineup together.

Tyler Stephenson and Austin Hays, two projected starters in the lineup, haven’t been available because they have started the season on the injured list.

Spencer Steer is still working his right shoulder back to full health and will hit.

Alexis Diaz has started the season on the injured list and is still working his way back.

The Reds have Andrew Abbott, Wade Miley and Rhett Lowder waiting in the wings after their rehab assignments are complete.

The offense will come around – it always does.

“If I thought yelling at them would give us a bunch of hits, I go do it right now,” Terry Francona said. “Yesterday is in the rear view mirror. We just didn’t do much. They really pitched. We didn’t have a lot of opportunities, and it’s a hard way to win. I will say our pitching has been so good, at least we chance which it’s a big stress on (them) when you’re not scoring. To put the strain on those guys, they’ve done a really good job.”

The Reds have been set down in order for the first four innings in three of their last four games, heading into the opener in Milwaukee. They had four hits on Wednesday. On Tuesday, they had one baserunner reach third. On Wednesday, McLain and De La Cruz came within 90 feet of scoring but were stranded.

When the offense struggles, you get mistakes like Jake Fraley’s in the eighth when he singled to right but ended the inning when he left early on a steal and was thrown out easily at second when he was picked off first.

“We just mistimed it,” Francona lamented.

Seven hits and zero runs over 18 innings isn’t going to last. TJ Friedl, Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz will likely turn out to be as good a 1-2-3 that the Reds have had in the last 20 years at the top of the order. When Stephenson and Hays Return and Gavin Lux stays in the lineup, and Spencer Steers gets back to full health, the lineup will produce.

“We’re only six games into this. We’ve got 156 more,” Lux said. “So, just knowing that over the course of the year, there’s going to be ebbs and flows where you don’t get hits, and you just got to kind of grind it out and try to work as good of at bats as you can. Still, we were one hit away from from tying the game, winning the game, we just didn’t get it. I didn’t get it. I think that’ll change as the season goes on.”

Francona’s teams have always had the rep for working pitcher’s counts up. But with Nathan Eovaldi on Tuesday and Jack Leiter and the Rangers bullpen Wednesday, there was a problem.

“It’s a little bit of a Catch-22. If a guy’s pounding strike one and you’re in the hole, that’s not really going to work,” Francona told me. “(Tuesday and Wednesday), they threw all their pitches for strikes. So you have to respect not just one pitch or two, but actually three, and that made it really difficult for us.”

“They’re big league hitters, so everybody’s extremely talented, and definitely has the tools to come together and do a lot of damage. So, that time I’m sure it’s gonna come very soon for us,” Greene said.

Speaking of Greene, who was the fastest Reds pitcher ever to 500 strikeouts Wednesday, his catcher thinks he might be a little coy about his lack of secondary pitches. After his first two starts, Greene has said that his changeup, splitter and curve haven’t really been there. Jose Trevino smiled when asked about Greene’s assessment.

“No, I think he’s been good. It’s been good. We’ve been using it the past few outings. I think he’s been throwing a secondary,” Trevino said. “I don’t think he’s taking as much credit as he should for a secondary so it’s there.”

Other observations that should give the Reds hope. Their defense is vastly improved. That’s obvious through six games. The double play combo of De La Cruz and McLain was the reason the Reds won, 3-2, on Saturday against the Giants.

De La Cruz made one of the highlight reel plays of the early MLB season Wednesday when he traveled 119 feet to catch the foul pop down the left field line by Leody Taveras.

“The foul ball there, that’s just a special player,” Francona beamed. “The guys had kind of told me, when I came here, they said, ‘Look, he’ll go for those balls like nobody you’ve ever seen. And they weren’t lying. It was pretty impressive.”

“It was a great play,” McLain said. “I knew that he had a shot as soon as it went up over there. He told me that he thought that it was like in the stands, and then the wind brought it back. But yeah, it was a great play. I’ve seen him make those, so I’m not that surprised, but it was a great play.”