The Cincinnati Reds woke Monday with the knowledge that it’s at least possible to take down the Milwaukee Brewers in a three-game series. I am not sure the same could have been said when they woke up on Friday, even if they’d firmly believed it all along.
Despite dropping Friday’s series opener 10-7 in a way that’s become so maddening, they rebounded in kind. Friday saw the Reds jump to an early lead only for the grind of the Brewers at-bats to chase starter Rhett Lowder amid a flurry of line drives and singles as Milwaukee turned the scoreboard upside down one professional at-bat at a time.
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Still, Cincinnati pocketed that during Saturday’s game, and took home a hard-earned 5-3 victory that featured the best of their bullpen finally getting the best of Milwaukee’s. Then, on Sunday, the Reds themselves churned out 12 runs on 14 hits – just one of them a homer – as they found ways to work counts deep and pick up key hits with men in scoring position.
Sunday saw them overcome the demons that cost them in the series opener, too. They did jump to an early lead, and they did see Milwaukee scratch and claw their way back and into a lead of their own. Undeterred, the Reds plowed right ahead, as Elly De La Cruz had yet another big day to lead them through to a 12-8 win that maybe, just maybe, can propel them through the gauntlet that remains this season.
And that’s the point here, I think. This stretch of Milwaukee/Dodgers/Milwaukee/Dodgers/Cubs/Braves is as difficult as it gets. It’s a veritable playoff slate for a 2026 Reds club that will not be playing in actual playoff games. But if the Reds brass and ownership is truly committed to keeping this entire band together for another year in 2027 – should there be a season – coming up large in September against this caliber of team is what the team needs for its psyche to clear through a run of a more important ilk this time in a calendar year.
Hopefully, this weekend serves as a wake-up call to the players on Cincinnati’s roster that yes, they can play and win against the big clubs. They can hang, they can take punches, and they can punch right back. That’s what the good teams do, anyway – they never feel like they’re buried and out of reach, something that’s been felt in Reds games all too often over the last few years as their overall offense slumped to league-worst marks. This weekend, at least, that era of Reds baseball took a backseat.
Let’s just hope it was for good.
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