Cincinnati Reds Win 4th Straight Game, Continue Late Season PLAYOFF PUSH vs Chicago Cubs; Highlights

Cincinnati Reds Win 4th Straight Game, Continue Late Season PLAYOFF PUSH vs Chicago Cubs; Highlights

[Music] [Music] All right, Corey. Top of the ninth. Reds with the 63 lead. Taking to take looking to take game three from the Chicago Cubs. Take the first three in the four game set. Emlio Pagan in for the Reds to try and close it down. I know you said I was uh way ahead of you. Is this worthy of uh trying to sync up or am I too far ahead or No, go ahead. I think we’re good now. I I kind of played catchup a little bit. Okay, cool. Appreciate everybody spending their Saturday night with Corey and I. Yes, sir. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Pagan starting off similar to how he started off last night. 20 and then brings a fast ball in there for a strike. Danby Swanson up for the Cubs. He’ll be followed by Pete Crow Armstrong and Matt Shaw. The 2-1 is grounded to third base. Key Hayes has it. Throws it across the diamond. One out. Let’s go. QB1 with a big homer in the bottom of the ninth to extend the Red’s lead 63. [Music] One down now in the top of the ninth. Cubs trying to get out of this hangover they’ve had ever since clinching a playoff spot. Meanwhile, the Reds, they’re feeling something. As uh as some people might say, they might be feeling a little nicy. Pitch in the dirt is swung at by Pete Crow Armstrong. 0 and one. And now he swings at the second pitch. Matt Mlan out into shallow right field. Waves off Marte. Two down. Let’s go, man. That’d be nice to make this nice quick work. Just you’re in the stadium. Get on your feet. Drown out those Cubs fans. Let’s go. Two outs. Love it. Come on, boys. Come on, boys. Matt Shaw, 0 for three, two flyyous and a pop out. did hit a home run last night as he looks at pitch one right at the top of the zone for a strike from Pagan. Come on, Pagan. Nah, that’ll be a base hit from Shaw. He’ll try for second. Spencer Steer’s throw from left is cut by De La Cruz and Shaw be in there for a double. How’d you get ahead of me now, Corey? What’s that? Dang, you got ahead of me now. No, I thought that first pitch was a uh was a ball and he actually called it a strike. So, that was my delay. Sorry. Oh, okay. I thought you were I thought you were grunting at the hit. I thought you got ahead of me somehow. That was my reaction. My My bad. Okay. No, it’s all good. So that’ll bring up Red’s killer Seiya Suzuki for a pinch hit here. He’s hitting .243 on the year, 27 home runs, 91 RBI, 782 OPS. Stephvenson with a mountain visit. Go over the game plan for Suzuki. Pinch hitting here for Willie Castro. And here we go. Come on. One. Gone’s first pitch in the dirt. Ball one. Suzuki’s not afraid to walk, but I don’t think you want to bring the tying run to the plate here, Corey. So, negative. Go after Suzuki. and then re-evaluate if need be. But can’t afford to give a free base here. The 10 is up way up 2 and 0 for Pagan. Oh, come on. Alio Suzuki hitting 304 with runners in scoring position. this season. The 200 catches the inside corner for a strike number one. 97 miles an hour from Pagan. He’s feeling it. Sometimes you got to calm those nerves though. I mean, it’s nice to be able to dial it up there, but at the same time, you just got to take a deep breath, throw strikes. It go ahead. You could almost see the adrenaline in that last pitch when it got up over the zone trying to overthrow a little. For sure. Yeah, for sure. Suzuki fouls off the 2-1 and we are even at 22. The Reds faithful in the stands cheering on Pagan. The 22 delivery from the stretch from Pagan is swung on and missed. Reds win 63. [Music] The Reds take the first three from the Cubs. Guarantee a series win in the four game set. And I’m sure you know this, Cory. Pick up a game in the wildard. We’ll talk about it in four minutes. See you soon. The bench change in the air to deep right field. [Applause] and the keep. Get out of here. It’s gone. Oh my god. Can you believe it? Johnny B has tied it up. The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series in fourth rate. It was a sweep and won the game. That ball is fair. Cincinnati’s ahead. Two games to mount. Welcome Joe to Cincinnati. Adam Dunn has done it again. Benzinger backing and calling and the 1990 World Championship belongs to the Cincinnati Red. Yes. This is Adam from Milwaukee. Hey Adam, how you doing? I’m good. How are you? Okay. Do you think Scott Henber’s a good player? Done up there with the bases loaded. The outfield deep and around toward right to the 10 on the way to the plate. Swung on. Long drive right field and this will do their win. And a high drive back into deep right field. Junior has just knocked the door down to the 500 block. Vincent scores to the run is a one winner. That ball had a family and Da Cruz is Oh my goodness. Look at this kid run. My oh my. That is a triple. Then Mlan’s first big league bomb. Spencer Steer’s first big league hit is a home run to straightaway center field. Jay Botto again. The pitch. Botto swings high in the air. Right field. Yes. He pointed to the dugout to say, “I told you.” That is Joey Balo’s 315th career. Go ahead, Revy. Only Johnny Bench had more as a Red and I can’t tell you how much it means to play in front of everyone here in Cincinnati as a Red. What a gift. What a tremendous gift. So, thank you. Thank you. I think I can speak for all of Red’s country. Joey Mato, thank you. High drive left center field racing back to the rounds of natural division champions in the air. The champion begin [Music] the first their home run. [Music] Can you believe it? The right field line [Music] for a threerun home run big day by Raone Hernandez. Strike away and out away is Homer Bailey. Round ball to third. Frasier gloves to first and home for the second time in his major league career. [Music] Oh, are you kidding me? [Applause] [Music] in the win. What a dream to a career of Jose Bruce. Cory, all season long, this team has pushed you away and then pulled you back in and pushed you away and pulled you back in and pushed you away and pulled you back in. And I gotta be honest with you, Corey, if there’s ever a time for a team to pull you back in and get on a hot streak, it is right before the playoffs. And the Reds are doing just that. Four straight wins for your red legs. One game out of a playoff spot. Three out of three from the Chicago Cubs. Mets lose. Reds win one game back from a playoff spot. What an absolute great Saturday. It’s a great time to be a Reds fan, man. Like you say, it’s been a definitely been a roller coaster. The optimism has been up and down for sure, but if you’re not optimistic as a optimistic as a Reds fan right now, I’m not sure exactly what’s the matter with you. So, I’ve got to apologize. I’m a little bit under the weather today, so bear with my voice here. But they say laughter is the best medicine, but I’ll I’ll buck that and say a Cincinnati Reds win is the best medicine. So, let’s go. Yeah, absolutely. You uh you sound great. And Mike Dean chiming in with the super chat right off the bat. Trace asked for five wins in a row to make the playoffs. need one more. He did. He said it for months, Cory. He said it for months that if this team could just get hot enough and get five wins in a row, that that would be enough to propel them into the playoffs. They have five straight or four straight wins now. They’re one win away. A sweep of the Chicago Cubs is on the table for tomorrow with Andrew Abbott on the mound. Calm down, Craig. Don’t get ahead of yourselves. Oh boy, I got to tell you, I’m I’m excited. I know that the the uh the Reds obviously have a lot of work to do and not to get ahead of myself, but sometimes it’s just tough. It’s just tough not to get excited and not to look ahead and start to think about what if. And you know, Kirby with the the negativity that he always brings, of course, texted uh texted me earlier and told me that the Reds have never made the playoffs if they weren’t already in position to make the playoffs on September 10th. So, excluding 2020, they have never come back to make the playoffs after not being in it at that point in the season. one more with the Cubs and then you’ve got the Pittsburgh Pirates coming to town. An opportunity potentially for three more wins there. I’m not going to get too far ahead of myself and act like, oh, maybe the Reds will win eight straight games. But they might win eight straight games going into Milwaukee and Milwaukee might not have anything to play for. And the Reds might have everything to play for. And I tell you what, how many times have we seen it? Teams get hot going into the playoffs and then they make a run. this Red’s team and this pitching. We’ll talk about the rotation a little bit later on, but they certainly are lined up to be able to compete in the playoffs if they make it there. Uh article earlier today from Gordon Whittener talking about the rotation and how they might play this out over the rest of the season. Um am I overly optimistic, Corey? Should I chill my chill my jets here or are we all in? We’re all the way in, brother. I’m pushing my chips to the middle of the table. We’ve said it all year long, if we get a chance in the playoffs, we’ve got the one, two, three pitches to go with it. You start getting this offense picking up, man. I’m telling you, I really like the Cincinnati Red’s chances. You got Spencer Steer hitting the cover off the ball right now. You’ve got Ellie Daylor Cruz finally finally starting to look like himself at the plate again. Matt Mlan’s coming up with big hits when we need him. I mean, it’s How do you not be optimistic right now, man? It is an absolute great time to be a Reds fan. I love the dayby-day approach. And once you start taking advantage of stuff day by day, this is what happens. You start putting four together in a row. You start taking you start playing well against the National League Central, which we haven’t done well all season long. And I mean, optimism is absolutely through the roof. I am ready, man. Let’s go. Absolutely. Ned Flanders with a $10 super chat. I just want to thank Chris Valleica for his masterful work with Spencer Steer this week. Give that man a bacon wrapped fillet. And Ned, I gotta tell you, I I I broke out the uh the steak burgers and the jumbo hot dogs today. I told you all I was having some friends over for the uh for the cookout. And uh I got to be honest with you, it might have been the juiciest burger I have literally ever had. And uh if you are interested in taking advantage of a red hot sale with Omaha Stakes, 50% off sitewide right now. Get fired up for fall grilling with Omaha Stakes. Visit omahastakess.com for 50% off statew sitewide during their redhot sale event. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code chatterbox at checkout. That’s 50% off at omahastakakes.com and an extra $35 off with promo code chatterbox at checkoutc site for details. And Corey, I got to be honest with you, between the Juicy Burgers, the Jumbo Dogs, the Reds victory, this is quite the Saturday. And then here we go tomorrow. The Red the the Reds have an opportunity to sweep Cubs. My Bengals are in Minnesota with a chance to go three and 0. I’m skyhigh. I was I I People in the chat know I was I was a little salty yesterday. I had a lot of stuff going. I I got a little little stressed out. Got salty, but I’m back in it. I’m ready to grow and uh I’m pumped. Any final thoughts before we get into the box score? I’m just glad to see your optimism’s back, brother. We were on a couple weeks ago and you were bringing the hammer down on my optimism. So, I’m just glad to see you’re back, man. It’s a lot more fun when we both got smiling on our faces. I know. I told I told Trace it felt like I had gone three months without a win. So, it definitely is nice to be back in the wind column and it’s nice to have all of these smiling faces in the chat with us. If you haven’t already, make sure you drop us a like and uh let’s talk about it. Let’s see how the Reds were able to pull this one off with today’s box score recap. As always, the box score recap is brought to you by Nicholas P. Kirby. After the Reds clinched at least a split of the series Friday night, they were back at Great American Ballpark looking to clinch a series win on Saturday. They turned to Zack Latell to bring them the win while the Cubs turned to Javier Assad. Michael Bush got the scoring started in the top of the third with a solo home run to deep right. And similar to Friday night, the Reds answered quick. Matt Mlan and TJ Fre Fredel singled. Then Mlan went on the contact play. Spencer Steer at the plate. Mlan scored as Matt Shaw was unable to throw him out at home. Will Benson then smashed a single up the middle to score Freedel and give the Reds a 21 lead. Reese Maguire tied it back up for the Cubs with a towering two out solo shot down the right field line in the top of the fifth. But Spencer Steer didn’t let that tie last long. He continued his hot streak with a blast to the left field seats and the Reds led three-2. Latell would exit with the lead after five innings of two-run baseball. He allowed just three hits, one walk and struck out four. Graham Ashcraft worked a perfect sixth. TJ Fredel added an insurance run leading off the seventh as he sent a laser down the right field line that stayed fair for a solo home run and a 4-2 lead. Back-to-back doubles by Willie Castro and Reese Maguire off Chase Burns brought the Cubs within one. Nico Hearner then reaches on a tricky play. Round ball that kind of ricocheted off of Chase Burns. Matt Mlan was unable to handle it. Tony Santion came in though and avoided any more damage. Score stood at 43 Reds. Noelvie Marte led off the bottom of the eighth with a single. Then uh QB1 Tyler Stevenson drove a line drive over the wall in right field for an oppo taco two-run home run like Tyler Stevenson does in a 6-3 Reds lead. Alio Pagan closes it down. They win 63 is your final. The Reds are now 79 and 76. And with the Mets extra innings loss to the Nationals earlier in the day now sit just one game back of a playoff spot. And Corey, we had a deep drive of the game. I had to make a choice, but I went with the hot one. Spencer Seir and his fifth inning home run to give the Reds a 32 lead. His 21st of the season to left center field. increased the Red’s wind probability 16% all the way up to 69 nice percent. The exit VO was 105.3 with a launch angle of 25° that added up to a 414 ft monster blast. And that was your DSC deep drive of the game. DSC is a leader in renewable commodities for bofuel production, specializing in used cooking oil collection, aggregation, and sales. Visit www.deepsouthcommodities.com for more information. Thanks as always to John and our friends at DSC. Corey, let’s start with Spencer Steer. Let’s do it. Redot four home runs in the last four games, three in the last two games. Talked at length about the Reds needing someone to get hot. Couple guys seem like they’re getting hot right now, but none hotter than Spencer Steer. Absolutely. Three home run games in the last two games. I looked it up last seven days. He’s got a 500 batting average, over 500 uh on base percentage and a 1,900 OPS. 1,900 OPS. I mean, it’s it’s as far as being hot, it don’t get much hotter than that. So, we need uh we need Spencer Steer’s bat and he’s absolutely showed up and with everybody else getting on base in front of him, we’ve done some we’ve absolutely done some damage and the long ball is uh is coming coming back to fruition for us and finally taking advantage of Great American Small Park and getting getting the wins that we when we need them. So, I uh I love to see Spencer Steer’s power come back in the lineup. He’s obviously our home run leader right now and we will uh we will ride the hot hand as long as we possibly can, but hats off to Spencer, man. He’s playing absolutely lights out when we when we need it the most. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Tito showed that confidence that he has in Spencer Steer right now by leaving him in the game to play left field tonight. Uh after Austin Hayes went down with uh back spasms. Obviously, he had a couple options in terms of what to do at that point and he chose to send Spencer Steer out there. Wanted to keep his bat in the lineup. Uh but also felt like bringing uh Sal Stewart into the game was the best option. Uh opted to do that instead of putting uh Santiago Espanol out in left field or um or one of the other options. So definitely nice Spencer Steer tonight uh one for four, but that one was a big one, a home run there in the fifth. So, uh, there’s a lot of guys who deserve to be talked about. Cory and and you know, Tyler Stevenson hit the ball hard multiple times tonight. Uh, got unlucky in the first one, but you know, that home run was a huge one in the eighth. And it just feels, you know, watching him run around the bases, you could see the excitement, the energy that this Red’s team has all of a sudden picked up. I talked about it weeks ago about how this team kind of felt like it was lacking the energy and lacking the excitement and the personality that it had in years past. It feels like over the last week or so they’ve really started to get that back. And I don’t know if it’s just a belief because the Mets have been faltering and they believe in themselves now that they can get in, but this feels like a much different team today than it did even two weeks ago. I completely agree with you. I actually had it wrote down the leadoff single in the sixth by Ellie Dea Cruz where he stretches it into a double. Those are the types of plays that we love to see out of Ellie. Those are the types of plays that get our momentum going. The the lineup gets around him. Granted, we didn’t end up scoring and we had a couple bad at bats after that. But that was a play that Ellie wasn’t making a couple weeks ago that we were waiting for Ellie to make. And it just it fires it fires him up. It gets him going. And you can you can definitely tell, man. Even on the the one out that Ellie De la Cruz made on the close play there in the eight, you can see Sal Stewart pumping his fist as he comes off the he comes off the first base bag. Literally from top to bottom, our whole entire lineup feeds off of it. You can kind of tell we’ve just got a little bit of little bit of swagger in our step, man. And I love to see it. It’s it’s fun. It’s fun to play baseball and especially when you’re feeling confident about yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean at at this point, there’s no reason not to feel confident. And that’s one of the most exciting pieces obviously is that look, this team has, as I said at the top, they’ve pushed and pulled all year long. They’ve gone through slumps where it felt like this team doesn’t deserve to be even in the conversation for the playoffs. And then they go through periods where like right now it just like how how could they not be in the playoffs? It just feels like they’re destined to be there. And you know, at the end of the day, like I think it’ll be interesting because I’m sure uh Bob Nightingale’s out there tweeting about the the Tito September Magic right now, but I don’t know how much of this is Tito right now versus just a team that is watching the Mets falter and is seeing themselves take advantage of it and picking it up and taking it and running with it. And you know, a big piece of it, we talked about it the other day, is the pitching. Um, Zack Latell tonight, five innings of just three hit baseball. Obviously, two of them were home runs, but guess what? They were both solo shots. You limit the damage. Five innings of two-run baseball is going to be enough to give the Reds an opportunity to win most nights, especially with the bullpen if they’re pitching well. And then, we’ll talk about the bullpen in a minute, but Zack Latell, let’s start there. uh his outing and what he’s been able to give the Reds at least for the most part, maybe not depth, but he’s given them consistent maybe not quality starts, but decent starts. Absolutely. I kind of feel like he’s been as advertised. That was kind of the his story coming in. He was going to give up a couple home runs here and there, but he’s always going to be a solid pitcher. Gives you gives you the the best that he can night in and night out when it’s when his number is called up. And tonight, like you say, he gives up a couple dingers, but they’re solo home runs. You limit the damage. you keep us, you keep us in the game. And so, I mean, hats off to Latell. It’s absolutely what you need. When your starter goes out and gives you five innings and only gives up a couple runs, you should win most of those ball games. And tonight, they were able to take advantage of it. So, hats off to Latell. And another another good p pitching performance for the Cincinnati Reds. We are getting uh getting pretty comfortable with it, but I like this comfortability. It’s nice to have confidence in your pitching staff when they’re coming out there on the mound night in and night out. Yeah, absolutely. And when you have a bullpen who’s able to come in and shut off down like the Red’s offense did tonight. Um Graham Ashcraft comes in, pitches a perfect inning in the sixth. Chase Burns, you know, obviously gave up some hits there in in the in the eighth, but um Tony Santion comes in, nails that down in the high leverage situation. He’s been a guy that Tito has gone to all year long. And then of course Bean in the ninth closing it down. Let’s start with Graeme Ashcraft, though, because he’s a guy who’s kind of struggled a little bit this year. Uh there’s been times where he looks like he doesn’t really belong in the bullpen at all, and then there’s times like he looked tonight where he just looks unhitable. And if you can get this Graham Ashcraft for the next couple weeks, and I and by couple weeks, I mean into the playoffs, that gives you a huge boost in terms of being able to trust your bullpen and having another high leverage arm to come out of that bullpen. Absolutely. I don’t have the numbers or anything in front of me. But it always seems like Graham on his second or third night out if he has to do two or three days in a row seems to struggle a little bit, but when he can come out well rested, man, it just seems like he’s on fire and comes out firing on all cylinders. So maybe there’s a fine line there and and how to handle him and how many days you give him back to back and that sort of thing. But when you get to Graham Mashcraft like tonight, it’s hard not to have that momentum and want to put him right back out in the ball game tomorrow. So I there’s a fine line there somewhere, don’t get me wrong. But I think we are uh I I’m hoping we are slowly but surely figuring out the Grand Mashcraft of the bullpen situation because I like having his arm. He’s a fiery guy coming out of there. When he looks good, when he looks good, he looks real good. But when it’s bad, it goes south real fast. So hopefully we’re getting that figured out. But it was nice to see Graham Mashcraft come out of the pin and give us some solid work tonight. Did I drop or did you? I dropped. Okay, cool. I’m back. Am I back? Yes, you’re back. Okay, cool. Um good point on the uh days of rest. I pulled it up for us. Oh, I apologize. We’re losing Craig again. Going south on the uh having some techn or techn technology difficulties, I guess. Technological difficulties, I guess I should say. Craig, you back with us. There he goes. Back. Can you hear me? We finally got him back. Yeah. All right. They don’t want to listen to my filler. Here we go. Let’s try this. Let’s try this one more time. Graham Ashcraft with zero days of rest, 7.36 erra in 13 games. With one day of rest, that drops down to 4.08 in 16 games. With two days of rest, Graham Ashcraft has a 3.44 ERA. And then three days, 1.69, four days, 1.80. So to your point, he just may not be at a point right now having historically started that he just doesn’t have that that kind of I don’t I don’t know that it’s necessarily a physical trait or what it is, but that backtoback night ability. Maybe that’s not something that works for him right now. Maybe it’s something he can certainly work on over the course of this off seasonason and try and get to a point where next year he can be used in those roles. But right now, if you give him rest and he comes in, he looks to be much much better and and opponents are not able to hit him very well in those scenarios just based on what I’m seeing here. Um, so that’s a great call out. I hadn’t really looked at that before, but yeah, on zero days rest, 7.36 erra, 333 batting average against uh for opponents with an 824 OPS. So definitely something that Terry Francona in this Red’s uh management team need to be thinking about uh not only into the rest of the season and into the playoffs, but also what this offseason program looks like for Graham Ashcraft in order to get him up and ready to go. Um I think that’s another Well, I’m sorry, that’s another part of it. Um we didn’t really know what Graham Ashcraft was going to be once the beginning of the year started. We weren’t sure if he was going to be in the bullpen. I think if we give him an off seasonason of just getting the work in and getting used to throwing the back toback, give him an offseason worth of work knowing he’s going to come out of the bullpen, we might see a better Graham Ashcraft come 2026. But just to your point, once we get once he gets a whole season of an offseason of work, we might see the best the best version of Graham Ashcraft out of the bullpen. But sorry to step on you there. No, it’s great. Um Jace Burns, you know, first inning looked great. Second inning kind of fell apart a little bit for him. Um, I’m not really what sure what to make of it. He’s not a bullpen arm. You know, he’s trying to do what he can to help the team at this point, but I don’t really know what to make of it other than his stuff looked okay. He just got hit around. Yeah, stuff looked great, especially in that first inning. I mean, he he breezed through that first one pretty good. So, I don’t I’m not sure if maybe it’s just a a one inning come in, try to get the as much gas out of him as you can, squeeze that juice, and and be done with it and not bring him back out for that second inning. But that first inning, he looked pretty efficient and his stuff is just nasty. It seems like he’s going like they they brought it up on the broadcast going more to the slider and fastball combination. But that slider was just absolutely nasty. So I like his stuff. His stuff was actually really good. But um I I trying to figure that out too. Like you say, he’s he doesn’t doesn’t even look like a bullpin arm coming out of there. So trying to figure out what we need to do with him. But it’s nice to have an inning out of him down the stretch when we need him. Yep. And we’ve talked about Santion and Pagon endless times on it. But again, high leverage moment for Tony Santani comes in with runners on first and third with just one out. Able to get backtoback Cubs erased and no damage done for him. As always, he’s way overused. There’s no doubt about that. Uh his 31st hold on the season. Um, but you know, at the end of the day, I’m going to take it and I’m going to I’m going to run with it for as long as I can because despite him being used so often, he still looks great out there and he still looks ready to shut teams down here 76 appearances into the season. Absolutely. It’s uh it’s an it’s exciting time. Sorry about that, man. Um, thoughts on Santion or Pagan? Santion was that was the biggest outing of his of the of the season so far? I mean, obviously it’s a season saber when you’re getting this close to the playoffs, but to come in and inherit the runners like he did when we were having that, oh, here we go again moment was absolutely huge. Um, I think I was probably more excited about more excited about his couple outs coming out of the bullpen than I was any any other part of the ball game today. So, just nice to nice to have that fire in the back end of the bullpen on two guys that you know have the capability to get it done. I mean, there’s definitely nights when you’re holding your breath and the the game tying run comes to the plate, but those guys are uh as reliable as they come as far as the Cincinnati Reds are concerned. We’ve relied on them all year long and it’s it’s hard not to give them the ball now and and and expect them to get it done. Yeah, absolutely. Couple super chats I want to get to here. Optimistic John chiming in. $10 super chat. Congrats, Nick, on your baby. Reds pushed and pulled, but like Mike said, they bring me back in. Excited for the possibility of making the playoffs. I think we all are. I I’m I I listen, I try not to get overly excited. Try not to get overly optimistic. We’re going to leave it at that. I’m optimistic right now, Corey. I’m optimistic. I am too. Give Nick Crawl a hand. these deadline acquisitions and the Singer and Latel trades have helped put this team in a position to make a run. Absolutely. Look, I said it at the deadline. I felt like if you just looked at the Red’s deadline in a vacuum, I thought they had a decent deadline. I think Kabrian Hayes was a nice addition. Obviously, uh, Latell has has had, uh, shining starts out of the out of the rotation. And, and then, um, you add in, um, shoot, uh, who didn’t I say yet? I said, did I say Miguel Andahar yet? No. No. Miguel Andahar, who again had a nice hit tonight coming off the bench. So, um, he’s been really good. He’s been a great addition as well. Um, and yeah, I think a lot of people would probably applaud Nick Crawl at the deadline if it wasn’t for all the moves that the Padres’s made to make him look like he hadn’t done enough. But I do think that Nick Crawl made some good moves at the deadline. And I said it at the time that I felt like he had made some good moves. Yes, he may have been overshadowed by other teams that made more moves or bigger moves, but at the end of the day, I felt like Nick Crawl did try to make this team better, and he did make the team better. Now, obviously, it’s been an up and down year and there have been challenges along the way, but I do believe that those three players have contributed greatly to this playoff run. And if we do make it, it will be in part due to Latell, Hayes, and Andrew. Oh, absolutely. Where would the Cincinnati Reds team be without Key Brian Hayes defense at third base, Anduhar’s timely hitting, and the innings that Latell’s actually absolutely given us. I mean, and the fact that we were able to make such an addition without subtracting from our roster, without blowing it up in the farm system, and I mean, it cost us Sammy Stora. That one hurt my heart a little bit. I ain’t going to lie. But outside of that, we were able to make some additions without blowing up the farm system and keeping our potential behind us and that sort of thing. So, hats off to you, Nick Crawl. They have absolutely helped our helped us in the second half of the season and and there’s no uh there’s no denying that. Yeah, absolutely. And one more from William Wright. Spencer Steer clutch lately versus St. Louis and Chicago. Absolutely. We talked about it at the top. Three home runs in the last two days. Four home runs in the last four. He’s been on fire. And uh it’s good. We needed a little bit of a spark. I said uh I used a terrible analogy the other night that it felt like the kindling was there. We just needed that spark. And now that the spark is here, this team can fully become engulfed in flames and get red-hot and make the march towards the playoffs. Absolutely. I mean, we took the season series against the Chicago Cubs. That makes us uh seven and five against the Cubs. So, no matter what happens tomorrow, we’ve got the series. So, keep chanting all you want in our in our stadium if you want to. But, we’re going to get loud tomorrow and bring home a sweep. I’m ready for it. It is kind of crazy, Corey, and we haven’t talked about this a whole lot, but it is kind of crazy to think about the fact that this Red’s team has tiebreers over literally every team in front or in competition with them for a playoff spot right now. And now you add in the Cubs that they take the season series on as well. But the Mets, they are legitimately one game out of the playoffs because they have that tiebreaker against the Mets. The Giants are up in the air still based on division record, but if the season ended today, the Giants and Reds, the Reds would have that tiebreaker. Obviously, the Diamondbacks, we’ve already talked about the Reds have that tiebreaker as well. It’s just kind of crazy. I mean, I I don’t necessarily understand how this team continues to play kind of up and down to its opponent, which kind of makes me a little nervous about this Pittsburgh series, but here we are. They’re in a good position and they’re in a position to potentially make the playoffs and it’s because they’re beating good teams. And if you would have sat here and told me, hey, you’re going to beat up on the teams that are worse than you, but you’re not going to be able to beat the teams that are better than you. And that was our recipe, that would be one thing. But you’re now here, you have tiebreers over all the other wild card competition. you’re in great position to make the postseason and you play well against better teams. And so if you make the playoffs and I I think if the season ended today that they would go to the Dodgers, that right? Let’s look. I believe you are correct. if they uh if they were the last wildcard team, um I do believe they would go to play the Dodgers. So, uh pretty crazy. Um Mets are choking. Jim put it in the in the chat. The the Mets are choking and the Tigers are choking. That’s been one that’s been interesting to watch as well as we head down the stretch. Now seems like a good time to remind you that you can call or text 988 anytime, day or night. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a place to get support for anything related to mental health. Whether it’s an immediate crisis, simply wanting to find out how to connect with care, or anything in between. It’s a 100% confidential, secure, and anonymous way to reach out for help when you don’t know where else to turn. To connect, call or text 988 or visit manap.org to get help. It’s okay not to be okay. And Corey, we talked about the the Mets. Obviously, at this point, the the Reds are chasing the Mets. They are one game behind. They have one more game tomorrow against the Nationals. They announced today, the Mets did, that they’re going to go with Shawn Maniah tomorrow. Uh it was originally Klay Holmes. Klay Holmes is going to be available out of the bullpen. Last time that those two were lined up, Klay Holmes started and then Shawn Maniah came out of the bullpen. But Maniah’s erra as a starter is 5.98. His erra as a reliever this year 2.16. So, the fact that they’re going with Maniah as a starter, a little bit of a headscratcher, but uh Holmes has a 4.98 erra since July. So, he’s struggling down the stretch. He’s already at 155 innings pitched compared to his previous career high, which was just 70 innings pitched. And uh oh, by the way, the Nats are terrible against left-handing pitching. 16 and 29 on the year. MLB worst 6:30 OPS, which is why Maniah likely gets the start. Um, I’m going to be watching it. I’m going to be uh trying to dual screen this and see if I can watch both of them because both games start tomorrow at 1:40. So, by the time Nick and Trace are live on Sunday night, we should have a more clear I think what he was trying to say was uh by the time we get to Nick and Trace tomorrow night at 9:00, we will have a more clear picture as to whether or not your Cincinnati Reds are going to uh be comfortably in a playoff spot or not. But hopefully we can get Craig’s uh Craig’s mic back working again because he’s got our MIB update and I absolutely do not. So, we’re going to uh going to try to sit tight here until we can get Craig back. But it’s absolutely u absolutely exciting time to be a Reds fan right now, man. It’s with uh the the Mets dropping the ball the way they’ve been dropping the ball and the Reds playing on the on the upswing. It’s uh it’s hard not to be optimistic right now. So, we uh we’re keeping our fingers crossed. Hopefully hopefully we can get Craig back in here so we can actually get you a MB report. That sounds halfway decent, but he uh has now clicked out of it and we are going lonesome. So, for the first the for my last show, we’re going through some technological difficulties and I’m going to be flying solo here for a little while and hopefully we can get Craig back in here and see what’s going on. But, um anyway, just while I had the chance, this is actually my last uh last scheduled day to be on Chatterbox Reds. I just wanted to say thanks to everybody out there for inviting me in and having me in this season. Not sure what my future what my future holds for Chatterbox Reds, but just wanted to say thanks to Nick and Trace uh for giving me the opportunity to get on here and talk and talk some Cincinnati Reds baseball. It’s been a it’s been a lot of fun. Um I originally started with my little brother Eric and I’ve lost him about halfway through the season due to some unforeseen circumstances with work and whatnot. So I just wanted to say thanks guys for uh inviting me in and having me in this year. has been a really fun season and it’s going to be really it’s going to be a lot more fun when the Cincinnati Reds make the playoffs on my uh Chatterbox uh debut season. So, I uh just wanted to say thank you to everybody, man. And I don’t know that we’re going to get Craig back in here. So, let’s uh let’s try to put a put a little bit of a bow on this one for uh for tonight. So, your Reds end up winning taking us to 79 and 76. We will see James Tyion versus Andrew Abbott tomorrow at one o’clock. So, let’s uh let’s get behind these Cincinnati Reds. Let’s get to the ballpark and see if we can’t drown out some of these Cubs fans. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m getting real sick of hearing the let’s go Cubbies chant in the background. So, I uh let’s go out there and see if we can’t drown out these Cubs fans, bring home a sweep, and get these Cincinnati Reds uh staying hot and and uh get us to where we want to go as far as as far as we need to. So, I uh sorry for rambling on, man. And it was an unexpected little bit of a finish here, but just wanted to say thanks again, guys. And let’s get to the ballpark tomorrow. Get behind these red legs and let’s get to the postseason. But uh thanks again, guys, and I appreciate your help. And as always, go Reds.

0:00 Watching the 9th inning!
11:55 Full game recap

Craig Sandlin and Cory Phillips will be live in the 9th inning!

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Saturday, September 20, 2025, marks the third game of a critical four-game series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs at Great American Ball Park. With the postseason looming, this contest carries massive weight for both teams, as the Cubs have already secured a playoff spot and the Reds continue their long-shot push for a wild card berth. The Reds have the momentum entering Saturday’s game, having won the first two games of the series on Thursday and Friday.

The Chicago Cubs, despite a recent two-game losing streak to the Reds, are well-positioned for the postseason with a commanding 88-66 record. While their magic number to clinch a specific wild card seed and a potential home playoff series has yet to be finalized, they are already a lock for October baseball. However, the Cubs will not want to back into the playoffs, and ending their current skid against a division rival is a top priority. Offensively, the team is led by a scorching-hot Ian Happ, who has been an RBI machine over the last 10 games, and the reliable Nico Hoerner, who leads the team in batting average.

On the other side, the Cincinnati Reds are clinging to their postseason aspirations. After taking the first two games of the series, their record improved to 78-76, keeping them in the hunt for the final National League wild card spot. Home-field advantage has been a key factor for the Reds, who are riding a multi-game home winning streak and boast a formidable offense at Great American Ball Park. A significant piece of this offensive success has been Spencer Steer, who crushed two home runs in Friday’s victory and has been on a tear over the last two weeks despite battling injuries. Young phenom Elly De La Cruz has also provided a spark with his power, hitting 20 home runs this season.

With the Cubs’ desire to regain their winning form and the Reds’ desperate push to stay in the playoff picture, Saturday’s contest is set to be a high-stakes affair. Expect both teams to leave everything on the field, with the outcome potentially having major implications for the National League playoff bracket.