It didn’t take Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona long to get his new team back in the playoffs.
Francona, in his first season with the team, led them to the National League’s postseason which will begin Tuesday in the wild card round.
It’s a feat Francona duplicated in Ohio. He took the Cleveland baseball team to the playoffs during his first season in 2013. He left the team almost two years ago, taking the 2024 season off before joining the Reds.
A New York Mets loss on Sunday allowed the Reds to sneak in via tiebreaker. The teams tied for the final spot, but the Reds owned a 4-2 record versus the Mets this season.
The Reds were six games back Sept. 5 and were able to secure the spot as the Mets endured an eight-game losing streak. It’s the first trip to the playoffs in five years for the Reds.
For Francona, it was his 12th playoff appearance in 24 seasons as a manager. The Reds will face the Los Angeles Dodgers in the best-of-three series that begins at 9:08 p.m. Tuesday.
The last time both the Reds and the Cleveland Guardians — Francona’s former team which clinched the American League’s Central Division title Sunday — both appeared in the postseason in the same season was during the year of COVID.
How many times have the Guardians and Reds made the MLB playoffs in the same season?
Ohio’s two Major League Baseball teams are in the postseason in the same season for the fourth time, all coming since 1995.
They last reached the postseason together in the expanded playoffs of the 2020 Covid season. They both lost in the best-of-three wild card series.
They also made the playoffs in the same year in 2013 and 1995. They both lost one-game wild card playoffs in 2013. In 1995, they each reached the league championship series, with Cleveland winning to advance to the World Series. Atlanta swept Cincinnati 4-0 in the 1995 NLCS before beating Cleveland 4-2 in the World Series.