GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Down the stretch last season, whenever the Cincinnati Reds were on the road, Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona asked if senior travel director Gary Wahoff could have a bucket of ice ready for Francona back at the hotel. When Francona got back to his room, the ice would be waiting for him.
“I’d fall asleep laying on it,” Francona said.
He jokes that getting old is hard. Last season, he was dealing with a bad hamstring injury.
“When you feel this (lousy) every day, it’s ok,” Francona said. “It just hurt. My body has hurt since 1980.”
The team didn’t know that Francona was managing while hurt.
What was it like battling that hamstring injury last year?
“Who, me?” Francona says.
That combination of humor and mettle is what Francona’s current and former players always talk about when they’re asked about him.
“These guys are playing every day,” Francona said. “All I’ve got to do is walk to the mound.”
In Francona’s first year in Cincinnati, the Reds made the playoffs and Francona finished second in NL Manager of the Year voting. He led the way as the team’s identity and style of play evolved. The Reds improved defensively, were more selective running on the bases and had an offense that prioritized putting rallies together.
Francona always goes out of his way to praise cutoff throws, pitchers who can hold runners and hitters who hit line drives the other way. The 2025 Reds did a lot more of those things than they had been in previous years.
Francona acknowledges decisions that he could have made differently last year. He has joked in retrospect about his decision to put in Ian Gibaut for the save on Opening Day. Santiago Espinal hit second in the lineup for a month. He says he was stubborn about keeping Matt McLain in the No. 2 spot for as long as he did, and he says he knows that he should have given Elly De La Cruz a day off last season.
When asked about last year’s playoff series against the Dodgers, he brings up one of these decisions.
“We had (Nick) Lodolo in the bullpen,” Francona said. “I worried about him. He’s in a role he hadn’t been in. He could have probably pitched longer, but I was uneasy about it. When you have to work that hard to get in (to the playoffs), there are some disadvantages.”
Lodolo had to pitch on short rest out of a bullpen in a must-win Game 162. After that, since he wouldn’t be available to start in the Dodgers’ series, Lodolo shifted to the bullpen for the week. He pitched in Game 2. He looked great, throwing 1 ⅔ shutout innings on just 14 pitches. The Reds trailed 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning, and Francona pulled Lodolo for Nick Martinez. By the end of the inning, the Reds were down by five runs. Without making any criticism about Francona, Lodolo told reporters after the game that he could have pitched more in the game.
When asked what stands out to him the most about that series in LA last year, Francona says, “Our pitching wasn’t set up great. Then when Hunter got beat…”
Hunter Greene allowed five runs in Game 1 and only pitched three innings. An already taxed Reds’ bullpen had to cover even more ground than the unit was expecting. The series got away from the Reds with the standout trio of Greene, Lodolo and Andrew Abbott covering a combined 4 ⅔ innings.
Of course, the Reds were facing an all-time team that had one of the best rosters in recent memory.
“The Dodgers were really good,” Francona said. “I knew that. In baseball, in those short series, you see upsets. I want us to be as good of a team as we can be. If you give yourselves a chance enough times, you’ll break through. Just keep giving yourself chances.”
There were positives from that series. Lodolo met the moment, as did Chase Burns out of the bullpen. Matt McLain had a really nice Game 1. Sal Stewart looked great in Game 2.
The Reds looked down and out a few times with significant deficits, and they strung together a big inning in the eighth inning of both games to truly give themselves a shot. In Game 1, the Reds loaded the bases in an eighth inning where they scored three runs and had the game-tying run in the on-deck circle. In Game 2, the Reds rallied in the eighth inning and got the game-tying run to the plate.
“We were right there,” closer Emilio Pagán said. “We had the bases loaded a few times. From a skeptic standpoint, you can say that was the problem — we didn’t have a way to drive those runs in and limit the runs on the pitching and defense side. But the fact of the matter is we were in those games. One swing here or there, who knows? Those hypotheticals, you don’t raise banners or hold trophies on hypotheticals. But it’s also something we need to hold onto and realize. The Dodgers were the best team in the world last year. We were right there with them.”
After the season, Francona told the team to remember the feeling of popping champagne, and to remember the feeling of getting sent home before the team wanted to be.
As soon as spring training started, you could sense that this was an older, more polished group than the Reds had a year ago.
The new pieces sensed right away that the Reds carry themselves like a good team. And they picked up on the way that Francona sets the tone.
“He has a presence,” JJ Bleday said. “I’ve been around a few managers. His presence from being around the game this long, he feels like a manager. He’s not a manager who feels like your friend. You get what I’m saying. He knows when to joke and when to be serious. You can see that with everyone in the locker room here.”
Caleb Ferguson said, “Tito’s attention to detail stands out. The give a (darn). The little things that win baseball games that can go unnoticed, Tito doesn’t let those go unnoticed. You do the little things the right way.”
Francona came out of retirement a year ago because he likes this group. He says that it’s fun going through the grind of the big league season with people that you like. There’s also a standout rotation that looks impressive even if Hunter Greene is on the shelf, a deep bullpen and a lot of young talent in the lineup.
“On paper, this team looks like a pretty good team,” Pagán said. “A pretty dangerous team. But names on paper don’t win games. Like Tito preaches all the time, we’ll have to take care of the little things and execute at a high level.”
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