ARLINGTON, Texas — The Cincinnati Reds have scored just 26 runs through their first nine games of the season, tied with the San Francisco Giants for the fewest in Major League Baseball. But after the Reds’ 2-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Sunday, the team is 6-3, while the punchless Giants are 3-7.
“Runs are kind of hard to come by right now, and we kind of proved this weekend that it doesn’t mean you have to lose,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “You’ll see a game here — and I hope it’s soon — where guys kind of break out and can relax a little bit, but right now it’s been hard.”
In fairness, the Reds’ three losses on the season have come against perhaps two of the top starters in the game: Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox and Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The third came against one of the game’s top young pitching prospects in the Pirates’ Bubba Chandler.
Against the Rangers, the team faced MacKenzie Gore, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, all young pitchers who have great stuff. Of those three, only Rocker was credited with a loss in the Reds’ sweep of the Rangers.
Sunday’s game, and really the Rangers series as a whole, showed why the front office’s offseason strategy focused on rebuilding the bullpen, improving the defense and adding an extra bat. After those boxes were ticked, it was on to spring training, where Francona emphasized the importance of playing clean baseball.
The Reds haven’t played perfect baseball, just clean baseball. Cincinnati is the only team in baseball that hasn’t committed an error yet this season. But the Reds have also been better at doing the little things, like taking extra bases on fly outs or getting good dirt-ball reads and advancing.
Defensively, not only have they not made errors, but there have been plays like Sal Stewart’s sixth-inning conversion of a Wyatt Langford’s bloop single that might’ve put runners at first and second with no outs into a force at second. Neither Stewart nor second baseman Matt McLain could get to Langford’s bloop into shallow right field, but Stewart picked the ball up quickly to force leadoff man Brandon Nimmo out at second for the first out of the inning.
Offensively, the Reds didn’t pound the ball but scored runners from second on solid singles, the first one a fourth-inning single by Eugenio Suárez with Elly De La Cruz on second. Then De La Cruz drove in McLain in the eighth for the eventual winning run by going the other way with a 2-2 count against Rangers lefty Robert Garcia. But it was how both players got to second before scoring that showed the small improvements the team has made — De La Cruz tagged up on Stewart’s flyout in the fourth, setting up Suárez, and McLain stole second after he walked to lead off the eighth.
Matt McLain slides headfirst to put the Reds ahead 2-1 in the top of the eighth inning. (Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
“We’re not scoring many runs, but we’re creating situations,” said Suárez, the designated hitter who leads the team with seven RBIs. “We all know that at some point we’re going to score more runs, we just have to continue to create situations, create opportunities and have people on.”
The Reds are currently 23rd in both batting average (.209) and on-base percentage (.293) and 26th in slugging percentage (.332). They are 13th in home runs (nine) and are tied for the eighth-most strikeouts (91). But on the other side, they’ve allowed the third-fewest runs (30) in baseball and are fifth in ERA (3.25). The Reds are also tied with two other teams with the fifth-fewest bullpen runs allowed (12) while pitching more innings than all but one team with 12 or fewer runs allowed.
All six of the Reds’ victories have been by two runs or less. Francona used Graham Ashcraft, Tony Santillan and Emilio Pagán in each of the team’s first two victories in Texas, so none of those three were available Sunday.
Starter Chase Burns was near-perfect through the first six innings before Joc Pederson opened the seventh with a homer and Evan Carter singled. Veteran Pierce Johnson, signed as a free agent this offseason, walked a batter but got two outs. Lefty Sam Moll came into the game with runners on the corners to face Nimmo and struck him out to end the inning. Right-hander Connor Phillips, who earned his first career save last week, pitched the ninth, leaving lefty Brock Burke and right-hander Jose Franco as the only pitchers available to try to close out the 2-1 game.
Burke debuted in 2019 for the Rangers and had appeared in 209 games in the big leagues as a reliever but had never gotten a save. Franco has one career appearance.
Burke, who was designated for assignment by the Rangers in 2024, struck out all three batters he faced in the ninth for his first career save, punctuating it with his fastest pitch of the young season: a 99.7 mph fastball that Rangers third baseman Josh Jung swung through for the final out of the game.
“You definitely always want to prove them a little wrong after whatever they did to you,” Burke said. “To do that — against them, to get my first save on Easter is almost a movie.”
For the Reds, it showed the team that they can win even without scoring a ton of runs or leaning on all of the pitchers on the roster.
“It’s depth that we’ve never had like this, guys with experience,” said Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson, the player with the longest continuous stint on the team’s roster.
With “Welcome to Miami” on repeat in the post-game clubhouse, the Reds travel to Miami to face the Marlins, hoping to score more runs, but not relying on just mashing the ball to win.
“It really helps a ballclub when you win and everybody contributes,” Francona said of Sunday’s win. “It’s nice when Pagán, Santillan and Ashcraft are available, but those other guys, they stepped up, and it’ll help us down the road.”