Nick Martinez shouted it from the back of the room after a big win in San Diego a couple weeks ago. He shouted it even louder the next night after another win.
And on Sept. 21 he might as well have shouted it from the top of the mound at Great American Ballpark when he retired everybody he faced across 2 1/3 innings.
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“Yeah. Can’t kill us,” Martinez said after the Cincinnati Reds caught the New York Mets to take over the driver’s seat in the race for the final National League playoff spot.
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The T-shirts can’t be far behind. Maybe they’ll even include the choice word or two Martinez left out from the original declaration back in San Diego.
The Reds have been left for dead several times
For now, get a load of how far back from the abyss the Reds have crawled since their hopes were left in steaming piles on Aug. 27 when they were swept by the Dodgers; on Sept. 5 after a week of team-wide flu bugs and a crushing loss to the Mets left them with the sixth-worst record in the league; and then just barely a week ago on Sept. 14 when they got swept by the Athletics and took a losing a record into Game 150.
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Toast. Baked. Done. Stick a fork in them. Wait’ll next year.
Nick Martinez, who retired all seven batters he faced in the Reds’ 1-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 21, is relishing the playoff chase. “Yeah. Can’t kill us,” he’s been saying.
We all said it. We all knew it.
“We don’t care about the outside noise,” infielder Gavin Lux said.
And that’s the thing.
Whatever happens during these final six games, whether they make the playoffs or just miss, they already have proven that much about this team this first year with manager Terry Francona at the helm.
They are baseball’s cockroaches. Smack ‘em, stomp ‘em, flick ‘em, flush ‘em.
But don’t turn your backs on ‘em. Just ask the New York Mets, whose second straight loss to the Washington Nationals on Sept. 21 opened the door just enough for the Reds to scurry back up into the playoff field for the first time since April 29.
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“Once we saw what went down (with the Mets’ loss Sunday), we were like, here we go,” said workhorse reliever Tony Santillan, who got the save in the 1-0 win over the Chicago Cubs that earned the Reds a four-game sweep and their sixth win in seven games to tie the Mets for the NL’s third wild-card spot.
Reds entered off day with playoff spot, thanks to tiebreaker
With tiebreaker in hand, that means the Reds are the hunted as both the Mets and Reds took Monday off before the final six-game sprint for each.
The Reds, by the way, also hold the tiebreakers on the teams immediately behind them (Arizona, San Francisco).
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“Biggest series of the season so far, and we’ve got a couple more big ones,” Martinez said. “It’s been like a playoff atmosphere for us since the first game of the series. We’re playing real well. We’re playing real tough. And relentless.”
Veterans like Martinez — who’s been willing and successful at toggling between the rotation and bullpen — and Emilio Pagan — who was tapped to fill the closer role vacated by struggling former All-Star Alexis Diaz — have set a clubhouse tone for a pitching staff that has been a season-long strength.
The rotation has ranked among the top two in the game all season (according to fangraphs.com).
Andrew Abbott, who battled through 4 2/3 shutout innings on Sept. 21, has been one of the aces in what has been a highly ranked starting rotation.
But they still got off to a slow start. Never won more than five in row. Lost three consecutive 1-0 games at one point early in the season. Lost ace Hunter Greene for nearly three months with a groin injury. Lost 11 of 15 games to fall six games out of playoff position on Sept. 6.
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And all of a sudden are all but assured of staying alive in this thing — at least — down to the end.
“We’ve had a lot of tough losses. I mean, we got swept out in Sacramento,” Francona said. “You better come back and play. You don’t know what’s too much or too little. That’s why just play the best you can. That’s the best way I know how to do it.”
He delivered that message from the start and stuck by it through all the would-be season-crushing moments.
And here they are.
Baseball’s cockroaches.
Put it on another T-shirt for the rest of these games and maybe even into next month.
In the past week alone, officials from three teams already in the playoff field said versions of the same thing about the Reds: “If they get in, nobody wants to face them with that pitching staff.”
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Just ask the Cubs, who didn’t seem to know the slippery edge the Reds have been clinging to.
“To be completely honest, I was surprised they weren’t in the wild-card spot (already),” Cubs starter Jameson Taillon told Chicago writers after the sweep.
“We saw Hunter Greene at the top of his game (Sept. 18 one-hitter). That’s pretty elite,” Taillon added. “I wouldn’t want to face him in a playoff series. Obviously, we would have loved to get out of here with some wins, but that’s a team that’s extremely motivated and playing for their lives.”
Every Red from Francona in the dugout to the relievers on the other side of the center field wall knew when the Mets loss went final late in their own game Sunday.
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“We were keeping tabs in the bullpen,” Martinez said. “It made us very hungry, gave us that extra edge.”
Now they just have to keep it up.
“We’re not there yet,” said Lux, the World Series veteran traded over from the Dodgers during the offseason. “It’s good to catch a heater right now when we need it the most. But Pittsburgh has a really good pitching staff. We’ve got to come ready to go, and then obviously Milwaukee, too. These aren’t rollover games.”
Said All-Star starter Andrew Abbott: “We do have a little more say in what goes on now, but we still need to win.”
When in doubt, hand Martinez the ball. He’s been waiting for this moment since he originally signed with the Reds before last season – and called it two weeks ago.
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“I love it,” he said. “Obviously, this last month, month and a half, there’s been a lot of ups and downs.
“But like I said, we’re hard to kill.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Baseball’s cockroaches: Cincinnati Reds ‘can’t be killed’