Reds MLB playoffs locker room celebration
Red players, coaches and staff pop bottles in the visitors clubhouse at American Family Field after clinching a 2025 National League wild card berth.
LOS ANGELES — The last time Gavin Lux was at Dodger Stadium, former teammates emerged from the home dugout for hugs and daps as the team staged a pregame ceremony to present him with his 2024 World Series ring.
That was so August.
This time around, they can kiss his ring as far as he’s concerned. No time for daps with October in the air.
Lux is back seeing Red as the Cincinnati Reds’ most playoff-tested man on a mostly playoff-newb roster trying to beat the $350 million defending champs who traded him to the Reds last winter.
“I’d be excited anywhere it was, but I think it’s cool that I get to go back there and hopefully knock them out,” said Lux, who is now 7-for-7 in making the playoffs in a seven-year big-league career spent entirely with the Dodgers until the trade.
The man with 30 big-league games and a big hit to help beat the Yankees in one of team in last year’s World Series still has a lot of friends on the other side. And has no hard feelings about the trade.
But there might be at least a little extra sweetness in a series win for him if it comes against his old club.
“(Expletive), I think you always play with that little chip on your shoulder,” he said, before adding, “but at the end of the day, if it was Philly, if it was (Milwaukee), it doesn’t matter. Getting into the playoffs, you’re just trying to win every pitch, win every game and worry about the other (stuff) later.”
That’s where his 30 games of playoff experience might help pay off for the team with the least amount of playoff experience on its roster among MLB’s 12-team field.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on the eve of the Sept. 30 series opener talked about using that experience advantage by trying to put the Reds away early in what should be a next-level loud, pressure-packed, roiling-emotions experience on the road for the lesser experienced team.
On the other hand, he said, the “danger” of the inexperienced team is a “youthful enthusiasm” that can sometimes lead to a momentum-driven success before the newbies have spent much time thinking about it.
“The way to combat that is to not take them lightly,” Roberts said. “We’re playing against a team that essentially feels like it has nothing to lose. But we’re aware of it and focused on playing well.”
If Lux can help influence Reds teammates, he’ll be using what he learned from veteran Dodgers teammates against them.
“Any time you get a chance to take the field out there for these big, meaningful games, you’ve just got to enjoy it man,” he said. “My first playoffs, Justin Turner told me, ‘You know that feeling when you’ve got four hits and you’re walking up there for your fifth one and it’s like you’re playing with house money? And you know you’ve got that really good feeling like no one can get me out right now? You try to go up there with that feeling every at-bat. And just enjoy it.’ “
Easier said than done. Especially in this place, against this team.
But Lux points out the Reds have tended to play well against the better teams they’ve faced (33-32 overall against the playoff field despite the 1-5 mark against the Dodgers).
And they haven’t played better baseball than they have the last week or two, he said.
Might as well start the search for their own ring by knocking off the champs.
“Obviously, I’ve spent a decade here in this org,” he said. “I’m really grateful for everything they did for me. But I’m ready to get out there and kick their you-know-whats.”