LOS ANGELES — This was a winnable series for the Cincinnati Reds.
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ bullpen was that shaky. The Reds’ rotation has that much promise on paper. The Reds’ lineup created enough opportunities. But issues that have been highlighted all season caught up to the Reds again in a few different ways. The Dodgers beat the Reds, 8-4, in Game 2 on Wednesday and ended Cincinnati’s season.
The Reds’ long-term plan has been built around the idea that they’d get to a playoff series against a blue blood team and the Reds’ starting pitching will have the talent to carry them. But Hunter Greene had a bad Game 1, Nick Lodolo had to pitch out of the bullpen because he wasn’t available to start and Andrew Abbott never got to take the ball. The Reds path to that point started with all of those dismal regular season games where they beat themselves, which the players, coaching staff and front office has acknowledged was a trend this season. The Reds needed all 162 games to clinch a playoff spot, and they had to treat Game 162 as a win-and-in game (they ended up making it because the Mets lost).
This week, the Dodgers’ pitching was perfectly lined up and their bullpen was as rested as they wanted it to be. The Reds’ pitching had limitations, which showed up again in the 8-4 loss in Game 2.
Zack Littell allowed three runs in 3 ⅓ innings, Nick Martinez allowed four runs (three earned) in ⅓ innings and Tony Santillan allowed a run.
“With Zack (Littell), I kind of wanted to keep it where he only faced their lineup twice,” Terry Francona said. “I think he ended up giving up six hits, and the last one, kind of the blooper down the right, really hurt. I thought he threw the ball really well. I thought he navigated his way through the lineup like he knows how to. The plan was to turn it over to (Nick) Lodolo and then to Nick (Martinez). And with Nick (Martinez), we had a runner on second and one out and we had the error (by Sal Stewart). There was a couple of ground balls, and then there was a double. It wasn’t his best night. That kid, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. He’s a big reason why we got as far as we did.”
The plan behind Littell started with Lodolo, who Francona used on short rest out of the bullpen back in Sunday’s potential win-and-in finale. Since Lodolo pitched on Sunday, he wasn’t able to start against the Dodgers. If the Reds had won a single more game before the final day of the season, they could have kept Lodolo on track to start Game 2.
Since the Reds were in all-in mode during the final week of the season, their bullpen was far from fresh for Game 1 of the series. Chase Burns threw multiple innings on Sunday, and Connor Phillips had thrown in three out of four days. Also, because Lodolo wasn’t able to start Game 2 and the plan was to have a quicker hook (two times through the order) with Littell, Francona needed to prepare to call upon a lot of his versatile bullpen pieces in Game 2.
Greene’s bad Game 1 was another costly domino. Francona had to pitch a fatigued-looking Phillips, who allowed three runs in Game 1, and longman Brent Suter, who allowed two (one earned) in 1 ⅓ innings. Scott Barlow was effective but had to pitch 1 ⅔ innings. Graham Ashcraft got the ninth inning, which was his fourth appearance in six days.
All of that made the bullpen’s options more limited in Game 2.
The most frequently asked question coming out of Game 2 was why did Francona stick with Littell for as long as he did (3 ⅓ innings). The Reds didn’t have a ton of available pitching depth. Even with Littell’s relatively short start, they essentially used all of it anyway between Lodolo, Martinez, Santillan and Chase Burns with Emilio Pagán being saved for a theoretical ninth inning save opportunity.
If Ashcraft, Phillips, Suter, Barlow or even Martinez, Santillan or Burns were fresher on Wednesday, then it could have been more of an all-hands on deck bullpen game in Game 2. Wednesday wasn’t the first time this year where the bullpen was taxed.
But the ideal scenario for Game 2 would have been a long start by Lodolo, who went on to throw just 1 ⅓ innings of relief before getting pulled from the game.
“I knew I was going to go until Tito told me I was done,” Lodolo said. “It wasn’t a set number or anything. I was going to go until he told me.”
If the Reds could have just won a few more games during the regular season ahead of Game 162 and been able to set up their pitching differently, the entire calculus of the pitching plan for the series changes.
Regardless, not using Lodolo to start the third inning and not picking up Littell with a right-handed reliever in the bottom of the fourth as Littell was struggling against a pocket of right-handed hitters are decisions by Francona that don’t look good in hindsight.
As poorly as the pitching performed, the Reds still had chances to make it a game at the plate in both games of the series. In Game 1, Ke’Bryan Hayes’ ill-timed at-bat with the bases loaded in the eighth ended the Reds’ chance with the bases loaded.
In Game 2, the Reds loaded the bases twice and came out of those chances with one combined run.
An Austin Hays groundout followed by strikeouts from Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz ended their chance in the sixth inning. Then in the eighth, Will Benson and TJ Friedl struck out to kill a Reds’ chance (the Benson strikeout ended with pinch-hitter Miguel Andujar at the plate due to a mid-batter Dodgers pitching change, but the strikeout is technically charged to Benson).
Offensively, the story of the Reds’ season was that they wanted to be a situational hitting team but were never good at it.
“That was a big stress for us since spring training,” TJ Friedl said. “We’re an offense that’s going to scrap runs together and not solely rely on the big fly. In baseball, it’s not going to happen every time. The more we can work at that and give ourselves an edge to be comfortable in those scenarios… there were many times this season where we fell short.”
The Reds ended the regular season with the 19th-best OPS and the 21st-most homers in MLB. Home runs are king when you face elite pitching in the playoffs, and the Reds couldn’t get that breakthrough against Blake Snell or Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The Reds strung longer rallies together in each game in LA, but that’s a tough way to live.
“It would be nice to solely rely on the big fly, but that’s not realistic in baseball in general,” Friedl said. “It’d be nice to have a guy who can hit a home run in every instance. But you’ve got to beat down, do some situational hitting and do some contact hitting to get runs across. I wish I had the answers to it. For us an offense as our identity is, we pass the baton. We have good at-bats. We run the bases hard. We create chaos. That’s who we are.”
The Reds never found their best lineup against right or left-handed pitching. Over the last week, there were games where Noelvi Marte hit second and Miguel Andujar hit fourth vs. RHP. On Wednesday, both of them were on the bench.
Sal Stewart was mostly was a role player down the stretch during the regular season and was on the bench in Game 1 against the Dodgers. In Game 2, he hit fifth and drove in three runs.
The Reds’ big project during the offseason will be figuring out how to get more from their offense, including on the bases.
“We took pride in situational hitting,” Tyler Stephenson said. “We can go look back at many games this year where the situational hitting, we weren’t as good at and that cost us some runs and some wins. We definitely had some opportunities.”
Signing Kyle Schwarber or Pete Alonso to save the day isn’t realistic. The Reds’ payroll margins had them trading Taylor Rogers at the deadline just to fit in Ke’Bryan Hayes’ $7 million salary. The Reds also have several other spots on the roster that simply need to be filled.
Nick Martinez and Emilio Pagán are free agents, and Scott Barlow and Brent Suter have team options. That’s half of the Reds’ bullpen. Tony Santillan, Graham Ashcraft and an emerging Connor Phillips look like the only locks for the Reds’ Opening Day bullpen next season.
“When it’s over, then you can sit back and go, okay, here’s maybe what we need to do better,” Francona said. “Like we know we’ll have to rebuild our bullpen. We kind of did it. We had Suter, who is our lefty, who was more a length guy — there’s things we know we need to work on.”
The Reds lose rotation depth with Zack Littell, a reliable veteran outfielder in Austin Hays and a valuable platoon bat in Miguel Andujar.
The Reds have holes to fill, so they can’t pool all of their resources for 2026 into just one player.
Last year, the story of the offseason was that the Reds brought in veteran contributors with winning experience. The Reds will be adding to the roster entering 2026. But a big part of the story of this offseason is that that “young” guys are stepping into those roles now.
“The young core isn’t young anymore,” Friedl said. “The young core was 2023. Last year was a learning year for a lot of us and we fell short last year heavily. This year, to bounce back and compete from Game 1 to Game 162 and get into the playoffs, we learned a lot.”
The postgame clubhouse on Wednesday, with a few exceptions like a dejected Stewart and a more even-keeled Friedl, was optimistic and appreciative. The perspective was that the Reds had just made the playoffs for the first time with this core and that they can learn from this experience.
But the story of the last 25 years of Reds’ baseball is how hard it is to get into the postseason. The story of the last 30 years of Reds’ baseball is how hard it is to win in it.
“I just told our guys, we need to do some things better, myself included,” Francona said. “I would never ask them to try to get better and I’m just going to sit at home. I’m going to look in the mirror, too. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”
2025 WXIX