{"id":384161,"date":"2025-10-16T21:34:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/384161\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T21:34:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:34:22","slug":"3-reasons-the-reds-can-stun-the-dodgers-in-nl-wild-card-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/384161\/","title":{"rendered":"3 reasons the Reds can stun the Dodgers in NL Wild Card series"},"content":{"rendered":"

3 reasons the Reds can stun the Dodgers in NL Wild Card series<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

No one is giving the Cincinnati Reds much of a chance.<\/p>\n

And sure, it’s the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers on the other side, the expensive defending World Series champs.<\/p>\n

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But the Reds have a chance.<\/p>\n

This is baseball, a quirky game with plenty of good fortune involved, and in a best-of-three series, truly anything could happen.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Why Clayton Kershaw isn’t on Dodgers playoff roster<\/a><\/p>\n

And here are three reasons the Reds can pull off the upset:<\/p>\n

Don’t sleep on the pitching<\/p>\n

The Dodgers have the big-name pitchers lined up for the three games: Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n

But the Reds have some horses of their own.<\/p>\n

Hunter Green will get the ball for Game 1, and he’s a true ace. He’s as dominant as Snell, and it’s a game that could be decided by one run.<\/p>\n

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Zack Littell will pitch Game 2, and he’s a cool redemption story who has turned himself into a consistent, winning pitcher in the back half of his career.<\/p>\n

And the lefty Andrew Abbott in Game 3 has been stellar all year. He’s got a 2.87 ERA and will give a different look than the righties for the first two games.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0The Joe DiMaggio reason Cal Raleigh should be the AL MVP<\/a><\/p>\n

Elly is back<\/p>\n

Elly De La Cruz was on a prolonged slump for much of the summer. He didn’t hit a single home run in August.<\/p>\n

But in the last 15 days, De La Cruz has batted .275 with three home runs, two steals and a .908 OPS.<\/p>\n

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Teams need their superstars to help them pull off upsets. And De La Cruz has heated back up at the right time.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Phillies’ Bryce Harper is facing unprecedented pressure in playoffs<\/a><\/p>\n

They’ve got Tito<\/p>\n

Terry ‘Tito’ Francona is the Reds’ manager.<\/p>\n

This man ended the 86-year curse of the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

Who’s to question whether he can beat the Dodgers in a three-game series?<\/p>\n

The Reds may need optimal bullpen usage and a few timely substitutions to beat the Dodgers. They may also need a manager who understands his players to know exactly how to motivate them. Francona has that covered.<\/p>\n

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More MLB News:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3 reasons the Reds can stun the Dodgers in NL Wild Card series originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[2001,5,114,48,1207,3297,535,50,4259,1147,7320,1177,54559,57,4,40,536,468,313,5170],"class_list":{"0":"post-384161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-andrew-abbott","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blake-snell","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-bryce-harper","13":"tag-cal-raleigh","14":"tag-cincinnati","15":"tag-cincinnati-reds","16":"tag-cincinnatireds","17":"tag-clayton-kershaw","18":"tag-de-la-cruz","19":"tag-elly-de-la-cruz","20":"tag-hunter-green","21":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-phillies","24":"tag-reds","25":"tag-shohei-ohtani","26":"tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto","27":"tag-zack-littell"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115385995548796649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}