The Cincinnati Reds hit the road for the first time during Thursday\u2019s day off, and on Friday began their first road series of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for them, they opened the scoring in their game against the Texas Rangers the very same way they ended it \u2013 with a major 2-run homer from a veteran off to an otherwise slow start.<\/p>\n
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Spencer Steer swatted a 2-run blast off Rangers starter MacKenzie Gore in the Top of the 2nd inning to open Cincinnati\u2019s ledger in this one, and Tyler Stephenson effectively closed it with a 2-run homer of his own in the Top of the 9th inning off veteran righty reliever Chris Martin. Stephenson\u2019s came with the game tied 3-3, and closer Emilio Pagan \u2013 himself a veteran entering play on Friday having sputtered out of the gate \u2013 hammered down a perfect Bottom of the 9th to give Cincinnati the 5-3 victory.<\/p>\n
It was a classic back and forth tie that lent itself to need a big hit late, and that\u2019s precisely what Stephenson provided. He battled into a deep count with Martin, fouling off pitches as he worked for one he could mash, and he eventually went the other way over the wall in right-center for the blast that gave Cincinnati the victory, as the Reds shared on Twitter shortly after it happened.<\/p>\n
Steer had doubled in front of Tyler, so he scored on the play. That gave him a pair of extra-base hits, pair of ribbies, and pair of runs scored on the day. Hopefully it\u2019s a sign that he\u2019s getting his bat going, as he\u2019s going to be very much needed to anchor the lineup with his defensive versatility daily (as well as on days against a LHP starter). Stephenson, who\u2019s going to get today\u2019s Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game award, similarly went 2 for 4 with a pair of ribbies \u2013 he gets the nod for the WPA boost on the homer, I suppose.<\/p>\n
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Reds 5, Rangers 3, and happy Reds fans a million.<\/p>\n
Other Notes<\/p>\n
Elly De La Cruz chipped in with a solo homer, his third of the year. It was another laser hit from the right-side of the plate, which is an incredibly good sign.<\/p>\n
Eugenio Suarez did not blast a mighty dinger today, but he did have another pair of hits.<\/p>\n
Tony Santillan kept his season ledger clean after another incredibly effective 10-pitch inning yielding zero runs. Sam Moll needed 12 pitches for his, but it was a similar good ending.<\/p>\n
Rhett Lowder will toe the rubber in Saturday\u2019s game between these two clubs, doing so opposite fellow former college standout Kumar Rocker. First pitch in that one is slated for 7:05 PM ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Reds hit the road for the first time during Thursday\u2019s day off, and on Friday began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[8289,5,9977,535,50,1177,1105,92,360,771,4,149,6967,9611,6288,1567,69,3240,12475,1868],"class_list":{"0":"post-662089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chris-martin","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-cincinnati-reds","13":"tag-elly-de-la-cruz","14":"tag-emilio-pagan","15":"tag-eugenio-suarez","16":"tag-kumar-rocker","17":"tag-mackenzie-gore","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-rangers","20":"tag-rhett-lowder","21":"tag-sam-moll","22":"tag-spencer-steer","23":"tag-texas","24":"tag-texas-rangers","25":"tag-texasrangers","26":"tag-tony-santillan","27":"tag-tyler-stephenson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116344329576265541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662089","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=662089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}