Against the Rangers, the team faced MacKenzie Gore, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, all young pitchers who have great stuff. Of those three, only Rocker was credited with a loss in the Reds\u2019 sweep of the Rangers.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s game, and really the Rangers series as a whole, showed why the front office\u2019s offseason strategy focused on rebuilding the bullpen, improving the defense and adding an extra bat. After those boxes were ticked, it was on to spring training, where Francona emphasized the importance of playing clean baseball.<\/p>\n
The Reds haven\u2019t played perfect baseball, just clean baseball. Cincinnati is the only team in baseball that hasn\u2019t committed an error yet this season. But the Reds have also been better at doing the little things, like taking extra bases on fly outs or getting good dirt-ball reads and advancing.<\/p>\n
Defensively, not only have they not made errors, but there have been plays like Sal Stewart\u2019s sixth-inning conversion of a Wyatt Langford\u2019s bloop single that might\u2019ve put runners at first and second with no outs into a force at second. Neither Stewart nor second baseman Matt McLain could get to Langford\u2019s bloop into shallow right field, but Stewart picked the ball up quickly to force leadoff man Brandon Nimmo out at second for the first out of the inning.<\/p>\n
Offensively, the Reds didn\u2019t pound the ball but scored runners from second on solid singles, the first one a fourth-inning single by Eugenio Su\u00e1rez with Elly De La Cruz on second. Then De La Cruz drove in McLain in the eighth for the eventual winning run by going the other way with a 2-2 count against Rangers lefty Robert Garcia. But it was how both players got to second before scoring that showed the small improvements the team has made \u2014 De La Cruz tagged up on Stewart\u2019s flyout in the fourth, setting up Su\u00e1rez, and McLain stole second after he walked to lead off the eighth.<\/p>\n
![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269406447-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Matt McLain slides headfirst to put the Reds ahead 2-1 in the top of the eighth inning. (Ron Jenkins \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not scoring many runs, but we\u2019re creating situations,\u201d said Su\u00e1rez, the designated hitter who leads the team with seven RBIs. \u201cWe all know that at some point we\u2019re going to score more runs, we just have to continue to create situations, create opportunities and have people on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reds are currently 23rd in both batting average (.209) and on-base percentage (.293) and 26th in slugging percentage (.332). They are 13th in home runs (nine) and are tied for the eighth-most strikeouts (91). But on the other side, they\u2019ve allowed the third-fewest runs (30) in baseball and are fifth in ERA (3.25). The Reds are also tied with two other teams with the fifth-fewest bullpen runs allowed (12) while pitching more innings than all but one team with 12 or fewer runs allowed.<\/p>\n
All six of the Reds\u2019 victories have been by two runs or less. Francona used Graham Ashcraft, Tony Santillan and Emilio Pag\u00e1n in each of the team\u2019s first two victories in Texas, so none of those three were available Sunday.<\/p>\n
Starter Chase Burns was near-perfect through the first six innings before Joc Pederson opened the seventh with a homer and Evan Carter singled. Veteran Pierce Johnson, signed as a free agent this offseason, walked a batter but got two outs. Lefty Sam Moll came into the game with runners on the corners to face Nimmo and struck him out to end the inning. Right-hander Connor Phillips, who earned his first career save last week, pitched the ninth, leaving lefty Brock Burke and right-hander Jose Franco as the only pitchers available to try to close out the 2-1 game.<\/p>\n
Burke debuted in 2019 for the Rangers and had appeared in 209 games in the big leagues as a reliever but had never gotten a save. Franco has one career appearance.<\/p>\n
Burke, who was designated for assignment by the Rangers in 2024, struck out all three batters he faced in the ninth for his first career save, punctuating it with his fastest pitch of the young season: a 99.7 mph fastball that Rangers third baseman Josh Jung swung through for the final out of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou definitely always want to prove them a little wrong after whatever they did to you,\u201d Burke said. \u201cTo do that \u2014 against them, to get my first save on Easter is almost a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Reds, it showed the team that they can win even without scoring a ton of runs or leaning on all of the pitchers on the roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s depth that we\u2019ve never had like this, guys with experience,\u201d said Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson, the player with the longest continuous stint on the team\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n
With \u201cWelcome to Miami\u201d on repeat in the post-game clubhouse, the Reds travel to Miami to face the Marlins, hoping to score more runs, but not relying on just mashing the ball to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really helps a ballclub when you win and everybody contributes,\u201d Francona said of Sunday\u2019s win. \u201cIt\u2019s nice when Pag\u00e1n, Santillan and Ashcraft are available, but those other guys, they stepped up, and it\u2019ll help us down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas \u2014 The Cincinnati Reds have scored just 26 runs through their first nine games of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,50,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-666319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cincinnati-reds","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116357708396467699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666319","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=666319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}