{"id":695807,"date":"2026-05-11T04:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T04:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/695807\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T04:21:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T04:21:20","slug":"1-thing-cincinnati-reds-still-must-prove-after-houston-astros-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/695807\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Thing Cincinnati Reds Still Must Prove After Houston Astros Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cincinnati Reds<\/a> could not have started May off any worse. They got swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> and Chicago Cubs<\/a> before falling 10-0 to the Houston Astros<\/a> on Friday, losing eight straight games before beating the Astros 3-1 on Saturday and 5-0 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Reds now need to make up ground in the NL Central, as they’re tied with the Pirates for last place at 22-19, five games behind the Cubs in first. It’s the only division in baseball with all winning teams.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Cincinnati had three walk-off losses to Chicago during the losing streak, which shows what the squad needs to clean up moving forward.<\/p>\n

\"CincinnatiCincinnati Reds pitcher Brock Burke<\/a> (49). \u00a9 Sam Greene\/The Enquirer \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Cincinnati is 23rd in baseball with a 4.52 ERA, and the bullpen must do its part to fix that. It can start by performing better in high-leverage spots.<\/p>\n

Closer Emilio Pagan<\/a> blew his third save of the year in Monday’s 5-4 loss to the Cubs, right-hander Tony Santillan<\/a> blew a save in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 3-2 loss, and right-hander Graham Ashcraft<\/a> blew a save in Wednesday’s 7-6 loss. Right-hander Pierce Johnson<\/a> earned his first save of the year in Saturday’s win over the Astros, but that’s not enough to undo the errors from the Chicago series.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Up next for the Reds is a home series against the Washington Nationals<\/a>, are eighth in baseball with a .722 OPS despite being 19-22. Their offense is headlined by shortstop CJ Abrams<\/a> and right fielder James Wood, who are 18th in baseball with a .918 OPS and 19th with a .916 OPS, respectively.<\/p>\n

An improved performance by Cincinnati’s bullpen against that squad would be another step in the right direction after turning in a quality outing in Sunday’s 5-0 win over Houston, allowing no hits over the final three innings of the contest. The Astros are fifth with a .762 OPS, so the Reds have the chance to show they can shut down two of the better offenses in MLB back-to-back.<\/p>\n

Hurlers like Ashcraft (1.74 ERA), left-hander Sam Moll<\/a> (1.65 ERA), and left-hander Brock Burke (3.06 ERA) are three players who could lead that charge given their performances thus far. However, they need improvement from right-hander Connor Phillips<\/a> (5.40 ERA), Santillan (5.17 ERA), and right-hander Jose Franco (4.30 ERA).<\/p>\n

The Reds are off on Monday before facing the Nationals on Tuesday at 6:40 p.m. ET. Right-handed pitcher Brady Singer<\/a> (2-2, 5.63 ERA) will start for Cincinnati against right-hander Miles Mikolas<\/a> (1-3, 7.44 ERA).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Reds could not have started May off any worse. They got swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,757,3765,24,50,497,25546,1105,1178,139,54,3211,123,4,1133,64,9611,12475,71],"class_list":["post-695807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-astros","tag-baseball","tag-brady-singer","tag-brock-burke","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cj-abrams","tag-connor-phillips","tag-emilio-pagan","tag-graham-ashcraft","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-miles-mikolas","tag-mlb","tag-pierce-johnson","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sam-moll","tag-tony-santillan","tag-washington-nationals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116554032522977648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695807","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=695807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}