The last time the Cincinnati Reds won a playoff series, Barry Larkin and Bret Boone were the middle infielders, and Jeff Brantley was closing games.
NEW YORK – Can the Cincinnati Reds win a playoff series?
After a weekend in New York, the Reds have at least one team thinking it has the answer to the question dogging the franchise for 30 years.
Win a postseason series?
“The Reds? Yes,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It starts on the mound, right?
“Watching them the past couple days and then scouting them, the starting pitching jumps out,” he said. “If you can throw four or five guys day in and day out that are going to give you a chance, that’s a good feeling.”
Reds starters Nick Lodolo, Nick Martinez and Andrew Abbott combined for 18 innings and six runs allowed in their first series out of the All-Star break as the Reds became just the fourth team this season to win a series at Citi Field, where the Mets have the best home record in the National League.
“I don’t give a sh— what their record is at home. I don’t even know what it is,” Reds manager Terry Francona said after the Reds narrowly missed a sweep with a 3-2 loss in the finale. “I’m pissed off we lost today.”
That’s certainly one perspective as the weekend wrapped up.
Terry Francona won't talk about Reds' past playoff history
In fact, maybe that’s part of the answer to the original question, if not the point.
Don’t expect Francona to give a (choose your favorite profanity) how long it’s been since the Reds won a playoff series, either. He hasn’t been managing in the big leagues that long, never mind in Cincinnati.
In fact, the only player on the Reds roster who has been around long enough to witness so much as the Reds’ last playoff season in a big-league uniform is Tyler Stephenson, who made his eight-game debut that 2020 pandemic season and wasn’t on the playoff roster.
So what do any of these guys know about the franchise’s drought of the century? Heck, most of them weren’t born the last time the Reds won a playoff series, when Barry Larkin, Bret Boone and Jeff Brantley swept the Dodgers in the 1995 Division Series before losing to the Braves.
Could this be the team to snap the streak – assuming they ride their recent wave of success through the final two months and get there?
They seem to think so. Especially the way they beat the Mets the first two games out of the break, just a couple weeks after beating the playoff-positioned Yankees and Padres at home. Which came just a couple weeks after beating the best team in the American League, the Tigers, in Detroit.
By the time they won the first two games in New York, it was clear what the Reds think of themselves and their place in this playoff mix they’re threatening to upend.
"It shows who we are and what we mean," Martinez said. "To start the second half with two big wins is a good way to show the league."
But can they do something they haven’t done in 30 years?
Reds' Emilio Pagan has been in playoff chase before
“I’m kind of the right guy to ask,” said closer Emilio Pagán, whose Houdini act with two on and none out July 19 was the ninth-inning pitching moment of the year for the Reds — as he coaxed the last three outs from Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto and Pete Alonso.
“When I was in Minnesota we had kind of a similar thing.”
That was 2023, when the Twins reached the playoffs and faced a barrage of questions about trying to win even a playoff game for the first time since 2004.
"It was, ‘That’s great, you guys get in, but can you break the streak of losing playoff games,’ “ Pagán said. “The answer we kept saying was we understand where the question’s coming from. But none of us have been here for any of that."
Those Twins also answered the question in October, beating the Blue Jays in the wild-card series before falling 3 games to 1 against Houston in the second round.
The Reds left New York 2 1/2 games out of playoff position, so they’ve got a long haul for a long-shot bid at this point.
But they also left New York with a playoff state of mind.
“I think this series has shown that we can compete on a high level,” Pagán said. “The Padres series. And a couple other series. We’ve played really well.
“I definitely think we can go not only win a series but maybe win a couple of series and take it a little further than that,” he said.
They still have to get there. They’re 9-13 against National League rivals currently in playoff position, with series left against all six of those teams, plus another series against AL East-leading Toronto.
Those 31 games made up half of their remaining schedule as they left New York.
Maybe that’s when anyone will know if they have what it takes to win the big series when it counts most?
“It’s a very fair question. We understand where not only the question comes from but where Reds fans are on that,” Pagán said. “They don’t care who’s been here or not. They want to win. We’re the same way.
“We want to get there. But we don’t want to just get there. We want to get there and make some noise and do something special.”
The Mets, for one, know what they’ve seen in this Reds team right now.
The stuff of October wins?
“They've got some good ones (in the rotation),” Mendoza said. “They’ve got some really good arms in their bullpen, too. Obviously, (Elly) De La Cruz at short. They’re versatile. They’ve got some speed. So, yeah, I could see that.”
And the Hall of Fame-bound manager.
“Obviously, he’s pushing those guys and putting guys in different positions to have success,” Mendoza said, “and I’m not surprised by it.”
Reds remaining schedule will do them no favors
Who knows if they even get there, through the gauntlet schedule that remains and with so many other quality teams in the way? It's a long, uphill road to October.
But if three games in New York in the middle of July said anything, maybe that second-ranked rotation in the NL (per fangraphs.com WAR) starts to answer the Reds’ October conundrum for the first time in 30 years?
Just ask the guy who already helped answer a similar question two years ago.
“I like our chances in a short series against anybody with our pitching,” Pagán said, “and the way our lineup has gotten deeper and deeper and deeper as we’ve gone on and guys have gotten healthy and kind of settled into their roles.
“I do believe we can not only win but maybe go on a run.”
Now they’ve just got to get there.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why Cincinnati Reds (and Mets) believe they can end drought of century
Category: Baseball
