Careful what you wish for? Cincinnati Reds players wanted team intact, and team stood pat
CHICAGO — The Cincinnati Reds said they didn’t need help at the trade deadline. Said they love their team just the way it is. Said they didn’t want anybody to be traded out of the group and can keep winning into October without outside help.
Now they’ve got 54 games – one third of the season – to prove it.
Make it 53 games after the Chicago Cubs clobbered starter Ben Lively and the Reds 20-9 on Tuesday night a few hours after general manager Nick Krall stood pat at the trade deadline, adding one bullpen depth pitcher the day before.
“We didn’t need to do a whole bunch,” said catcher Tyler Stephenson, who homered in the loss Tuesday. “I’m really confident in what we’ve got. We’ve got two of our starters hopefully coming back pretty soon. We get them back, that’s going to obviously be a huge help, a huge boost for this team.”
Reinforcements on the way for Reds' pitching staff?
That would be second-year ace Hunter Greene, the Reds’ opening day starter due back from a hip and lower back soreness in about three weeks, and lefty Nick Lodolo – the No. 2 starter in the opening rotation – who’s due back from a leg injury a week or two after that.
Greene pitched two scoreless innings with three strikeouts in his first minor-league rehab start Tuesday for the Arizona Complex League Reds.
Stephenson also mentioned Tejay Antone, the reliever who looked like a rising star until his second Tommy John surgery in 2021. Antone, who continues his rehab assignment Wednesday with Triple-A Louisville, also is expected back before the end of the season.
Is that enough help? Will it come quickly enough for the National League Central leaders, whose lead was trimmed to a half-game over second-place Milwaukee and four over third-place Chicago with a loss Tuesday that was downright Shakespearean.
Shakespearean in the sense that their first chance to respond to a do-nothing deadline day was utterly tragic looking? Sure.
By comparison, after the Houston Astros traded for old pal Justin Verlander Tuesday, the Astros got a no-hit performance from their starter, Framber Valdez.
Wrong side of history for Reds' pitching
But this was Shakespearean more in a literal sense – and long before catcher Luke Maile took the mound late in the game for the Reds.
When Reds starter Ben Lively was left in the game to roast in order to ease an overworked bullpen’s burden, he became the first Reds pitcher to allow 13 runs in a start since Charles “King” Lear on July 24, 1915, against Philadelphia, according to Elias Sports Bureau. Lively did it in half the eight innings Lear pitched.
It was the first time the Reds allowed 20 runs in a game since 2009.
Whatever it looked like from a distance, the Reds don't see any connection between standing pat at the deadline and the result of a game that went the wrong way as fast as it took the Cubs fifth batter of the game, Dansby Swanson, to make it 5-0 with a three-run home run (the first of two Swanson homers).
"It was a tough game but as soon as the deadline [passed], I felt a sense of relief and excitement that we were all able to stay together and keep doing this."
But it’s what comes after Tuesday that will define this season for this young, ahead-of-schedule contender – and whether Krall deserves credit or blame for the the result.
“We’re in a really good spot,” pitcher Graham Ashcraft said.
Even on the eve of the deadline, tenured veteran Joey Votto downplayed the need for additions.
“More is more, right?” he said. “But I feel genuinely like this entire group is like, 'We can do it.’ It’s that optimistic, aggressive, consistent attitude that they’ve had all year. All year.
“I showed up and sensed it right away,” said Votto, whose season debut came after a lengthy recovery from shoulder surgery, June 19, the ninth game of a 12-game winning streak. This was in the heart of the hot spell. But even in spring training, early in the season, you just sensed it.”
Votto's one of the few players in the clubhouse who know first-hand how the heat of August and the intensity of September can alter seasons for better or worse.
That's when anyone watching this team will get a real sense of how real all this upstart energy and youthful success is in the context of a sixth-month, game-a-day meat-grinder.
Even on Tuesday, the newest Cub, Monday acquisition Jeimer Candelario, had four hits in the win over the Reds. And the newest Brewers hitter, Monday acquisition Mark Canha, walked and scored the tying run in a comeback win over the Nationals.
"Every team’s different," Stephenson said. "I feel like all of us, we agree, what we’ve got in-house, I feel like we didn’t need a whole lot compared to some other teams that needed more."
Said Ashcraft: "I don’t really care about what they do. It doesn’t affect me. We’re still going to go out and play the same game that we're playing."
Maybe that'll be enough. Maybe they didn't need to add. Maybe they'll find out sooner or later over the next several weeks.
"I personally feel great about our team," Bell said. “Much smarter people have taken a crack at defining chemistry and all of that. But I know it matters. We see it. We’ve experienced it. It matters a lot.
“I can’t put a number on it,” he said. “But it’s good here — it’s great here. And I don’t want that to go away. I really believe we can keep that going.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds players wanted team left intact, now must back it up
