How Cincinnati Reds surprising source of Opening Day power was just the way they planned

It wasn’t exactly the way the Cincinnati Reds drew up the plans for winning games this year.

Hell, it wasn’t even the way they drew up the roster when headed to spring training — never mind how they drew up the Opening Day lineup.

But when the last man in delivered the most powerful opening salvo in 17 years for the Reds, it might have said all anyone needed to know about how the Reds will earn whatever success they achieve in 2024.

“It hit me after my inning,” said reliever Emilio Pagán, who pitched the seventh inning of the Reds’ 8-2 win over the Washington Nationals in Thursday’s opener. “I’m sitting in the dugout and we’ve got seven runs right now and we haven’t really used our best tool, which is running the bases.

“When you can win games that don’t look like how you expect you’re going to win games, that says a lot.”

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Don’t look like what you expect?

Meet Nick Martini, 33-year-old journeyman outfielder who wasn’t sure he’d be on the Opening Day roster, much less the Opening Day lineup, even in the final days of spring training.

“It was definitely a thought in the back of my mind,” said Martini, who delivered a two-run homer high into the right-field stands on his first swing of the season and three-run, line-drive shot over the wall in left-center in the third inning.

“Just because of my past,” he said. “Nothing’s ever worked out that way for me.”

When Reds president Nick Krall added infielder Jeimer Candelario and five pitchers in free agency before spring training opened — then added another pitcher and another infielder in March — depth was the buzzword of every conversation about any improvement that might be in store for the Reds this year.

But few mentioned the word Martini in those conversations — with the exception of the occasional TV or radio guy and his after-dinner cocktail plans.

“He was one of those guys where maybe sometimes you take off a roster,” Krall said. “But he’s not a guy we wanted to take off. We liked who he was and we thought he had a chance to contribute to this club.”

A player so nice, the Reds got him twice.

A few years ago, Martini was a Red for 51 days. From the time the Reds claimed him off waivers from the Padres in November 2019 until they waived him in January (claimed by the Phillies).

“It was one of those where it just didn’t work itself out,” said Krall, who made those moves, “but we liked the way he took at-bats, and he obviously got some more power last year.”

When the Reds got the chance to nab him again after he’d banged around in the Phillies farm system, then with the Cubs — including 25 big-league games in 2021 — and then in the KBO League in Korea for a season, they signed him to a minor-league deal early last year.

“And he took off,” Krall said.

He went 10-for-32 (.313) over his final 15 games last season after an Aug. 23 callup, with three of his six home runs and a 1.072 OPS. Thursday he became the first Red since Adam Dunn in 2007 to hit two home runs on Opening Day.

“I think he’s been severely undervalued his entire career,” said Pagán, a one-time Oakland A’s teammate, who said he believes Martini should be a no-brainer for anybody’s roster. “He brings our whole locker room together.”

Teammate Spencer Steer called Martini’s clubhouse presence “infectious energy.”

The fact is that without late-spring injuries to TJ Friedl (wrist) and Matt McLain (shoulder), Martini might not have made the roster.

Without him they might not have won Thursday’s opener.

And while that’s just one game, with 161 left to play, it’s instructive for the way the Reds must win this season as much as how they plan to play — with team speed, pressure on the bases and more pitching than they had last year.

“Nick’s here on this team because he’s going to be a big part of our team,” manager David Bell said. “It absolutely takes 26-plus guys.”

For this one, it had been a long journey to reach Thursday’s moment, an achievement for a career regardless of whatever comes next.

“When (Bell) told me I made the team, it was kind of hard to react at that time,” said Martini, who was a 28-year-old rookie the year he played in Oakland with Pagán. “Just because it had been 13 years; I’d had a trip to Korea (for the 2022 season), then I come back here and signed a minor-league deal last year and didn’t even go to big-league camp.

“So it was kind of like everything coming together at once.”

Even the McLain injury that assured the roster spot came with personal, mixed emotions after Martini and McLain had gotten close and hung out a lot.

“The guys that are out it obviously stinks because they’re so talented,” Martini said. “But I think every guy here feels they can contribute in some sort of way.”

And that’s the larger point of a team like the Reds. A team of young players with high-ceiling talent and veteran newcomers to lend stability for a long season of high expectations.

And the kind of depth that must make the difference. Definitely early with key absences. Maybe later into the fall than anyone knows.

It might not have been how they planned to win on Thursday. But it was exactly how they need to.

"I just don't think it's fully hit me yet," Martini said.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Not how Cincinnati Reds drew it up, but exactly how they need to win