Comedy Central no more? Cincinnati Reds look to flip script on Brewers in underdog division

Forget Ronel Blanco’s out-of-nowhere no-hitter for the Houston Astros and Tyler O’Neill’s crazy powerful start for the Boston Red Sox.

The biggest first-glance surprise of this baseball season is that the only division without a losing team three series into it is the National League’s overlooked, underdog Comedy Central.

And right on cue, here come the new-look, next-gen Milwaukee Brewers, the defending division champs and personal bullies of the last year’s young Cincinnati Reds.

This time around, the Reds, who used more rookies than any team in baseball last year, are the only team in the division without one as they open a four-game series Monday at Great American Ball Park, looking to flip the script on the team that has beaten them 15 of the last 19 times they played.

“This division’s up for grabs, and teams are playing with a really good understanding of that,” said Reds right-hander Nick Martinez, whose club won a road series last week against the star-spangled Phillies and came back in the late innings Saturday to clobber the $300 million Mets.

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“Even though it’s early April,” he said, “there’s definitely a buzz around, like, ‘Hey, this division’s not one team’s division. This division’s up for grabs, and we’re going to play our style and play aggressive.”

Almost six months remain for things to change dramatically (ask the 2023 Pirates) and for the big-money teams on the coasts (and Texas) to laugh all the way to the bank — and to October with all the wild-card berths (ask the 2023 Cubs and Reds).

But newly promoted Brewers manager Pat Murphy saw this coming before the season started.

“I think the division has gotten a bad rap the last few years,” Murphy said. “All these teams are playing to win this year, that’s for sure. And you’ve got to respect what they’ve done, what they’ve put into their teams, what they’ve added.

“It’s going to be a war. It’s beautiful.”

In fact, some think the NL Central is about to rise as a whole, with top-10 farm systems up and down the division and some of the best young talent already on those big-league rosters.

Martinez, for one, has a theory why this start for the division might not be so temporary and that rise might be happening now:

Namely, Rookie of the Year candidates Jackson Chourio of the Brewers, Masyn Winn of the St. Louis Cardinals, Jared Jones of the Pirates, Michael Busch and Shota Imanaga of the Cubs, and all the still-very-young Reds filling the lineup — and the stolen base column on the stats sheet.

“I don’t want this to come off the wrong way at all,” Martinez said, “but it’s almost like these guys are naive to situations. And that’s the attitude you’ve got to have.

“Sometimes you’ll have guys that been been around — I’m guilty of it sometimes, too — and you’re like, ‘Wow, historically this guy’s really good or this team’s really good,” he said. “These guys come in like, ‘We don’t give a sh—. We’re going to play our style.”

Just look at the Brewers, who opened the season with four straight wins against the Mets and Minnesota Twins.

After trading Cy Young ace Corbin Burnes to the Orioles and losing free agent manager Counsell to the Cubs for a record $40 million manager contract, the Brewers were written off by much of baseball.

But veteran Christian Yelich is off to a good start, and so is Chourio, who already has two big home runs. Starting pitcher Freddy Peralta might be the best one left in the division (and pitching like it). And DL Hall, who was acquired in the Burnes deal, has shown glimpses of why he’s been a consensus top-100 prospect the last three years.

“I think it’s up there with the best of them,” young Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick said of the young talent in the division. “We’ve had some really good success in the division the last six, seven years. I don’t think (the division) hasn’t been competitive. I think we’ve just been that good. And obviously the culture we built here is winning now, especially in the NL Central.

“You can see the division as a whole is just getting better,” he added. “A lot of good young players in the division. I think it’s going to be as competitive as ever over the next few years.”

Chourio had an $82 million contract before he played a day in the big leagues. He turned 20 last month. And if his talent didn’t already have him looking like a Rookie of the Year favorite ahead of the season, the contract assured his place on the NL radar, among the likes of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jung Hoo Lee and those other guys in the Central.

“I’m just really happy to be a part of that conversation,” Chourio said through an interpreter. “I just want to go out there and have as much fun as I can and enjoy playing.

“I don’t really know what it was like before,” Chourio said. “But it definitely does seem like there’s a lot of young talent in baseball right now. And for new guys, they just want to get out there and play and just start being part of that in the big leagues.”

Martinez said he’s anxious to get his first look at Chourio.

“He’s an exciting player,” he said. “When a team invests in their young players early like that, I think it’s good for the game.”

For all the tanking that came in the division to reach this point — and for all the economic implications for the “middle-class” veterans pushed aside with the game’s latest trend toward youth — there’s no denying the excitement generated when enough young talent is collected on one team. Never mind an entire division.

The Brewers' Frelick isn’t enough of a baseball history buff to talk about the trend historically, but he knows what he sees in the division, especially on the Reds roster.

“I played with all these guys — Elly (De La Cruz), Matt (McLain), (Christian) Encarnacion-Strand — all these guys coming up were at the same level together. It was great to see them on the other side, too, with other teams bringing up these young guys as well. Seeing them succeed as well I think is great for the game.”

Reds second baseman McLain is out with a long-term shoulder injury. But De La Cruz, the Reds shortstop, is there in all his 6-foot-6 blazing glory, so talented and so volatile — at the plate and in the field — you can’t take your eyes off him. And Encarnacion-Strand already has a walkoff home run for the Reds this season.

“I think the Reds are super dangerous,” said Murphy, who was Craig Counsell’s bench coach before replacing him. “They’ve paid their dues, so to speak. And you could see it last year. You look close enough — and I was looking close — they’re really good. I respect the sh— out of them.”

Murphy rattled off nearly the entire hitting lineup when asked about the Reds’ team speed and guys who run well.

And although he laughed off the idea of De La Cruz learning from Brett Butler to bunt for hits — “Tell De La Cruz we want him to bunt” — he also paid his respects.

“Nah, he’s special,” Murphy said.

The strong starts by the NL Central’s five teams don’t appear to be flukes. The Cubs and Cardinals have both played the Dodgers; the Cubs opened against World Series-champion Texas; the Pirates have played AL-favorite Baltimore.

Back to that Martinez theory?

“Fortune favors the bold, man,” he said.

Chourio said his baseball hero coming up was superstar Miguel Cabrera.

Cabrera retired after last season with the Detroit Tigers, and now even the Tigers are a younger, newer version of what they were with Cabrera in recent seasons — and off to one of baseball’s best starts.

“I’m really happy and really grateful for the opportunities I have had,” Chourio said, “and hopefully will keep having, going forward.”

So, you think you know the Reds

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Look who's coming to town: How Reds plan to flip script on Brewers