‘This is how it’s supposed to be’: How the Reds raised the bar in 2023

During the summer, a Cincinnati Reds fan saw infielder Spencer Steer at Starbucks and told him a story. That fan’s father was in the hospital, and they’d been watching the games together every night.When the Reds turned their season around and began contending for a playoff spot, it helped them get through the summer.

Everyone on the Reds has a similar story where they’ve felt the excitement around being one of the biggest surprise teams this year in baseball. The Reds played meaningful baseball up through the last day of September, and they finished the season with an 82-80 record. The Reds were two wins away from becoming the third team in MLB history to go from 100 losses to the playoffs.

Along the way, the Reds’ players felt how much the team's unexpected success meant.

Reds first baseman Joey Votto heard it from his butcher, who’s a big Reds fan. Reds manager David Bell got congratulatory messages from former teammates and coaches. Outfielder Will Benson was surprised by how many fans stopped and thanked him.

The Reds were supposed to be one of the worst teams in baseball this year. They had the season that they did because when outside expectations were at their lowest, the players didn’t listen.

“We came into camp knowing that people weren’t thinking much of us,” Steer said. “The vibe from Day One was: Let’s see how good we can get, individually and as a team. That was the message. We saw it as an opportunity to prove people wrong. That’s a fun place to be, when you’re not expected to do much.”

In January, Reds team president Phil Castellini presented a PowerPoint at a fan luncheon that included the Reds on a list of small market “Teams out of contention by Opening Day.” They ended up being in contention until Sept. 30.

Despite a big need for pitching, the Reds only spent enough in the offseason to sign Luke Weaver. The plan in the offseason was to wait for the long list of top prospects to arrive in the big leagues.

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At the start of spring training, Steer was a rookie with a month of experience in the big leagues. Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Noelvi Marte and Christian Encarnacion-Strand weren’t in consideration for a spot on the Opening Day roster.

During the spring, those prospects learned about the team the Reds were trying to become.

Jonathan India, Tyler Stephenson, Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo and Graham Ashcraft set a new tone during spring training. The Reds ran sprints on the first day of camp as the coaching staff pushed a young group of players. The Reds worked on details like base running and bunt defense. India led by example by sliding headfirst twice in the spring training opener.

“I said at the beginning that I thought this season would be special,” India said. “I knew we were going to be a winning organization this year just because of the way that everyone bonded in spring training. You could tell we all were there to win. We had a motive every day. We worked really hard in practice. We didn’t take a day off.”

But, the Reds went 7-15 over the first three weeks of the season. They got swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates in a four-game series where the Reds only scored six runs.

At the time, Jason Vosler, Jose Barrero and Wil Myers were everyday players for the Reds. Vosler won the team a few of those seven games and was the Reds’ best power hitter for the first week of the season.

The roster wasn’t anywhere near as talented as it is now, and the season reached an early tipping point.

“We said, ‘(Forget) it. Let’s keep playing,’” India said. “We know how good we are. And we got through it.”

Reds outfielder TJ Friedl still sees a team meeting right after the Pirates’ series as the turning point of the year. Catcher Luke Maile told everyone that they didn’t need to feel so much pressure.

The Reds went on to sweep the red-hot Texas Rangers, the first sign of what the Reds’ 2023 season could become.

“We realized how we have to play,” Friedl said. “We have to play free, play loose and play with excitement. I always look back at that, even now, as one of the defining moments of our season. We started playing good baseball after that. It was a really big turning point for this group.”

May was filled with more validating moments. In Miami, Alexis Díaz asked Bell to keep him in for another inning and give him a chance to record a five-out save in a big series win for the Reds. In late May, the Reds swept the Cubs and won a series against the Boston Red Sox.

At the time, the talk around the clubhouse was to get back to .500 and then take it from there. The Reds got back to .500, and then the team took off.

“We always believed in ourselves,” Steer said. “But we finally saw the results that backed that belief.”

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De La Cruz got called up in early June, which gave a spark to a team that had just lost an important series against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Reds then won two games against the Dodgers on walk-offs by newly called up infielder Matt McLain and Will Benson.

After McLain’s homer, teammates threw a bubblegum bucket on his head. Following Benson’s walk off homer, he slammed his bat to the ground and shouted toward the dugout in the Reds’ biggest celebration of the year.

They were magical moments where the Reds saw that they had the talent to beat one of the best teams in baseball. The Reds were on their way to becoming the Major League leader in comeback wins and in one-run wins.

In the middle of June, the Reds went on to win 12 straight games. The winning streak was a statement to the rest of baseball and to the city of Cincinnati.

“We came back home during that huge winning streak, and this ballpark was packed,” Steer said. “We started to get the trust and the belief from the fans. We had the trust and belief that we were going to be good. We had to prove that to the city. That was the first time they really responded and said, ‘We believe you can be good again.’ ”

The winning streak turned the Reds into legitimate contenders for a playoff spot and redefined the stakes for the 2023 season. In the process, the Reds established their brand of baseball. They were going to be a team that took the extra base, stole bases, played good defense and worked tough at-bats.

The Reds had waited years for a moment like this winning streak, but India said the key to the streak was that they didn’t make a big deal about it. Even wins like Ricky Karcher’s first career save were celebrated and then treated like they were just another game.

“We were all just like, ‘Yay, we won,’” India said. “Then we moved onto the next game. We weren’t talking about how crazy it was. We just knew how good we were. We knew that we were going to keep winning. Throughout the streak, we thought, ‘This is how it’s supposed to be. We know how good we are.’”

The Reds climbed all the way up to first place in the NL Central, and they stayed in first place through the trade deadline. The Reds were interested in adding pitching depth, but teams coveted top pitching prospects like Connor Phillips, Lyon Richardson and Chase Petty in return.

The Reds made the decision that has been litigated since then that those pitchers were too much to give up for a rental player. Richardson and Phillips went on to make some important and impressive starts for the Reds that showed their potential. But this year, those two pitchers weren’t able to fill the team’s need in the rotation well enough in September.

The Reds added reliever Sam Moll at the deadline, and he became one of the Reds’ best pitchers over the last two months of the season. But aside from Moll, the Reds didn’t make another move to shore up the rotation and the bullpen.

“It’s pretty cool that we just kept the same team,” India said. “Sam Moll has been unbelievable for us. But it was pretty baller. We don’t really need anyone. We’ll just do it ourselves. I respect that. I respect Krall and the other guys behind that. They said, ‘We’ll do it with our guys.’ ”

“We couldn’t control the deadline,” Friedl said. “We continued to play with who we had in the clubhouse every day. We had the same mindset. We knew nothing was going to change.”

In August, the season nearly spiraled as the Reds played a stretch of 27 games in 28 days. Pitchers weren’t going deep into games, and young position players showed signs that they were wearing down.

Bell shortened the days at the ballpark. He had players arrive later and cut down on batting practice and pregame work on defense. Even though the Reds weren’t playing well, he hoped that this approach would pay off in the long run. The Reds’ 10-17 record in August ended up being their worst month of the season.

“All the work and the energy it took to put ourselves in a good position, it did catch up to us a bit as a team,” Bell said. “Not with the effort. But when you want something really bad and you’re fatigued and there’s nothing you can do about it and you can’t access enough to get it done sometimes. That’s where we were as a team.”

Then at the end of August, the Reds faced one of their toughest road trips in years. They flew into a predicted hurricane in Los Angeles to start a 10-game West Coast road trip. They sat on a tarmac for nine hours in Arizona. They had a COVID outbreak. Joey Votto and Matt McLain went on the injured list.

During that stretch, there weren’t any big players-only meetings or aggressive moves from Bell to try to save the season. Bell kept telling the players that they were good enough to make the playoffs, and he wanted them to have fun with the opportunity ahead of them.

“We kept this composure,” Benson said. “That has shown up. Every day, we’re the same people and the same player. We didn’t put too much stress on where we were. We stayed level-headed. David led us to carry that mindset.”

After going 10-17 in August, the Reds found some momentum again during a stretch where they nearly ran out of pitching. They split a series against the Cubs and won a series against the Seattle Mariners with Carson Spiers, Chasen Shreve, Michael Mariot and Brett Kennedy pitching in important situations. A bullpen filled with minor league free agents turned into a strength of the team.

The Reds got three walk-off wins during that stretch and stayed alive in the playoff race.

“That’s the best part about this team,” Friedl said. “All the adversity we’ve faced all year, my word for this team is resilience. We’ve been handed adversity all year long. Injuries. We’ve been the only team with COVID. Time and time again, we just bounce back. We handled it the best we could. And we made it to the playoff push.”

With Votto, India, Jake Fraley, Graham Ashcraft and Nick Lodolo on the injured list at the time, rookies played even more significant roles. The veterans helped out. Votto reminded Marte to enjoy the moment and have fun. Before Phillips’ debut, Ashcraft told him, “It’s just baseball. Go lead the guys to victory.”The Reds haven’t treated their rookies like rookies all year, and that’s helped them get comfortable more quickly in the big leagues.

“What’s the point of the whole ‘rookie thing’ if they’ll help us win and be a big part of this whole thing,” India said. “We just treat each other equally and win together. That’s more beneficial than treating them like rookies. We gelled well together. All these rookies are good players and good people. They’ve mixed in well with our culture.”

Rookies delivered some of the Reds’ biggest moments in September. Marte and Encarnacion-Strand were two of the Reds’ best hitters down the stretch. De La Cruz struggled but gave the Reds some clutch hits, like a two-home-run game last week in Cleveland. Steer has been the Reds’ most consistent hitter over the course of the season.

“It’s been a special season,” Votto said. “To see young players come up and take on the challenge and perform in big situations is fun. It’s how it should be.”

The Reds’ playoff hopes slipped away over the last two weeks of the year. Facing the tough grind of a 162-game schedule, the rookies weren’t able to stay consistent over the entire month of September. Starting pitchers rarely made it into the sixth inning during the final month of the season. A bullpen that had been dependable all season blew three critical games, and closer Alexis Díaz faded down the stretch.

The flaws on the Reds roster –– especially their lack of pitching depth –– caught up to them at the very end. But the last week of the season was still filled with moments where players were scoreboard-watching and plotting potential paths to the playoffs.

Inside the clubhouse, the Reds’ elimination was a gut punch. But the Reds’ young core arrived ahead of schedule, changed the perception of the franchise and raised the bar for expectations in the future.

“I’m excited for each individual person on this team,” Benson said. “I pray and hope that with that comes a lot of successes as we all grow old together in the league and hopefully with this team. You see the talent every day. It’s just special. It doesn't really come around often.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: ‘This is how it’s supposed to be’: How the Reds raised the bar in 2023