- Reds reached playoffs for first time in a full season since 2013.
- Ace Hunter Greene takes the mound to begin best-of-three series at Dodger Stadium.
- Cincinnati is in the postseason despite an 83-79 record.
LOS ANGELES — The Cincinnati Reds know what you’re thinking of them.
They don’t belong on this stage, winning the third-fewest games, 83, of any team to ever make the postseason.
They have been a losing team for the past two months, going 25-26 over their last 51 games.
They don’t have a player hitting above .270, a pitcher winning 15 games, a 25-homer hitter or a 200-strikeout pitcher, making them the first team not to have any of those players and still reach the postseason, according to OptaSTATS.
But if you’re expecting them to apologize, if you think they’re scared to be on this stage or if you think they feel inferior to the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers, well, you’ve got the wrong team.
“A lot of people didn’t think we’d be here, but we know we belong,’ Reds pitcher Nick Martinez tells USA TODAY Sports, “there’s no doubt in our mind. We’re going to continue to play our style, and we’re going to be dangerous.’
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The way the Reds see it, they threw one heck of a party Sunday when they clinched the final wild card berth when the New York Mets lost, continued the party on a raucous flight to Los Angeles, and after 48 or 72 hours in Los Angeles, they plan to continue to pick up the party where they left off.
“We’re just delaying our party for a few days,’ Reds reliever Brent Suter says, “then we plan to go back at it.’
This is not bragging and they’re far from cocky considering they’re playing the defending World Series champions on their home turf at Dodger Stadium, but they also want to remind everyone that they can play with anyone.
Considering they haven’t been to the playoffs in a full season since 2013 and haven’t won a postseason game at home since 1995, this is really for the fans.
“People back home are going crazy,’ said Suter, 37. “This means so much to everyone.’
Really, it may mean more to Suter than anyone in the Reds’ clubhouse. He grew up in Cincinnati. He was married in Cincinnati. His kids were born was Cincinnati. He lives full-time in Cincinnati.
And undoubtedly, no one had more fun partying Sunday when they clinched their playoff berth.
There was Suter wildly dancing across the room with his teammates watching. There was Suter doing an impersonation of Reds manager Terry Francona. There was Suter partying all night long. And there were his teammates still raving about Suter’s dance moves a day later.
“Normally this time of year you get a lot of texts,’ Francona says, “but I believe I’ve gotten more texts about him dancing than I have about, like, ‘Hey, way to go.’ He is unbelievable. He is more than worth his weight in what he does in that clubhouse. It’s real. He’s real. He’s phenomenal. I think he’s a phenomenon.’
Suter laughs, usually just breaking out his dance moves at parties and weddings.
Says Suter: “My friends are calling it ‘The Suter.’ They’re sending me videos of their kids doing it.’
Suter laughs but turns serious, letting you know just what it means to finally be on a playoff team for Cincinnati.
“As a hometown guy playing for this team and going to the postseason and celebrating and popping bottles,’ Suter said, “I was just pinching myself, and saying, ‘Don’t wake up. This is a dream. Don’t wake up.’ It was so fun, so close, just bear hugs to every single person in this organization. It was just an amazing couple of hours of emotional joy.
“Every time you celebrate like that, it makes all your ride worth it. All of the struggles seem like nothing. We as a group just came together, and said, ‘We’re not going away. We’re not going away quietly in the night.’ We kept fighting and fighting and kept picking each other up, and kept believing.
“Man, I’m so grateful.’
The Reds realize they are massive underdogs in this series, but they don’t care. They actually giggle at the fact that the last time they faced Dodgers’ Game 1 starter Blake Snell, he threw a no-hitter against them while with the Giants in August 2024. They know they can’t play any worse than when they faced the Dodgers a month ago at Dodger Stadium, getting swept by a combined score of 18-4.
The way they see it, they did their own rope-a-dope, perhaps getting the Dodgers overconfident.
“We know they’re a good team,’ Suter says. “They play the game right. They’ve got a great tradition here. But we also know what an opportunity we have to come in here and play the defending World Series champs.
“Who knows what could happen? They took it to us a month ago. They beat us in every facet of the game. Now, we just want to return the favor here when it matters the most.
“It’s not too much to ask, is it?
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