To say that things didn’t go well for the Cincinnati Reds last night would be an understatement. Their best pitcher – the one with a 2.76 ERA over the last two seasons and 250+ inning – laid an egg. Hunter Greene gave up a leadoff home run to Shohei Ohtani and then two more later in the game as he was charged with five runs in just 3.0 innings. It was 8-0 before the Reds would score their first run of the game and while they would go on to score five runs, the game was never close nor was it ever in doubt.
Tonight the Reds will be back in Los Angeles hoping to pick up a win over the Dodgers and keep their offseason plans pushed off a little bit longer. A loss would send them home until next February when it’s time to show up for spring training in Goodyear. A win would keep them alive for at least one more day and force a winner-takes-the-series game three on Thursday night.
The Reds are going to send right-handed pitcher Zack Littell to the mound in a do-or-die game. And this matchup in this stadium might be about as bad as it gets for Littell. He’s given up 36 home runs this season – second most in the majors. And he’s facing a team that had five guys hit 20 home runs, and another guy with 19 who only played in 100 games. Only the Yankees hit more homers in 2025 than the Dodgers. Oh yeah, and the game is being played in the ballpark that boosts home runs more than any other ballpark in baseball over the last three seasons according toe Baseball Savant’s park factors.
None of that bodes well for Cincinnati. Neither does the fact that in seven games against the Dodgers this season they have one win. Nor does the fact that in this best-of-three wild card format that 10 of the 12 series wound up being sweeps and that all 12 of the series were won by the team who won the first game.
But hey – every streak eventually comes to an end. The Reds have lost seven straight playoff games. They haven’t won a home playoff game since 1995. And the only way either of those streaks end this year is if they can win tonight (and keep winning). Cincinnati needs to win two games in a row. That’s may feel like some unthinkable, impossible scenario after watching what happened last night. But it’s really not. The Reds aren’t as good as the Dodgers are. But bad teams beat good teams twice in a row all of the time. And the Reds aren’t bad. They just aren’t exactly good, either.
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