The Cincinnati Reds walked out of Sunday Night Baseball with more than a series-clinching win over the Chicago Cubs. They also carved out a place in MLB history.
Chase Burns picked up his 15th win of the season in the victory, and that gave the Reds a feat no team had ever pulled off before, according to OPTAStats. Cincinnati became the first club in Major League Baseball history to have a hitter under 25 with a 30-home-run, 100-RBI season, a hitter under 25 with a 20-home-run, 20-stolen-base season, and a pitcher under 25 with a 15-win season all in the same year.
The numbers behind that milestone come from a trio that has given the Reds a real young core. Sal Stewart has 31 home runs and 105 RBI.
Elly De La Cruz has 21 home runs and 24 stolen bases. Burns, meanwhile, has now reached 15 wins in a season that has turned into something special for a first-year starter.
That’s the encouraging part for Cincinnati, because the bigger picture has still been uneven this season. The talent is obvious, though, and the organization has already made one move to lock in the group by extending Burns on a seven-year contract. The next challenge is harder: finding a way to keep building around Stewart and make the most of this window before De La Cruz reaches free agency after 2029.
De La Cruz also had a memorable Sunday off the field, at least in the sense that Joey Votto was still shaping the way he thinks about the game. De La Cruz said Votto helped him when he came up in 2023, and Votto had a message for him before the game.
“I want you to watch (Pete Crow-Armstrong) today,” Votto told De La Cruz, which he shared during the first inning of a game broadcast. “When PCA gets these MVP chants, that’s going to be Elly De La Cruz in 2027.
And I think he’s motivated… He has every single tool identical to PCA. He has not tapped into his full potential.
His full potential is best player in baseball.”
For De La Cruz, the next step is simple in concept and difficult in practice: keep stacking consistent seasons. He has improved in some part of his game every year so far, including his batting average. And this year, his defense has taken a major leap after he led the league in errors in each of the last two seasons.
Burns, for his part, responded exactly the way the Reds needed after a rough outing in San Francisco last week, when he gave up five runs on nine hits. Against the Cubs, he settled in fast.
He allowed two earned runs in 5 2/3 innings, struck out seven, and walked only one. His season ERA now stands at 2.79.
The stuff was there too. Burns generated 11 whiffs on 19 swings with his slider, and his fastball velocity was above his season averages.
He has now thrown 145 1/3 innings, a career high in his first full season. Last year, he threw 109 innings between the minors and the big leagues.
It has already been a landmark season for Burns and Stewart, who were each named to their first All-Star team in their first seasons. Put that together with De La Cruz, and the Reds have a young trio that looks capable of carrying the franchise forward. Now comes the hard part: turning that promise into wins.
In Other News...
Elly De La Cruz Exit Just Raised The Stakes For The Reds
Elly De La Cruzs night ended early against the Chicago Cubs after he left with tightness in his left quad, a development the Reds did not need in the middle of a game that already carried plenty of attention. Ivan Johnson took over for him in the seventh inning, giving Cincinnati an immediate look at how it would handle the rest of the matchup without one of its most dynamic players on the field.
Terry Francona is expected to have more to say after the game, and for the Reds, the real concern now is whether this is just a short-term hiccup or something that lingers. De La Cruz has become too central to what Cincinnati does to treat any lower-body issue lightly, so even a precautionary exit will be watched closely once the postgame update arrives. [Read more 🡒]
Elly De La Cruz Just Put Cincinnatis Stretch Run In Doubt
Elly De La Cruz leaving Tuesdays game against the Cubs with an apparent left quad injury was the kind of development the Reds could not afford at this point in the season. The team confirmed the injury on social media, and it comes with the September schedule tightening around them and a run of playoff-contending opponents looming.
For Cincinnati, the concern is bigger than one night out of the lineup. De La Cruz has now dealt with the same quad issue in back-to-back seasons, and he has already missed time this year with a hamstring injury, so every new setback adds another layer of uncertainty to the stretch run. The Reds have been trying to keep pace in a crowded race, and losing their most dynamic player would make an already difficult closing month even more complicated. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Deadline Fallout Just Took Another Brutal Turn
The Reds trade deadline shuffle already looked like a mixed bag, and it has only gotten messier in the days since. Cincinnati moved Nathaniel Lowe to the Guardians and Caleb Ferguson to the Cardinals, hoping to reshape the roster for the stretch run, but the early returns have not done the club many favors.
Fergusons rough stay in St. Louis ended with his release, underscoring how quickly a deadline move can turn from useful depth to a dead end. Around the same time, Carson Spiers began a rehab assignment as he works his way back from injury, while former draft pick Hunter Hollan was released from the organization, adding another reminder that the Reds are still sorting through the fallout of a deadline built on uncertainty. [Read more 🡒]