The Cincinnati Reds keep turning games into home-run showcases, and Sunday night at Wrigley Field was the latest example. In a 7-5 win over the Cubs on NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball, four different Reds went deep - Hector Rodriguez, Dane Myers, Tyler Stephenson and Sal Stewart - as Cincinnati wrapped up its first series win in Wrigley since 2024.
That burst of power also pushed the Reds into the record book. They now have 12 games this season with four home runs or more, the most in franchise history. The previous high belonged to the 2021 club, which did it 11 times.
Cincinnati’s long ball total keeps climbing, too. The Reds are up to 183 home runs on the year, which ranks fourth in Major League Baseball.
They’ve already had one even louder night, when they hit five homers against the Philadelphia Phillies on July 8. Four of those came in the same inning, with Elly De La Cruz, Sal Stewart and JJ Bleday going back-to-back-to-back.
Stewart remains the face of this power surge. Before September, he had 31 home runs and 105 RBI, and he’s being viewed as the front-runner for Rookie of the Year.
The 2021 Reds had a loaded lineup of their own, with three players topping 30 homers and five reaching at least 20. Joey Votto led that team with 36, while rookie Jonathan India won Rookie of the Year after hitting 21.
Rodriguez is starting to look like another important piece for Cincinnati. Over his last seven games, he has slashed .370/.452/.852 with four home runs and seven RBI, and he has handled left-handed pitching well in that stretch.
His homer Sunday was a go-ahead three-run shot off Cubs lefty Shoto Imanaga. He also went deep twice in San Francisco on Wednesday, including one blast that landed well into McCovey Cove at 115 miles per hour.
The Reds’ third-ranked prospect is beginning to settle in at the big league level.
The 2021 team that set the old home-run mark was a much stranger group. It finished 83-79 and third in the division after a pitching staff that slipped from the 2020 club, which featured Trevor Bauer winning the franchise’s only Cy Young Award in the COVID-shortened season.
Luis Castillo led baseball with 16 losses that year, though he still posted an ERA under four. Tyler Mahle went 13-6, Wade Miley enjoyed a career rebound with a 3.37 ERA and threw a no-hitter against Cleveland on May 7, but the bullpen and lack of run support held that team back.
Votto had one of the season’s most memorable stretches, homering in seven straight games and nearly matching the MLB record when he hit the top of the fence in the eighth. Castellanos led the club with 100 RBI, India paced the team with 12 stolen bases, and Castellanos’ offseason departure to the Phillies helped set up the competitive balance pick that became Sal Stewart.
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 🡒]