It’s Too Early to Give Up on the Reds

Cincinnati sits in last place in the NL Central right now, and I understand why that number alone is enough to make some fans check out. I’d ask you to hold off a little longer, because the actual story here is a lot more encouraging than the standings table suggests.

Start with the injury list, because it’s been brutal. Hunter Greene, arguably the best pitcher on this roster, has missed the entire season recovering from elbow surgery in March.

Nick Lodolo missed the start of the year with a recurring blister problem that’s followed him for three straight seasons, then struggled once he did return. Elly De La Cruz, the engine of this offense, went down with a hamstring strain on May 31 that snapped a 276-game streak of consecutive appearances.

Add in Eugenio Suárez’s oblique injury and Rhett Lowder’s shoulder issue, and you’re talking about a huge chunk of this roster’s best talent missing extended time, often simultaneously.

Here’s the part that actually gives me hope, though. Despite all of that, this team was in first place in the NL Central as late as April 30.

Even without Greene and Lodolo for most of the year, Cincinnati has shown it’s genuinely competitive when even a fraction of its talent is healthy and on the field.

And right now, the news on the injury front is turning. De La Cruz’s hamstring was already reported as roughly 90 percent healed as of mid-June, and he’s currently on a rehab assignment, with a return to the lineup expected imminently.

Greene began his own rehab assignment on June 18, with Francona saying he’s expected back before the All-Star break. Getting your best position player and your ace pitcher back within weeks of each other, right as the calendar turns toward the second half, is about as good a timing as a struggling team could hope for.

This is where I think Terry Francona’s reputation actually matters, and not in some vague, hand-wavy way. I’m a Cleveland fan, so I watched this man manage for over a decade, and the single biggest thing that defined his Guardians and Red Sox teams was patience.

He doesn’t panic during a bad week. He’s built a 2,000-win career, the 13th manager in MLB history to reach that number, largely by trusting a long season to even itself out rather than overreacting to a rough stretch.

You can actually see that exact instinct playing out with De La Cruz right now. Francona has openly said the team has to “temper” De La Cruz’s own urgency to get back on the field, even after positive scans, specifically because he doesn’t want to rush a talented player back and risk a setback.

That’s not the mindset of a manager who’s given up on the season. That’s a manager playing the long game with a roster he still believes can be playing meaningful baseball in September.

I won’t pretend the math is easy. Cincinnati has real ground to make up in a crowded NL Central, and a last-place team in mid-June doesn’t get a guaranteed redemption arc just because its best players are healthy again.

But here’s what I keep coming back to. This roster already proved it could hold first place for most of a month with half its rotation and its best position player unavailable.

If even a portion of that talent comes back healthy and stays that way through the summer, and if this team plays anything close to .500 baseball with a full roster, the Reds are going to be squarely in the wild card conversation by September, not buried out of it.

It’s June. Greene is back on a mound. De La Cruz is close behind him. I’m not ready to write this season off, and I don’t think Reds fans should be either.