The Reds Face Their Biggest Test against the Brewers

The Reds are set to take on baseball best team for a three-game series this weekend.

It’s so good to have Hunter Greene back. The Reds ace made his return to the mound Wednesday night after 71 days and pitched a gem, throwing six innings of shutout ball while only surrendering three hits to a formidable Philadelphia Phillies lineup. With Greene back in the fold, the Reds are beginning to take their final form – and it couldn’t come at a better time.

The Reds sit a mere 0.5 games behind the Mets for the final Wild Card spot, and Greene is back to help with the final push. There's a month and a half of baseball still to be played, so the Reds have more than enough time to make up ground in the Wild Card race, but splitting a series with the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates last week was a bad omen. After closing out a series win against the NL East-leading Phillies, the vibe has seriously shifted.

This weekend, though, will be a mighty test. The Reds host the Milwaukee Brewers, who are currently hotter than a McDonalds coffee, having won twelve in a row and fifteen of their last sixteen games, for a critical three-game series. On July 27th, the Brewers were tied for first place with the Chicago Cubs in the Central. Nineteen days later, the Brewers are up an incredible 7.5 games on the second-place Cubs. They have baseball’s best record, and they’re coming to town with bad intentions against a Reds team they’ve owned in recent years.

Since 2022, the Brewers are 37 - 15 against the Reds. That equates to a completely bonkers .712 winning percentage over the last four seasons. If the Brewers played the Reds for an entire 162 game season, they’d probably be knocking on the door of baseball’s all-time single-season wins record of 116.

The Reds have battled their way back into the playoff mix, but it could all be undone in a flash. Getting swept by the Brewers would be a disaster. Winning at least one is a must. Winning two would be borderline worthy of a parade, and a sweep would be arguably better than sex.

Can the Reds do it? Recent history says no, but the Reds of the past weren’t constructed like the Reds of today. The Reds deadline additions have all made significant contributions since arriving in Cincinnati, and they’ll be counting on the likes of Ke’Bryan Hayes, Miguel Andujar and Zach Littell to help turn the tide.

Andujar, in particular, has been unbelievable since landing in Cincinnati, and it’s a bit of a surprise given his arrival was accompanied by the least fanfare. In ten games as a Red, Andujar has already generated 0.5 wins above replacement, more than he did in 60 games earlier this year with the Athletics. He owns an absolutely nuclear 1.247 OPS in that span. Basically, Andujar has been playing like Babe freaking Ruth. As they say in the South, that dog will hunt.

And it’s not like Hayes and Littell haven’t made an impact either. While we’re still waiting for Hayes to wake up from his almost two-year hitting slump, his glove has been as advertised, and bringing him in to play third has allowed Noelvi Marté to settle in at right field, further enhancing the Reds lineup by keeping guys like Will Benson and Jake Fraley in platoon/pinch-hitting roles that they’re more suited to. Littell, meanwhile, has provided consistency at the back-end of their rotation, and allowed the Reds to utilize Nick Martinez in a long-relief/spot starter role that is an absolute luxury for a contending team to have.

Of course, if the Reds really are going to turn the tables on the MLB’s best team, it’s going to have to be a total team effort. The Reds are going to need their best players to be at their best, and so far, their very best player, Elly De La Cruz, has been at his absolute worst against the Brewers. In seven games this season, De La Cruz has a .167 batting average. His tOPS+ of 37 against the Brewers is the lowest against any opponent he’s faced more than three times this season. The misery doesn’t stop there, though.

Matt McLain has been just as bad, and Spencer Steer and Gavin Lux have been hardly any better. The only Reds who have hit well against the Brewers this year are T.J. Friedl and their two catchers, Jose Trevino and Tyler Stephenson. That’s not going to cut it against a Brewers team that has the third-best team ERA in the sport.

One bright note for this series is that it appears the Reds will avoid the Brewers top two starters: steady Freddy Peralta, and the 6’7” rookie flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski. Obviously, if the Reds have designs on making more than just a token appearance in the playoffs, they’ll need to be able to win consistently against the level of talent that Peralta and Misiorowski bring to the table, but in the short term, it’s a small victory that the Reds get to avoid that test.

The Reds have done a great job of continuing their strong play since June, but this is their biggest challenge to-date. The Brewers are the most complete team in baseball, and if the Reds can even find a way to take two of three over the weekend, it will go a long way toward proving their playoff viability. There’s still a ways to go until the regular season is over, but the stakes are about as high as they could be with still 40 games to go.