Try to enjoy this season, Reds fans

The 1999 Cincinnati Reds didn’t win the World Series. They didn’t make the playoffs. They lost their do-or-die game to the Mets on a cold October night at Cinergy Field. Al Leiter was nearly perfect. The season abruptly over.

And then the fans refused to leave.

They stood there in the chilly ballpark, all 54,621 of them, the largest postseason crowd in Cincinnati in years. They stayed there and they cheered. The players came back out. Greg Vaughn tossed hats into the stands. Sean Casey high-fived fans along the railing. And when Casey finally made it back to the clubhouse, he was inconsolable. Not because they lost, but because he didn’t want it to end. “There’s so many great guys in this room,” he said. “I don’t want it to be over.”

I’ve been thinking about that story a lot this week.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? Reds fans don’t live for championships. Not these days, anyway. But right now, we really are living through something worth holding onto. I want to make sure we’re all paying enough attention to notice it.

The Reds went 20-11 in April, the first time in franchise history they’d won 20 games before May 1. They finished the month alone in first place for the first time since 2002. They won five consecutive series. For 18 days in that glorious month, this city had a baseball team in possession of first place in the National League Central.

Then they went to Pittsburgh and got swept, and then they went to Chicago and Emilio Pagan vomited all over the mound, again, in game one. And the hot takes started burying the Redlegs online. The doom. The “I knew it couldn’t last.”

And I get it, I really do! Reds fans, including me, have been trained by decades of disappointment to reach for the emergency brake the very moment things go wrong. Because things always go wrong, with every single Cincinnati sports team. It’s the way of the world. But I do want to remind you of something.

The 2023 Reds started 7-15. They were swept by the Pirates in four games. Only 7,375 people showed up for one of their home games. A 100-loss season looked inevitable. What we wrote in The Big 50 about those first weeks was that they were “among the lowest points for Reds fans in the history of this storied franchise.” And then that team turned it around entirely, became one of the most fun Reds clubs in a generation, and launched a young core that is still paying dividends right now. (And yes, management screwed that team at the trade deadline, when they were in first place on August 1, but let’s not think about that right now.)

What’s my point? I’m probably grasping for straws right now, but an early season sweep at the hands of the Bucs isn’t a death sentence. We have recent evidence of that. Yes, I know this franchise has conditioned us to brace for impact even when things are good, but sheesh…that’s no way to watch baseball.

The 2026 Reds have problems. The rotation is thin with three starters on the injured list. Jose Trevino has pitched in three major league games this season, which is three more than anyone wanted. I’m not going to pretend the Pittsburgh series was meaningless, but here’s what’s also true: Rhett Lowder has been one of the best young pitchers in baseball this year. Chase Burns is electric. Sal Stewart was the National League Rookie of the Month in April. Elly De La Cruz is the best version of Elly we’ve seen yet.

And here’s where I’ll be optimistic: Nick Lodolo is coming back. Hunter Greene is coming back in July. The bullpen, for all its flaws, still ranks among the top pens in the league. And this team just set a franchise record for wins before May.

You know, Barry Larkin said something before the 1999 season that I’ve always remembered: “When I was growing up, there was a lot of pride in the Reds. We lost that feeling. I want to see it come back to Cincinnati.”

It came back for a while in 1999. And then it mostly went away again for a very long time. The 2010 and 2012 teams gave it back briefly. And then we waited again. And waited. And waited some more.

I dunno, I’m starting to sense that feeling is back right now. I don’t want to see the fan base spend it on panic.

The Pittsburgh series is over. Lodolo is coming back. There are 127 games left. Lots of fun ahead of us, right?

Right?

Before we talk about Pittsburgh (and I guess we really need to talk about what just happened in Pittsburgh), I want to make sure we’ve properly absorbed what happened in April. We need to take a moment to enjoy it. We don’t get these opportunities very often.

Your Cincinnati Reds entered May with a 20-11 record, the first time in franchise history they had won 20 games before May 1. Seriously, in the entire history of this franchise, dating back to 1882, through the Big Red Machine and the wire-to-wire champions and every other incarnation of this club, no team had ever won 20 games before the calendar flipped to May. It was also the first time since 2002 they finished April alone in first place.

This year’s club also reached that 20-win threshold in just 31 games, their fastest pace since 2006. For context, last year’s playoff team didn’t reach 20 wins until its 41st game. They also won five consecutive series, went 12-0 in games decided by two runs or fewer, and spent 18 days in possession of first place in the National League Central. These are actual things that happened!

I really feel like we need to spend some time enjoying an uncommon start to the season. On the other hand, that was April. Now here we are in May. Read the rest of this week’s column over at Cincinnati Magazine.

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