ATLANTA – Brandon Williamson has one start left for the Cincinnati Reds this season.
“I love it. I wish I had 10 more,” he said.
That’s how well he’s pitching right now, how good he feels after two-plus years of injury issues, how upbeat that makes him and the Reds feel about what comes next.
And then Andrew Abbott followed Williamson this week with another strong start the next night against the National League East-champion Atlanta Braves.
Strong? Abbott nearly out-dueled the Braves’ ace and Game 1 playoff starter, Chris Sale in a low-scoring game that went to extra innings before the Braves beat the Reds 3-2 in the 10th on Mauricio Dubón's soft, awkward chopper to the left of the mound that scored DeShawn Keirsey Jr. from third with pitcher Luis
Mey unable to make a circus play.
And just like that, over the span of two nights in Atlanta, the biggest part of the Reds’ plan for solving in 2027 a litany of problems that led to their most disappointing season in decades began to emerge from the smoke of a smoldering 2026.
It’s all about having enough starting pitching depth and, more importantly, health to build a competitive advantage that figures to be impossible to build through upgrades to any other part of the roster during an offseason soon to be fractured by a labor lockout.
And both of the left-handers who started the first two games of the Braves series this week – two guys who debuted in 2023 with the promise of high ceilings and long-term success – could be in position to play disproportionately significant roles in any turnaround the Reds might achieve next year.
Especially if they look anything like they did against the Braves this week.
Williamson, who missed much of the past two seasons with a series of injuries and was up and down this year, pitched six scoreless innings in a series-opening win this week, looking as good as he has since perhaps the second half of that 2023 season.
“Yeah, I feel great,” said Williamson, who made three bulk relief appearances in a piggyback role with Reds ace Chase Burns until getting assigned two starts the final week as he rounded into something closer to midseason shape. “It’s a shame that it’s the last month of the year. But it’s better to get there than not at all.
“I feel like this month is something I can build on and carry into next year.”
Abbott? A first-time All-Star last year, he pitched seven innings for the first time this season in the middle game of the series, working with a 1-0 lead against Sale for most of the game until surrendering a two-out solo home run by Matt Olson in the sixth and a leadoff homer by Austin Riley in the seventh.
He handed a 2-2 game to the bullpen.
Abbott struck six, walked one (and erased the runner with a pickoff) and gave up six hits. Sale, by the way, struck out 10, needed 97 pitched to get two outs deep into the sixth when he departed and gave up one run on rookie Juan Brito’s leadoff homer on the fifth pitch of the game.
It was Abbott’s 11th quality start of the season, and this final start of the season came seven days after he gave up one run in 4 2/3 innings (98 pitches) in the Reds’ lone win against the World Series-champion Dodgers this season.
If these are signs of things to come in 2027, it goes a long way toward building the kind of quality length in the rotation that the Reds got enough of in 2025 to squeeze into the postseason.
Of course, there’s a long way to go before anyone can trust that it’s actually going to happen.
As manager Terry Francona said after Williamson’s start: “In our game you’ve got to certainly back it up. But I’d rather be able to talk about a guy that threw six shutout than not.”
Here’s what a three-righty, three-lefty top six in a Reds rotation might look like entering next spring, just based on current in-house options:
- RHP Chase Burns (15-3, 2.86, 29 starts this year)
- LHP Nick Lodolo (3-6, 5.04, 20)
- LHP Andrew Abbott (6-11, 4.61, 32)
- RHP Brady Singer* (6-15, 5.57, 30)
- RHP Rhett Lowder (6-12, 6.01, 25)
- LHP Brandon Williamson (5-4, 4.89, 8)
*Singer is a pending free agent but expected to get a qualifying offer from the club.
Abbott and Burns, who was shut down from his final scheduled start because of a groin strain, are the only two on that list without one more start. Williamson pitches the season finale in Toronto this weekend.
The series in Atlanta is the eighth consecutive series the Reds played against five teams that have clinched spots in the National League playoff field.
They won the first three, lost the next four before Williamson and Abbott locked horns with the Braves.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: If Reds pull off shocking turnaround in 2027, it might look like this
