The Cincinnati Reds just got swept by a Washington Nationals club that was behind them on the periphery of the National League Wild Card standings at the outset of the series. It’s a Nats club that just spent the last two weeks selling off pieces of importance to other clubs as they prepped for the future, a club with clearly more intent on both short and long term determination to be comfortable in their own dealings than the Reds.
Cincinnati is now 5 games under .500, again. They are back in last
place in the NL Central and 6.0 games out of the final Wild Card spot, again with 6 teams they’d need to leapfrog to get there with a miracle. And they are devoid of Hunter Greene, again, as he’s now out for the rest of 2026 (and likely all of 2027, too).
With any last ditch effort at postseason ball now completely in the crapper, here’s what Cincinnati Reds fans have to look forward to for the rest of the season.
Chase Burns hitting an innings limit and being shut down
The brightest of bright spots on the 2026 club has been Chase Burns, who has emerged fully as a legitimate ace and signed a long-term contract to be part of the club for a long, long time.
He’s going to hit an innings limit quite soon, though. And when he does, he’ll either be shifted to a sparingly-used reliever or shut down altogether.
Cool!
Zero top pitching prospects being called up
The Cincinnati Reds have no top pitching prospects, and certainly don’t have any in the upper minors who are knocking on the door to get late-season cameos.
So, don’t look forward to that!
Zero top hitting prospects being called-up
We’ve gotten Hector Rodriguez to the roster in the wake of Nathaniel Lowe being dealt away at the deadline, and that’s cool. He’ll hopefully play a whole lot more than Noelvi Marte and TJ Friedl for the remainder of the season, but you never know.
Edwin Arroyo and his .568 OPS will likely be back in September, but will he get a shot to play at all as the club continues to evaluate Matt McLain’s status for the fifth consecutive season?
Alfredo Duno is still at least a year away, and that’s all the Reds have atop their system at the moment. Peaks and valleys, amirite?!
Nick Krall crossing his fingers, arms, toes, legs, and eyes that Ke’Bryan Hayes figures out how to hit a lick
Krall made one of the most egregious mistakes in recent memory in taking Ke’Bryan Hayes (and the $36 million owed to him) off the ledger of the Pittsburgh Pirates a year ago, and the Reds still seem hell bent on letting him get as many PA as he can to show he’s a better hitter than literally any other professional baseball player on the planet even though he is not.
As they do their damnedest to prove that he’s not a sunk cost, expect to see Hayes in the lineup and at 3B more often than you’d like to smell your shoes for the rest of 2026.
Whether Christian Encarnacion-Strand will sock more homers for Baltimore than Hayes will for Cincinnati
CES already has 3 dingers and a 118 OPS+ for the O’s in just 16 games since being promoted to play 3B for them. Hayes, meanwhile, has somehow tripped into 4 dongs for the Reds over the course of his 2026 season.
Who ends up with more for their respective club while manning the hot corner?
Sal Stewart getting to a hundred arby-eyes
Sal Stewart is cool as hell on the baseball field and I love him for it. Hopefully he socks 35 dingers and drives in 120 runs and we all get to re-learn just what it’s like to have a certain sect of baseball fans talk about arby-eyes once more. Don’t you miss the days of that discourse?
Whether ownership decides to do something, anything to alter the miserable direction of the franchise
Oh, will we be watching ever so intently!
