LOS ANGELES — The clock was ticking on July 31. “It was late,” general manager Brad Meador said. “Almost right at the trade deadline.” The Reds desperately needed some more punch against left-handed pitching, and that was a big focus for the front office leading up to the deadline.
Since the start of last season, Miguel Andujar has the best batting average in MLB vs. LHP (.397) among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances. He’s in a contract year and was on the rebuilding Athletics, so Andujar was a very obvious target.
The Reds just had to push the deal across the finish line.
“We were going back and forth,” Meador said. “It happened late, but it didn’t start late. Going into the trade deadline, we had things that we were targeting. For the most part, we were able to achieve all of them.”
Ke’Bryan Hayes, the Reds’ third baseman, and starting pitcher Zack Littell have received more of the spotlight. But Andujar might be the most important Reds position player as the Reds open the Wild Card round against Dodgers left-handed starting pitcher Blake Snell.
Snell has faced Gavin Lux, TJ Friedl, Elly De La Cruz, Tyler Stephenson, Spencer Steer, Espinal and Austin Hays 38 times. They’ve combined for one hit, four walks and nine strikeouts in those 38 plate appearances. Steer is responsible for the hit, and he also has four of those nine Ks.
There’s one more Red that Snell has faced. That’s Andujar, who’s a solid 4-for-13 vs. Snell, and two of those outs were a deep lineout and an opposite field fly out. Andujar and has only seen two pitchers in all of MLB more than Snell.
The Reds traded for Andujar with matchups like this specifically in mind.
“Even against right-handed pitching, he just has quality at-bats,” Meador said. “He stays in the zone, which is important. And he hits the bal really hard.”
The Reds dealt High-A starting pitcher Kenya Huggins (a 22-year-old former third-round pick) to acquire Andujar. In 110 plate appearances with the Reds over the last two months, Andujar is hitting .359 with a .944 OPS.
“He’s a hitter,” Spencer Steer said. “He has a knack for getting the ball on the barrel. Those are tough guys to pitch to. You can ask pitchers, and their least favorite matchups are guys like him. He hits pitcher’s pitches on the barrel. The way he can backspin the ball and hit line drives, that’s a dangerous hitter.”
Andujar hit the go-ahead single in Friday’s win over the Brewers and picked up seven total hits across the Reds’ three final wins of the regular season. He was so hot at the plate that Terry Francona kept him in the lineup against a righty during the season finale.
Andujar will surely be in the middle of the lineup against Snell. The numbers say that he’s the Reds’ best bet to change the game with a swing of the bat.
“Every time I go to the plate, I try to hit the ball hard,” Andujar said. “Things are good right now. Let’s keep doing it.”
The path to Nick Lodolo’s playoff role started with a midgame conversation with Francona on Friday in Milwaukee. Lodolo had left his previous start as a precaution due to groin tightness.
“He was checking in,” Lodolo said. “I told him I’ll be ready on Sunday. Whether they use me or not, I want to be in there. I’m available for anything you need me for.”
In a win-and-in game (that the Reds ended up losing, but they still made the playoffs due to a Mets loss), Lodolo threw an inning (it included an up-down as his appearance bridged between the fourth and fifth) and allowed a run.
Lodolo’s normal start day would have been Game 2 on Wednesday, but the Reds are adjusting after making the aggressive play that they did on Sunday. With Lodolo in the bullpen, No. 5 starter Littell (another trade deadline addition) will start Game 2 on normal rest.
“Because of what our record was going into (Sunday), we pitched (Lodolo),” Francona said. “So we want to be really cognizant of him and how much we can ask of him. So he’ll be in the bullpen.”
Having Lodolo in the bullpen fills the biggest hole on the Reds’ roster. They didn’t have a single matchup lefty in the bullpen (Brent Suter has been used as a long reliever). The Dodgers have some pretty dangerous left-handed hitters, including Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman. If you watched the World Series last year, you know that the left-handed reliever you bring in to face, say, Freeman is a pretty important role.
Having Lodolo pitch out of the bullpen should also allow him to face more left-handed hitters. It’ll be an exhilarating moment if and when Lodolo charges out of the bullpen in front of a packed crowd to face Ohtani or Freeman.
“It’s going to be fun,” Lodolo said. “It’s what you dream of. As a kid growing up here (in Los Angeles) watching Dodger playoff games, especially now getting the chance to be in one and go against them, I’m looking forward to it.”
While he wasn’t as sharp as he would have liked in his bullpen debut in Milwaukee, Lodolo felt like he knocked some rust off in that role and figured some things out about his routine.
“It was definitely different,” Lodolo said. “I’m glad I got the opportunity to do it. I really wanted to get in the game. I’m happy I got the opportunity to do it. Now, I know what to expect if I need to do it again. The biggest thing is the routine. What to expect for when I need to warm up. I’m glad I did it. It definitely felt different going in there. You don’t know how many pitches you’ve got so you have a different mindset. I’m glad I got to feel that before I do it here.”
Entering the season, 2025 was a prove-it year for Lodolo. Everyone knew about his raw talent. But he missed most of 2023 with a calf injury. He had a strong start to 2024, but then a blister issue plus a sprained finger ruined his second half of the season.
Lodolo missed a few weeks with a blister issue this year. But as a whole, he accomplished his main goals. He was good. He was healthy. And the Reds made the playoffs. Lodolo was one of 18 pitches in MLB who made at least 28 starts and posted an ERA of 3.33 or better. Fourteen of those 18 pitchers have been All-Stars, and two more of them are Game 1 postseason starters (for the Cubs and Guardians).
There’s no playbook for what a pitcher can do in the playoffs on two days rest after making the first bullpen appearance of their career. Trying to maximize the impact of Lodolo’s potentially limited innings, Francona slotted him in the bullpen for this series.
Littell had a short leash down the stretch, throwing between 73-to-86 pitches. Francona said, “There’s no mandatory limit on how much he has to pitch” on Wednesday. Out of the bullpen in Game 2, Chase Burns, Lodolo and Nick Martinez could be available to pitch multiple innings depending on what happens in Game 1. Burns was the only one of the Reds’ leverage relievers who pitched on Sunday, so Graham Ashcraft, Martinez, Tony Santillan and Emilio Pagán should all be a part of the plan in Game 1.
It’s all been leading to this for Hunter Greene, the flamethrower who was a famous teenager on the SI cover and went onto become one of the faces of the Reds’ organization. He’ll take the mound against the blue blood Dodgers, who are the team that Greene grew up rooting for.
“Hunter is a dominant top of the rotation starter,” Nick Krall said. “When you have that guy starting… look at what he did against the Cubs. He strapped it on and said that I’m going to carry you in this game. Having that guy is a huge deal. He’s a top-end talent that goes out and gives you what he has got.”
The Reds want to win with pitching and defense. They’re putting a lot on Greene’s shoulders. In September, he has shown signs of what he’s capable of against elite lineups like the Blue Jays, Phillies and Cubs.
The Dodgers’ lineup may be the best of the bunch, and he allowed five runs (three earned) against them in August.
Greene’s biggest opponent might be the occasion. He has had starts in his career, including multiple in Dodger Stadium, where he came out of the gates guns blazing but ran out of gas.
But Greene’s maturity has been building and building over the course of his Reds career. He debuted in 2022 as the younger starter in baseball, and he had to learn a lot on the fly. New tools that he picked up along the way, ranging from his endurance routine to his splitter, have paid off in September.
“There’s a lot of confidence,” Greene said. “It’s another game. My preparation would be the same. I’m going to ride it. I’m going to have a lot of fun and stay in the moment. Everyone says they want to win a World Series. It’s not easy. These are the steps to do it. You’ve got to be able to go through times like this to know how to do.”
One of Greene’s big steps was refining his journaling process. He studies every one of his starts and saves notes for down the road. Last year, he faced the Dodgers twice in May. He went through a detailed breakdown of his first start against LA, and he also did a detailed breakdown of his second even though he wouldn’t face them again in the regular season. He was saving those notes for the playoffs. For down the road. They’re a resource that he can look back at today.
“Did you see (Elly De La Cruz) in that clubhouse (on Sunday)?”
One day after the Reds clinched their playoff berth, Francona was asked about the smile that he’s seeing from the Reds’ star shortstop. Francona harped on what he saw from De La Cruz in the postgame celebration as the Reds popped champagne bottles.
“That was pure joy,” Francona said. “To me that was like sitting back, watching them do that, that’s the best because it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what language you speak, what color, it doesn’t matter. If you have our uniform on, that to me is what makes everything worthwhile.”
De La Cruz is typically a pretty quiet guy. He also had a tough second half of the year.
“He battled a ton of injuries,” bench coach Freddie Benavides said. “He played 162 games. It’s unbelievable what he went through with the injuries and the struggles. It was a sense of huge accomplishment for him and for everybody.”
What I’ll remember the most from the clinching celebration in Milwaukee was De La Cruz’s energy. He was yelling, dancing, shouting, taking photos and videos and beaming.
“It feels amazing, I can’t describe it,” De La Cruz said. “I feel good. I’m living in the moment. Enjoying the moment. We’re all hyped. We’re living in the moment right now and enjoying it. The season is like that — ups and downs. We’ve got to figure it out. Now we’re here. It’s starting over.”
De La Cruz lost that smile for a bit this year. He was in the worst slump of his baseball life, he was battling injuries, and he had to handle the weight of the expectations that he wasn’t meeting for a lot of the second half of the season.
“He struggled for a little while,” Krall said. “He still showed up every day, wants to play and works his butt off every day to figure out how to be the best big leaguer that he can. We lose sight of the fact that we have a lot of guys like him that are younger players. He’s 23. He’s trying to find his way through the big leagues and be the player he’s capable of being.”
There’s something that was brought up several times in the Reds’ clubhouse on Monday. De La Cruz is starting to heat up. He has posted a .936 OPS over his last seven games, and he hit a breathtaking homer in the regular season finale. If this hot streak carries into the playoffs, then there’s a lot more to like about the Reds’ chances.
“He’s a star,” Noelvi Marte said via interpreter Tomas Vera. “When these times come around, he’s a star because that’s what he is. His level of confidence and preparation is unique. Thank God we have him and can keep watching a star right now.”
After the party wound down on Sunday, De La Cruz played NBA 2K with Santiago Espinal and Will Benson. They do this all the time, and they each have a character on a five-man team that plays online against other five-man teams. De La Cruz is the team’s silky shooting guard.
As Espinal caught up with De La Cruz last night, he got a sense of the confidence that the All-Star is bringing into the playoffs.
“He’s in the right moment right now,” Espinal said. “He’s going to experience his first postseason against a great team. We talked about it. Knowing you’re going to the playoffs and you have a lot of homework to do. This is a different experience. We can’t wait for it. We were talking about it in the hotel. We can’t wait for tomorrow. He’s noticing what this is all about. What the playoffs is about. He wants to be in this moment. He wants to win. That’s what’s exciting. He wants to win it all, and he’s going to give it all.”
THE REDS’ BEST TRADE THAT YOU’VE NEVER HEARD ABOUT WAS ONE WITH LA
According to MLB Pipeline, outfielder Arnaldo Lantigua is the Reds’ No. 12 prospect. The Reds essentially got him for free in January in a trade with the Dodgers.
But in the process, they effectively helped the Dodgers land Roki Sasaki, who will be a potential weapon in Los Angeles’ bullpen this series.
Sasaki, one of the most talented young pitchers in all of baseball, was available as an amateur international free agent during the offseason. Every team would have loved to have signed him, and the amateur international free agency system meant that Sasaki would become one of the best bargains in baseball.
Every team gets a capped pool of bonus pool money to sign these types of free agents every offseason, but different teams have pools that are different sizes. Because the Reds are a small market team, they had some of the most amateur international bonus pool money to spend of any team in MLB (it’s a way to try to help competitive balance). When the Reds were done assembling their class of international free agents, they still had some money essentially left over. They found a creative way to wisely use that money.
Because of the Dodgers’ astronomical payroll, they get less amateur international bonus pool money to work with. In January, Sasaki reportedly determined that the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Padres were the finalists in his free agency.
The Reds weren’t landing Sasaki. Amateur international bonus pool is tradable.
On January 17, the Dodgers traded Arnaldo Lantigua to Reds for some of that amateur international bonus pool money. That money effectively went to Sasaki. For helping out, the Reds landed a 19-year-old outfielder in Lantigua who posted a .824 OPS, finished the year in Low-A and is an intriguing guy in the farm system. The Reds didn’t give up anything real to get him.