The long ball was responsible for all of the Cincinnati Reds runs on Friday afternoon in Texas, and it was a late one from Tyler Stephenson that got the job done as they beat the Rangers in their home opener 5-3.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati Reds (4-3) | 5 | 10 | 0 |
| Texas Rangers (4-3) | 3 | 8 | 0 |
| W: Santillan (1-0) L: Martin (1-1) SV: Pagan (2) | |||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Cincinnati Reds got the scoring started in the top of the 2nd inning. Eugenio Suarez picked up a 1-out single and then came in to score when Spencer Steer homered into the season in left field to make it 2-0. In the bottom of the inning the Rangers got their offense rolling with a 2-out rally. Josh Jung singled and moved to third on a double by Evan Carter. A pitch later Danny Jansen doubled in two runs, just out of the reach of a diving Steer in left field, tying the game up.
Both pitchers locked in for a bit after that, but the Reds broke through in the top of the 6th inning. Elly De La Cruz took the second pitch he saw from MacKenzie Gore and his a laser into left field that just cleared the top of the wall on a line drive to make it 3-2. Texas got a leadoff double to begin the bottom of the inning, but Sam Moll took over for Brady Singer after that and got out of the jam to hold onto the lead.
Graham Ashcraft came into the game for Cincinnati to begin the 7th inning. After picking up a strikeout to begin the frame he gave up a triple into the right field corner to Brandon Nimmo. Wyatt Langford then lined a double into right-center that was just out of the reach of a diving Dane Myers, plating the tying run. Ashcraft would come back with a strikeout and a groundout to avoid any further damage.
With the game still tied up in the 9th, Spencer Steer lined a double into center to get the inning start and put the go-ahead run in scoring position. Tyler Stephenson fell behind 0-2 but battled back for a full count. On the 8th pitch of the at-bat Stephenson went the other way for a 2-run home run to put the Reds up 5-3.
Emilio Pagan entered the game for the save opportunity in the bottom of the 9th. He would get a lineout to center and a pop up to Ke’Bryan Hayes on the front edge of the mound. But he fell behind 3-0 to Brandon Nimmo before battling back to strike him out to end the game in a victory for Cincinnati.
Key Moment of the Game
Tyler Stephenson’s 2-run home run in the top of the 9th inning to break a game that had been tied up.
Notes Worth Noting
Brady Singer threw 5.0 innings (faced one batter in the 6th, did not get him out) and gave up two runs while walking one and striking out five. He threw 87 pitches, with 58 of those being strikes.
Spencer Steer began the day with one hit in the first five games he had played in this season. He went out this afternoon and picked up a double and a home run.
Matt McLain, Eugenio Suarez, and Tyler Stephenson also had two hits in the game for Cincinnati.
Reds hitters didn’t walk and had 11 strikeouts, but they hit three more home runs than the Rangers did on the day and that made a difference.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati Reds vs Texas Rangers
Saturday April 4th, 7:05pm ET
Rhett Lowder (0-0, 3.60 ERA) vs Kumar Rocker (season debut)
Pretty sure we’ve hit more HRs this season already than we did all of last season. I’ll take it. Raised some BAs and lowered some ERAs today, too.
As someone pointed out that last PA by Stephenson was excellent being down 0-2.
Looked like he had his mind made up he was going to stick to a certain approach today. Nice results, for sure!
Four slumping Reds has two hits apiece. McLain, Suarez, Steer, and Stephenson.
Pagan gets his 2nd save in 7 games. In mathematical pace for 46 saves if that were to continue.
Singer pitched pretty well.
Suarez is fun to watch. Steer looked very good.
Singer settled in nicely.
Your first sentence is what I was going to post. You did it for me.
Ain’t that a wonderment! Even Hayes had a hit. Marte, nope. Swap him for Hinds, see how it goes.
Hats off to McLain for hopefully a much better 2026 road batting average when compared to his paltry .193 road average from 2025.
I guess rumors of Steer’s offensive decline may have been greatly exaggerated. Same for Elly not being able to hit right-handed. Some clutch hits between the 2.
Great to see Stephenson battling and coming away with a huge hit. He had been very quiet offensively to start the season.
Solid pitching all around minus Ashcraft.
Nice way to rebound with the W and get off to a good series start.
Ashcraft has been brilliant this year.
The jam shot triple was hit at a whopping 81 mph, and was about 6 inches off the inside corner.
Ashcraft was 5th in MLB last year at stranding inherited runners.
He has been probably the best arm in the pen in the early going so far.
He induces a ton of weak contact, and strikes guys out.
13.5 K/9 this year 21.4% K rate
22.5% K Rate last year.
Focus more on process, instead of weak, fluke results.
I remember last year, it seemed like Ashcraft gave up a ton of seeing-eye grounders and weak bloopers for hits.
He’s been great this year.
Ashcraft got hit today. Not talking about his 2026 prior to today. When he’s on, he’s on. When he’s hittable, he’s hittable.
Exactly. Dude swung trying to match the velocity, and looked out in front. The ball was closer to hitting him than it was a strike.
Can’t even say “tip your hat” to the hitter with that one. Pulled near the line in a large ballpark. I had no idea how he even got the bat to where he did.
I was worried he would be the guy giving out walks like he was prone to do last year…but he’s been solid so far.
And when he strikes people out he strikes them out.
Fluke hits doesn’t mean he was hittable.
Stop being results oriented.
Well, Sam Moll pitched another scoreless inning today. I mean, what is with this guy, anyways? 🙂
Big hit by Stephenson to win the game. So I guess Will Banfield is not going to get called up from AAA?
Moll was really good 2 years ago.
Injuries got the best of him last year.
I hope that people don’t honestly think that Will Banfield (or Jose Trevino, for that matter) is a better option at catcher than Tyler Stephenson.
No, that was a bit of a joke. People are ready to toss players over the side if they have not hit much in the first… what? 7 games now?
Banfield was hot for the first few games at Louisville this year, but now he has gone cold.
Hey, and the Reds scored 5 runs today, hit 3 homers. They still can’t seem to string together base hits as a team, though.
Like seeing Stephenson go to right field with power. Good sign
It was good to see. He’s always been at his best going to right. Makes you wonder why he abandons it over periods of time.
Yes, Tyler Stephenson hits most of his HRs to right. Guessing the league has that figured out too. The approach is probably to pitch him inside forcing him to try pulling. Just wish he could be league average. Hard to find good catchers these days. Johnny Bench only comes around every couple of generations. But it sure was fun watching Bench.
Its a mystery to me but a lot of the Reds do it.The oppo approach taught is proven to work especially with two strikes.My personal thoughts are its the park the Reds play in and its the fact some think they are home run hitters and try to hit homers.No evidence or proof of my thoughts its just that’s what I believe.To be honest only Elly and Geno and we will see about Sal are home run hitters with the numbers to support it.Steer has a career high of 23 in 23 and Ty Steve in now year 6 has only hit 19 as a high.There are enough wall scrapers in there to just make you wonder.If This team will just put the ball in play and run they will be successful and by run I mean look to steal bases.The Brewers offense gets it and not only gets it they do it.They are now 6-1 just doing what they do.
Would like to see Tito keep McLain in the leadoff spot tomorrow with a lineup of McLain, Stewart(DH), Elly, Suarez(3B), Lowe(1B), Steer, Benson, Stephenson, Friedl. Shake up the lineup a little and have Friedl try to get back in the groove at the bottom of the lineup. Go Reds!
I always like Steer hitting 6th. If he produces the same as last year hitting 6th, reds will gladly take it. Suarez hitting singles and Steer extra bases, fun to watch. Consistent production out of bottom of line up will be crucial for Reds success this season.
In spite of recent critical comments, Steer and Stephenson came through today in a big way.
Agreed. I’ve been one to criticize some of our hitters who came through today. Good for them! Especially TS. He needed that as did the Reds. Reds will go nowhere without those guys stepping up like they did today. Nice.
With healthy pitchers ahead of him Singer is likely the best #5 starter in MLB. As is that was a great start by a mid rotation starter. And about Sam Moll . . .
This kind of games was generally lost by the Reds last season…
The Reds spoiled the Home Opener to the Rangers
Reds continue struggling with RISP…
Let’s go to win a series tomorrow with Lowder on the mound…
I am getting old! Forgot today’s game was an early start! Nice win to start the Reds first road trip of 2026!
Also, good to see some of the Reds hitters who have “struggled” so far get hits!
Even though Pagan got the save he makes as nervous as a blind long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention! Good job by Big Tony as well.
Still room for improvement with the double-digit strikeouts!
Good to put up a W.
That said, the construction of our outfield roster needs some real work.
As cowboy pointed out today, Marte does not hit left handed pitchers well. Nor does Benson. Which leaves you with Steer, myers and Freidl as your outfield against southpaws. Even as a steer fan, those three don’t cover a lot of ground in the corners. A non hitting Marte is even tougher to play when he still struggles to play right field.
We will see roster shuffling on Sunday. Marte down for sure, may be Freidl too if he has options. Let him find his swing, or if not, consider moving on as they did with Fraley. Bring up Hinds and Dunn and turn them loose. They aren’t getting younger, they need to sink or swim at MLB level. They don’t need AAA reps anymore.
Heck, even if they don’t hit, Hinds Benson, Dunn, and Myers are all above average outfielders with strong arms. Catching gappers may be what helps us win 3-2,games, given our anemic offense.
Agree, but the wheels of change tend to grind very slowly.
Disagree. There have been some really questionable hot takes here this spring, but seriously? Friedl has all of 27 PAs and you want to demote/DFA him. Thankfully they won’t do that.
Pagan getting Nimmo out in his last at bat should be a real confidence booster. Nimmo is a tough out.
I was hoping for a trade with the Mets for Nimmo. A good veteran lefthanded hitter the Reds need to rebuild the outfield at GABP.
My bad. Freidl did have a pretty good spring, but it seems like his loss of foot speed is really hurting his ability to help the team. Below average center fielder, not as big or successful an SB threat, bunt hit production is way down due to drop in speed.
Great Win and entertaining game.
Rangers defeated as well as some RLN narratives. Friedl though as the everyday cf and leadoff hitter needs a deep look
I dont know what to think of Marte but Hinds was 0-26 against lefties in 2025. Thats the brutal reality and beating up on sundays 34 yo omaha pitcher in AAA who didnt pitch in 2025 and had an ERA of 7 in 2024 doesn’t really correlate with mlb pitching
What I say to that is send Marte down and see if he can do the same thing. Switch them out. See what happens.
Seems like Marte should be a platoon hitter. Not sure I would let him see a left hander for the of the season.
The other day I was saying move Friedl to the 9 hole and move the 2 – 5 down to the 1 – 4 spots in the lineup.
Hinds ready to take Friedl’s spot.
Hinds is ready to take a spot on the roster I agree. But not for Freidl. Marte is the one I would send down. As for Friedl, I would hit him 9th until he gets it together. The Reds are still at least one good hitter away from having a solid lineup. The outfield is definitely the Red’s biggest weakness. If the Reds are in the hunt at the trade deadline, they should deal for a better outfield bat.
Time to give Reece Hinds a shot Ive always been a Marte fan lbut he looks uncomfortable in right and is hitting nothinv
Don’t think the guy has ever hit anything the first month of the season in his career.
Years ago the Reds acquired Richie Schienblum from the Royals in a trade for Wayne Simpson. The guy was a switch hitting .300 hitter practically every year.Reds gave up on him at June15 trade deadline and sent him to the Angles for two guys who never played mlb baseball. He hit .320 for Angles the rest of the way. So don’t give up on Marte.
Cubs ace pitcher cade horton… ROY runner up …. Left game 2nd inning with forearm injury… notable
Forearm injury is never good.
Hinds just made a good play in CF.
Stephenson started hitting as soon as he started hitting/thinking oppo. McLain too.
True for many players. When Marte was on a hot hitting streak last year, he picked up many singles going the other way.
Wow. Dunn just pinch hit and lost his hitting and on base streak. Considering it’s AAA I think I would have saved him from that scenario to give him a better chance of keeping his streaks alive.
…especially since they were down 7-2 in the 9th with little change of coming back.
chance *
Too bad PK didn’t think much of the streaks
I dont care at all about this, I’d rather he was seeing as many plate appearances as possible instead of trying to keep a minor league streak going. I bet he’d agree.
Looks good on his resume and it was just on PA.
He’s doing plenty to build his resume currently
That would be even better. Oh well. 🙂
good job Pagan!
Nice win in that alot of recent negatives were flipped. Stephenson and Steer hit. Elly hit right-handed. It did seem like Elly hit better RH in the 2nd half last year, but I’m not sure. McLain’s at a .375 obp too w/some ugly Ks thrown in to be fair, but thats still strong. Maybe Tito is settling in too. He was pretty vanilla last year
Reds are 10th or worse in every single offensive category among NL, let’s hope yesterday’s showing by Steer and Stephenson will keep up.
Just watched the condensed game. Great way to start the road trip.
The Reds are not hitting but I have to ask is some of the issues because of the pitching we have faced. We faced one of the best pitchers in the AL and two very good pitchers in Pittsburgh series.
Like many I do see plenty of room for improvement but competition has been tough. I think we will see a step up in our offense going forward on our road trip.
Are Colorado or Arizona on this road trip? Too lazy to look it up. But those are good places to hit. Heck, Reds have already faced Crochet and Skenes. That’s enough to do any hitter in. What next, Dodgers staff? Pitchers dominate these days. Pure heat for 5 innings. Maybe requiring starters to go 6 innings will reduce the exertion per pitch.
We got to Miami and then home to play angles next two series.
On a different note, looking at the schedule I saw our September. My Goodness!! Cubs, Padres, brewers, dodgers, brewers, dodgers, Cubs. 22 games in 24 days. What a tough stretch!
Not only did Stephenson go ” the other way” on that HR but it was to deep RC. He crushed it. If he can keep it going for a nice stretch, that would be huge.
@LarkinPhillips. The Angles might be coming at us from all sides. ?
Way to work those angles
Hahaha. Got me there Tomn!
Yes, congrats to us for the W. When we pulled our starter Singer out yesterday, my son said to me “I bet he doesn’t get the W.”
He was right and I’m sure several SPs have said the same.
Personally I’m concerned about who is (mis)managing Lodolo’s rehab?!
Common sense says he had no need to throw pitches during his 15 days on the DL. Just let it heal and then heal some more. There is no benefit or need for him to pitch prior to his return to the team. Certainly not the particular pitch that is causing that finger in that particular spot to blister!
They must know exactly which particular pitch puts the most pressure on that spot of his finger. Here’s an idea, don’t throw that particular pitch for a month!
Just go with your other 4 other pitches, and skip that 5th pitch!
I don’t know if anyone is going to read ti because it’s so far down in this text chain, but I’d love to hear from anyone else about them have him do the same things and expect a different result. Isn’t that the very definition of insanity!
I never had blisters, but I was a lefty varsity pitcher for 2 years in high school. Its the slider and if Lodolo didn’t throw it, he’d get hammered. It probably doesn’t feel that great on other pitches either. Its too bad because it really negatively affects his career
For all you Hinds watchers last night he was 0-3 but he did have a walk.
Today so far he’s 1-2 with an opposite field HR. That gives him a league leading 14 RBI.
Can’t wait. I hope its another Sal Stewart “I told you so” story. He can really help defensively too
It was a rain shortened game today so two PA is all he’s going to get. Perhaps that will give him time to join the Reds tomorrow? I believe it’s the first day for non injury call ups.