The Cincinnati Reds picked up a nice win on Monday night in Tampa. After a scary start to the day for Rhett Lowder, the rookie locked in and held the Rays to one run over six inning while Sal Stewart and the rest of the Reds offense put up six runs to put the game away. Cincinnati’s win in Tampa Bay moved them to 15-8 on the season and kept them in 1st place.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati Reds (15-8) | 6 | 9 | 0 |
| Tampa Bay Rays (12-10) | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| W: Lowder (3-1) L: Scholtens (1-1) | |||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Cincinnati Reds didn’t waste much time getting on the board in this one. Matt McLain hit a bloop double in the top of the 1st and then he came around to score when Sal Stewart hit a moonshot 424-feet to center for a 2-run home run. The bottom of the inning got out to a poor start for Rhett Lowder. He allowed back-to-back singles before walking the next two batters as the Rays cut the lead to 2-1 and the Reds righty had 19 pitches. Lowder needed 15 more pitches but he was able to strand the bases loaded.
Two innings later it another 1-out double that got things started for Cincinnati. This time it was TJ Friedl with a bullet down the right field line and he came in to score on a bloop single into right field by Elly De La Cruz that made it 3-1. In the bottom of the inning Junior Caminero hit a liner at 112.6 MPH towards left field but De La Cruz made a diving stop that saw him land on the edge of the grass as he snagged the 1-hopper, then leap to his feet and fire a laser across the infield to record an out in a highlight reel level play.
Rhett Lowder was in cruise control after his 34-pitch 1st inning. He threw just 50 pitches between the 2nd and 5th innings as he held onto the lead. In the 6th inning his teammates gave him a little more insurance. With two runners on and one out a grounder to third base likely should have resulted in a double play, or if nothing else a force out at third base, but Junior Caminero appeared to forget there was only one out instead of two and he simply threw the ball across the diamond to first base. That allowed the runners to move up safely to second and third base. It was an important play because Rece Hinds followed up with a 2-out double that scored both runners to push the lead to 5-1. Lowder came back out for the bottom of the inning and threw nine pitches to complete the inning and his day.
Cincinnati tacked on another run in the 7th inning with Sal Stewart doing all of the work on his own. He would smash a 2-out double, steal third base, and then he came in to score on a wild pitch to give the bullpen another run to work with.
Brock Burke took over for Lowder in the bottom of the 7th and picked up where he left off, throwing a perfect inning. Pierce Johnson entered in the bottom of the 8th and worked around a walk to keep the 5-run lead.
Connor Phillips took over for the Reds in the 9th inning. He walked former teammate Jake Fraley to begin the inning before getting the next two batters to fly out, with the latter coming on an over the shoulder grab in shallow right by Sal Stewart. Richie Palacios singled into left to keep the game alive before some chucklehead jumped out onto the field and ran circles around the outfield for over a minute before security could grab him and escort him off of the field.
Following the delay Phillips walked Taylor Walls to load the bases. That led to a visit from pitching coach Derek Johnson and saw Tony Santillan start throwing in the bullpen. Two pitches later Chandler Simpson hit a line drive down the line, but Sal Stewart jumped and grabbed it out of the air to end the game.
Key Moment of the Game
Rhett Lowder escaping a no-out bases loaded situation after giving up a run in the 1st inning. From that point forward Cincinnati’s pitching dominated the game.
Notes Worth Noting
Sal Stewart’s bat cooled off for a week or so but he’s back at it. His eight home runs lead the team. So do his 21 runs batted in. He’s now hitting .289/.388/.639 through 23 games. Oh, and he’s also tied for the team lead in steals with five and he hasn’t yet been caught.
The Reds didn’t draw a walk in the game, but they smacked five doubles along with Stewart’s home run.
Cincinnati pitchers walked five batters in the game and they only had five strikeouts, but they kept Tampa Bay’s offense under control despite all of that as they were able to get out of trouble if and when they got into it.
The win was the 4th in a row for the Reds. They have won seven of their last 10 games.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati Reds vs Tampa Bay Rays
Tuesday April 21st, 6:40pm ET
Chase Burns (1-1, 2.42 ERA) vs Steven Matz (3-0, 3.80 ERA)
Nice defense.
Pitching, defense AND offense tonight. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Fun.
Still in first place. 🙂
I love to go to bed in first place
Nice win, boys! Keep it rolling.
Are you kidding me? This is exactly the kind of game that this roster was constructed to win. Great SP, solid RP, and timely hitting.
This is fun.
While I appreciate the 2-1 and 3-2 wins I will take the much less stressful 5 run wins every day! Let’s get about 80 more of these wins this year.
Hinds is beginning to show his value both on offense and defense. Even his last ground out had an EV of 104.2 MPH. That’s the Hinds we’ve been seeing the last couple of years.
Hope he keeps it up. I have a lot of personal expense involved. Driving from Indy to Louisville, picking him up driving him to Cincy, buying him Larosa’s Pizza, Bruster’s Ice Cream, then driving back to Indy. Gas is expensive. 🙂 Not to mention all the FREE advice I gave him. haha 😉
I’ll take the pizza over your advice anytime, Melvin.
haha 🙂
That was the condition of the free pizza and ice cream. He HAD to listen to me in the car. NO ear plugs. 🙂
@Melvin And you gave him advice on how to hit breaking balls, did you?
“@Melvin And you gave him advice on how to hit breaking balls, did you?”
Hey. Sometimes it takes awhile for it to sink in. 🙂
Nice job Melvin
For a change they had patience with a call up. just kept putting Hinds out there continuously . I also like the way they have been picking appropriate spots for Myers.
It’s good of you to shoulder the responsibility, Melvin, and it seems to be paying off.
I agree, Melvin. Monday looked much like a typical Hinds night at AAA this season. Some nights, he would turn one of the well-hit grounders into a hit and/ or the K into a BB. We will see how things develop at MLB.
Nice job by Lowder to overcome some early inning challenges and pitch 6 solid innings! He deserved the win!
And remember, back in 1975, Frankie McBratwurst walked 12 batters in one game, but the Reds still won the World Series.
Or maybe that was 1952? Or 1967?
See. Who cares about walks?
I agree, I was worried when he gave up back to back walks in 1st. He bounced back rather well.
He is a solid pitcher not just a thrower with quality stuff and pitches, though he has them. I am struggling to see who loses a starting role when Lodolo and Greene return.
Singer first.
It’ll be months before Greene comes back.No need to worry about that until after the All-Star break
Hinds! 5 rbis in 3 games! And his arm is special too. Puig and Aquino had cannons, but they’ve been gone a while. Thats a defensive weapon in Gabp with holding guys to singles or making them think twice about tagging up, etc. He’s laying off more pitches and can start going deep when he gets some lift on some balls.
15-8 and they’re still not stinging the ball. 2-9 from MM and Elly and both hits were bloops. They get hot and you sub Bleday in for KBH and we’ll have something. Lowe should get plenty of run too. Tito is obviously pulling the right strings though…much more aggressive then last year.
15-8
9-2 on the road
Bats are slowly coming alive from other players not named the big 3.
Bullpen stealer, and starting rotation is hanging around.
Anyone else hoping Tito was going to send Lowder back out for the 7th inning? He has a short 6th inning and 7-9 coming up. He may have been tired after that long first inning and I know it’s early in the season. I guess there may have been guys in the bullpen that needed work also. Tito seems to really know how to work his bullpen.
Tito has been pushing all the right buttons so far this year in every area.
It was amazing Lowder getting out of the jam in the first inning and he bounced back and tossed five scoreless after that…
Tomorrow Chase Burns will be on the mound looking for another quality start and going for the 5th straight win to secure the series..
It’s incredible how the Phillies started the season so bad and the Cubs are taking advantage of it so far winning a lot of games against them…I’m sure the Phillies will get better later
Does Rhett Lowder remind anyone of Mike Leake?
Yeah a little. 🙂
Mike Leake was a little herky-jerky in his mechanics. Lowder is more fluid, and I think he throws a little harder. Rhett Lowder has more control over a variety of pitches. He and Williamson both rely more on location and change of speed rather than power pitchers like Hunter Greene and Chase Burns.
Williamson has the classic left-handers change up that people used to call a screwball, because it fades from right handed hitters. It looks like a strike, and then fades to the outside edge (or beyond!) to a right handed hitter.
And if you happen to look at “Team ERA ” (okay, some people think this is old fashioned stat), the Braves are leading by quite a bit, with a team 2.68 Era. The second place team is Pittsburgh, with a 3.22 team Era. The Reds are 4th in baseball, with a 3.36 team ERA (tied with the Padres). The Reds home ERA is 4.17, the road ERA is 2.45. And that explains a lot. I don’t think there is another team with so lopsided a team ERA, even when the home ERA is favorable.
St Louis Cardinals are 27th in baseball, with a 4.86 team ERA. Which makes me think that they can’t keep up for long, as their crummy pitching means that they are going to fade out.
He reminds me of mixture of Leake and Bronson Arroyo I think too. He seems like a pretty cool customer out there, not too bothered by much.
with better stuff IMO
Great start! Reds are playing great. Need at least one more good hitter though at some point. The foundation of the team is good enough I think to make a bold move eventually for a high level hitter, maybe similar to how they traded for David Wells back in the 90s when needing a top level starter.
Could Stewart be an MVP candidate? It’s early of course, and Ohtani almost a certainty to win it, but Stewart right now in the top 5 I’d say. He’s making some Defensive plays and stealing bases along with the great hitting.
My biggest takeaways from this game.
1. Friedl has 0 extra base hits after Saturday’s game. Now he has two. Has he turned the corner? I don’t know. But I do know I feel better about Friedl right now than I did on Saturday.
2. Hinds has turned the corner. In his first 3 AB he saw 18 pitches. Last year it took 4 to K him.
Sadak can’t possibly believe Rece Hinds, while having very good speed, is as fast as EDLC, can he? That he’d be equal in a foot race? He must be misinformed.
Blake Dunn has speed in Elly’s range. But not Hinds. I wonder if Sadak and company have just mistaken the two (Dunn and Hinds).
As for speed, I asked BA in a Reds chat who would win a race between Elly, Dunn and 2025 draftee Steele Hall. They said, Hall over the short haul but Elly by the end on the race.
Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. Hinds is fast but not likely as fast as Elly.
Over whatever the sprint distance is for the Statcast/ Baseball Savant is, EDLC and Hinds were in the same percentile last year. As best as I recall it was north of the 95th percentile. I too was shocked when I read it.
I can see Hinds at the 95th percentile with Elly at the 99-100th percentile, especially in certain game situations. For instance, does Statcast rate Elly rounding second going for a triple?
Speed is just plain interesting. There are acceleration (burst), short distance, long distance, etc. Then there is EDLC rounding second … aka other worldly. Lol.
Someday we’ll all look back and realize how great it was watching Elly.
Dave – just to chime in a little more here and specific to your question about rounding second and going for a triple – yes, that is measured. Sprint speed, though, is never going to be the highest on runs like that. It’s going to be on your infield grounders where a guy is going in a straight line through the bag.
This season Elly De La Cruz only has the 7th fastest sprint speed (on a single run) of the year for the Reds. Will Benson and Noelvi Marte both have three that are faster. De La Cruz has not yet had a 30.0 ft/sec run. For comparison in 2025 he had 39 such runs, topping out at 31.6 ft/sec in June (his four fastest were all in June – he had 9 in April of 30.0+). In the 2024 season he topped out at 32.0 ft/sec in April and had 75 runs of 30.0 ft/sec on the season.
We know what happened in 2025. We don’t know what’s happening in 2026. Has he lost a step or two because he’s gotten bigger? Is he toning things down because of what happened last year and only going full out when he feels it’s absolutely necessary instead of at all times? It will be interesting to follow.
“and only going full out when he feels it’s absolutely necessary instead of at all times?”
He looked like his old self running full out when he was running from 3B to Home yesterday.
One thing I have considered, besides the general possibility he is exercising caution, is exercising caution specific to colder weather and coming off his injury. Makes sense to me. Especially if that injury had as big an impact on hi as it might have. Edwin Arroyo hurt his hamstring last April and shelved his running game almost the whole season. And, even still, Doug, how can anyone not marvel at the thought of Elly rounding second? Overdrive.
@Dave, the good news is Reece is fast, CF fast.
Like a bullet train.
Hinds now has 20 career MLB hits. Of those, 15 are XBH. Hope he keeps that ratio up.
Had a flight to catch so I had to watch a replay of the game.
Lowder settled down nicely. Excellent pitching once again. Very encouraging.
Sal still a stud. He’s so fun to watch. Keep winning games. Hinds showing signs of figuring some things out. Great team win.
I read this elsewhere and presume it is accurate but didn’t check.
Nick Castellanos opted out of his Reds contract in 2021 and declined Reds qualifying offer before signing big $$$ contract with Phillies for 2022. Reds got a bonus draft pick between 1st and 2nd rounds of 2022 draft.
That bonus pick was (is) Sal Stewart. I forgot about that. Good deal for Reds.
Yep. I believe that to be accurate.
I think the Reds mostly likely were hoping for the same thing with Martinez but it backfired on them when he accepted. 🙂
I think the Reds were plenty happy Martinez signed. He was the anchor to their pitching staff last year taking the ball however they needed him to. They didn’t have the pitching depth in 2025 they have now.
Oh wow! I hadn’t realized that. Thanks for the nice tidbit of information, OT.
I hope that puts to rest the occasional grousing we see here about not resigning Castellanos.
I won’t grouse, but I will point out that if the Reds had kept Castellanos, they would have most likely made the postseason at least once when they failed to make it during the term of the contract.
sounds like at least a small grouse 🙂
Maybe it was only a quail?
Hey Oldtimer. Wow did not know that. Great fact, thanks for sharing.
@oldtimer we will call that one stat of the day stat of the day
Lowder getting himself out of that first inning jam only scathed by 1 run is a learning lesson he’ll benefit from for a long time. Confidence a pitcher can get outs is one thing. Confidence he can get out of a bases loaded jam where he just walked in a run? Priceless!
For everything else, there’s Mastercard.
Sal Stewart is a far more complete baseball player than I expected. His defense is outstanding. His base running might be the best on the team (may we’ll find out McLain is better once McLain is out of the lull).
I hope the Reds are working with his agent on a long term deal.
Elly’s play on Caminero was unreal.
ESPN Top play #5
Like others, I just can’t believe how this team is doing it. 4th best record in the league. Only 1.5 games from the best record in the league. An offense that, as a team, is in the bottom 4 in the entire league in every part of the slash/line. Starting pitching that is in the bottom half of the entire league actually in ERA and WHIP.
But, the relievers? Leads the league in ERA, top half of the league in WHIP.
And, all of this without Greene and Lodolo.
I would love to see something on team defensive metrics. I don’t know where to find them.
Like many, I just don’t believe it. I just hope they keep it up. If the old saying “Playing to their baseball card” holds up, this team will hit. I just hope sooner than later.
Nice recovery by Lowder in the 1st inning. It’s good to see a decent offensive performance and Hinds contributing for the 3rd straight game. Maybe he shows up this time. Even Hayes got a hit. So far, they’ve won all but the series against Pittsburgh and LAA, win today and keep the streak alive.
Just a joy to watch the game yesterday. Let’s keep it rolling. Winning is always fun.
Having Hinds playing RF on a regular basis remarks the importance of using players at its natural positions, his hitting is improving game after game since he’s not stressed out by learning to play a new position at the same time, contrary to what happened just recently with Marte and not long ago with Senzel, I hope FO has learned the lesson.
He was a 3rd baseman.
@KevinH>> Yes, but Hinds made the conversion to outfield in the mid to low minors. He was an outfielder at AA and two full seasons at AAA, with brief MLB call-ups, before this year.
It’s funny the term “natural position”.
Does it mean what he was when he was drafted, what he’s accustomed to playing, or what he plays best?
I don’t know if there’s a baseball dictionary, but I go with “what he plays best as my definition”.
I’m skeptical of the “natural positions” theory. It may well be that learning to play an unfamiliar position while trying to adjust to MLB pitching is like quitting smoking and getting divorced at the same time, but most of these guys have played multiple positions at different levels. I’d guess that Hinds is learning to deal with MLB breaking pitches on the job, and feeling more secure in his playing time than he was in his other call-ups.
Except for catchers, I’d wager most MLB position guys who throw right-handed and even many pitchers at one time in their development through amateur to professional were shortstops.
And, point of fact, the Baseball-Reference 2019 draft page lists Hinds drafted as a SS.
He is the overall pick #49 in this link
https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?year_ID=2019&draft_round=2&draft_type=junreg&query_type=year_round
Correct. Drafted as a shortstop* and moved to 3B by his first pro game.
He played 43 games at 3B through his first two years in rookie and A ball, before the next 402 in the OF. No pro games at short.
It’s worth noting again Hinds development was interrupted by injuries pretty significantly.
His first year as a pro in rookie ball, he had just 3 games due to a leg injury (and that was in the old schedule when draftees had a whole summer un front of them).
His second year was the Covid year.
His third year, he played in only 54 games between rookie ball and full season A. And in his fourth year, just 79 games played out of the 120-130 regular season schedules at A and a coffee in AA.
It wasn’t until his first healthy year, his fifth, that he played a relative full season,109 games. It also happened to be his first good year offensively. Funny about that. Player development takes many paths. Virtually none of them are straight.
*think Hinds fits the category of ‘drafted as his high school position with zero intention of playing him there.’