ARLINGTON, Texas — The Cincinnati Reds beat the Texas Rangers 2-1 on Sunday and finished a three-game sweep that pushed them to 6-3. Elly De La Cruz scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, and the Reds held on from there.
The win gave Cincinnati something it has not had much of through nine games: enough offense to support its pitching and defense. The Reds had scored only 26 runs through their first nine games, tied with the San Francisco Giants for the fewest in Major League Baseball, yet they still left Texas with three straight wins.
Terry Francona put the problem bluntly after the series. “Runs are kind of hard to come by right now, and we kind of proved this weekend that it doesn’t mean you have to lose,” he said. “You’ll see a game here — and I hope it’s soon — where guys kind of break out and can relax a little bit, but right now it’s been hard.”
That has been the backdrop for the Reds game today stretch and for the season’s first week. Cincinnati also lost earlier starts against Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox, Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Bubba Chandler of the Pirates, a rough early run against some of the hardest pitchers on the schedule. In Arlington, the Reds faced MacKenzie Gore, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter and still managed to take all three games.
The series turned on two familiar names in the middle of the lineup. Eugenio Suárez singled in the fourth inning to score De La Cruz from second base after De La Cruz had tagged up on Sal Stewart’s flyout. Then, in the eighth, Matt McLain walked, stole second and scored on De La Cruz’s RBI hit that held up as the winning run. De La Cruz and McLain combined for eight hits and five runs in the series.
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Suárez, who leads the team with seven RBIs, said the Reds are still building toward better days at the plate. “We’re not scoring many runs, but we’re creating situations,” he said. “We all know that at some point we’re going to score more runs, we just have to continue to create situations, create opportunities and have people on.”
The numbers show the tension inside the winning record. Cincinnati entered the game 23rd in batting average at.209, 23rd in on-base percentage at.293 and 26th in slugging percentage at.332. It ranked 13th in home runs with nine and was tied for the eighth-most strikeouts with 91.
But the Reds have not been loose on defense. They are the only team in baseball that has not committed an error this season, part of a spring emphasis from Francona on playing clean baseball while the club rebuilt its bullpen, sharpened its defense and added another bat. That approach has mattered because Cincinnati has already allowed the third-fewest runs in the majors at 30.
For now, the Reds are winning while they wait for the bats to catch up. In a sport that usually punishes weak lineups quickly, Cincinnati just swept a division opponent and stayed within striking distance while its offense searched for its first true burst.
