Jj Bleday kept hitting Saturday, finishing with two hits, including a double and a home run, scoring three runs and driving in two in the Reds' 17-7 loss to the Pirates.
The 26-year-old has two home runs, four runs scored, three RBI, a.308 average and a 1.317 OPS in 17 plate appearances this season, a sharp start for a player Cincinnati signed as a free agent in December after the Athletics designated him for assignment this offseason. The Reds recalled Bleday on April 25 after putting Eugenio Suárez on the IL, and he has already given the club a quick jolt.
Bleday's path to this point has been uneven. Drafted fourth overall out of Vanderbilt in the 2019 MLB Draft, he hit 20 home runs with a.761 OPS in 642 plate appearances for the Athletics in 2024, then followed with 14 home runs and a.698 OPS in 344 plate appearances in 2025. The numbers suggest why teams kept waiting for the left-handed hitter to settle in: the power has always been there, but the production has not always stayed steady long enough.
That is what made his run in 2024 look like a possible turning point, and it is what makes his early work for Cincinnati worth watching now. Bleday posted a 12.5% barrel rate, a 50% hard-hit rate and a 75% launch-angle Sweet-Spot rate, but the Reds also have so many outfielders with upside on the roster that his longer-term role is far from settled. For now, though, he has done exactly what a team hopes for from a midseason recall: he has made the bat impossible to ignore.