First-year manager Terry Francona addressed the team in the visitor’s clubhouse at American Family Field. All the players around him wore “October Baseball” T-shirts. Most also carried bottles of champagne.
“Everybody in this room,” Francona said, “we have been through more (bleep), and they can’t (bleep) kill us.”
Players screamed in excitement and doused Francona and each other with champagne. Other videos showed Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz smoking a cigar and a champagne-soaked reliever, Brent Suter, dancing in the middle of the clubhouse as teammates circled around him.
Francona also talked to Jim Day on the FanDuel Sports Network about the moment.
“Look at this room,” Francona said. “They deserve to blow it out. I know we’ve got some stuff ahead of us but not in the next hour.
“They’re a team. They act like a team. They play like a team. We go through tough times like a team. Now we’re going to party a little bit like a team.”
A 4-0 loss by the New York Mets to the Miami Marlins made the scene possible. The Reds and Mets finished with 83-79 records, but the Reds won the tiebreaker with a 4-2 edge in the season series.
“We wanted this,” Suter told reporters. “We’re going on a journey. This is step one of all our goals. We freakin’ did it, man. We did it. You can’t kill the Reds.”
The Reds now must survive a cross-country flight and a wild card series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Here’s what fans should know about the matchup:
Schedule: The Reds play the Dodgers at 9:08 p.m. Tuesday in Game 1 and at the same time Wednesday in Game 2 of the best-of-three series. Game 3, if needed, will take place at 9:08 p.m. Thursday at Dodger Stadium.
How to watch: All the games will air on ESPN.
Odds: The Reds have a 31.6% chance of advancing past the Dodgers, according to ESPN, and a 1.5% chance of winning the World Series.
Looking ahead: The No. 6 seed Reds or No. 3 Dodgers will play the No. 2 Philadelphia Phillies in a National League Division Series. That series will start Saturday in Philadelphia.
Postseason drought: The Reds have not won a postseason series since 1995 when they swept the Dodgers in three games. They won 7-2 in Game 1 and 5-4 in Game 2 in Los Angeles and then 5-4 in Game 3 in Cincinnati.
Since that series victory, the Reds are 2-13 in the playoffs.
• The Atlanta Braves swept the Reds in four games in the National League Championship Series in 1995.
• The Philadelphia Phillies swept the Reds in three games in the Division Series in 2010.
• The Reds blew a 2-0 lead and lost three straight games at home to the San Francisco Giants in the NLDS in 2012.
• In 2013, the Reds lost 6-2 to the Pittsburgh Pirates in a one-game wild-card playoff.
• In the 60-game 2020 season, the Reds lost 1-0 and 5-0 on the road to the Atlanta Braves in the wild-card round.
Series history: This will be the second time and first time since that sweep in 1995 the Reds and Dodgers have met in the playoffs.
The Dodgers won five of six games against the Reds this season, including a three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium in August. The Reds lost three of four games at Dodger Stadium in 2024 but won two of three in 2023.
Opponent scouting report: The Dodgers are the defending World Series champions. They finished 93-69 this season. That’s the fourth-best record in baseball, but they ended up as the No. 3 seed in the National League because the Brewers (97-65) and Phillies (96-66), who each received first-round byes, had better records.
The Dodgers rank second in baseball in runs scored (825) and home runs (244) and 17th in team ERA (3.95).
The Dodgers’ star is Shohei Otani, who ranked third in baseball with 55 home runs.
Pitching matchup: Hunter Greene (7-4, 2.76) is scheduled to start for the Reds in Game 1. He’ll make his postseason debut in his hometown.
Blake Snell (5-4, 2.35), a two-time Cy Young Award winner (2018 and 2023) is the likely starter for the Dodgers, according to reports. Snell pitched for the Giants last season and threw a no-hitter against the Reds at Great American Ball Park.
Wild card history: Recent history shows a series victory by the Reds is not impossible or even unlikely.
Three of the four lower-seeded teams won in the first round of the playoffs in 2022, the first year Major League Baseball turned the wild-card round into a best-of-three situation, and again in 2024.
The Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks both swept two games on the road in the wild-card round in 2023.
Playoff experience: The only Red remaining from the 2020 playoff team is catcher Tyler Stephenson, though he did not make the playoff roster that season. Catcher Jose Trevino and left fielder Austin Hays are among the Reds who experienced postseason baseball with other teams earlier in their careers.
“Everything that we’ve been through as an organization to be here, it says a lot,” Stephenson told Day during the celebration Sunday. “It’s surreal. It’s just the beginning. Hopefully, many more of these. We believe in this group.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
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