Cincinnati Reds history

The Big Red Machine was at the peak of their power. Starting in 1970, they were on a run of six division titles, four National League pennants and were fresh off winning the World Series in both 1975 and 1976. The 1977 Cincinnati Reds were still a good team, but they were well off the pace set by the league’s best.

Cincinnati suffered a big loss to their everyday lineup when first baseman Tony Perez was traded. Perez had a well-deserved reputation for clutch hitting. But his replacement, Dan Driessen, still had a good year. Driessen hit .300 and stole 31 bases. And the Reds’ offense continued to be prolific.

Joe Morgan was at second base and while he wasn’t up to the MVP levels he’d reached the prior two years, Morgan still finished with a stat line of .417 on-base percentage/.478 slugging percentage, and he stole 49 bases. Pete Rose was at third base, and Rose churned out another 200-hit season. Dave Concepion, the reliable shortstop, played great defense and stole 29 bases. Johnny Bench was still behind the plate and the great catcher had another vintage year, hitting 31 homers and driving in 109 runs. Ken Griffey Sr. was in right field, and his stat line was a stellar .389/.467.

All of those players were good. But no one was better—at least not in 1977—than George Foster. The leftfielder simply went off the charts. He hit 52 home runs, posted 149 RBIs and scored 124 runs. All of those led the league. Want more? Foster hit .320. He won the National League MVP award, and the Cincinnati offense scored the second-most runs in the NL.

The problem with the three-peat bid came with the pitching staff. Woodie Fryman had been the key piece acquired in the Perez deal, but the 37-year-old pitcher struggled to a 5.38 ERA and only made 12 starts. Jack Billingham’s ERA was on the wrong side of 5.

There were some strengths. Fred Norman, at the age of 34, won 14 games with a 3.38 ERA. Reliever Pedro Borbon saved 18 games and finished with a 3.19 ERA. The Reds desperately needed help for a pitching staff that would finish 10th in what was then a 12-team National League for composite ERA. They would make a bold move to get that help before the season was out. But that’s getting ahead of our story.

Cincinnati stumbled badly to open the season, losing 10 of their first 14 games. In early May, after getting swept three straight in Pittsburgh, the Reds were down to 10-15. On Memorial Day weekend, they were 18-22 and coming to Los Angeles for what had turned into a must-win series.

In the divisional alignment that existed prior to 1994, the NL Central did not exist. Cincinnati was in the NL West. Moreover, only division winners advanced to the playoffs. There was no wild-card fallback.

The Dodgers were Cincy’s traditional rival, and had been the team they mostly beat back during the Big Red Machine’s run. But this year, L.A. was off to a torrid start and had the Reds in a 12 ½ game hole when this holiday weekend series began.

It got worse on Friday night. Pat Zachry took the mound and dug himself a quick 5-0 hole. Foster homered, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a 10-3 shellacking. On Saturday afternoon, things got a little better. In the top of the second, Foster homered, Rose hit a two-run single, and Griffey ripped a two-run blast. Staked to the 5-0 lead, Billingham delivered a 6-3 win. In the Sunday finale, Bench hit a grand slam in the first inning. Griffey hit a two-run jack an inning later. Norman tossed a complete game in the 8-1 win. There was a long way to go, but winning this series was at least a start.

The Reds built on that momentum and won 9 of 13 to lead into a series with the Philadelphia Phillies that started on June 13. The Phils were headed for the NL East title. And three exciting nights of baseball at old Riverfront Stadium ensued.

Driessen won Monday night’s game with a walkoff solo home run that broke a 4-4 tie. On Tuesday, Bench homered, Norman went the distance and Cincy won a tight 3-2 affair.

Wednesday would be the big day. June 15 was the trade deadline in this era and the Reds front office went for it. They packaged up four players, none of whom they would miss, and sent them to the New York Mets. In return, they got back Tom Seaver. The future Hall of Fame pitcher was 33-years-old, but was still pitching well at this stage in his career.

In that night’s finale with the Phillies, the Reds trailed 7-2 in the seventh inning. They rallied for four runs thanks to consecutive two-RBI hits from Foster and Bench. Down to their last out in the ninth, Foster homered to tie it 7-7. In the 10^th inning, with two outs, Bob Bailey singled and stole second base. Bailey scored on Rose’s single.

Cincinnati had a stunning 8-7 win. They had swept a good team. They had big-time help on the way for the rotation. And they had the Dodger lead down to a manageable seven games. It was time for the Big Red Machine to make its move.

But the Reds played sluggish baseball, going 10-8 in the games immediately following the Seaver deal. They lost 7 of their last 13 before the break. The good news was that Los Angeles slowed a bit too, so Cincinnati’s 48-41 record still had them within 9 ½ games.

Seaver pitched well for Cincinnati, going 14-3 with a 2.34 ERA in his twenty starts after the trade. But he and Norman were still lonely warriors on the staff. The Reds didn’t win a series between the All-Star break and the end of July and fell 14 games back.

August got off to a good start. On Monday Night Baseball—then one of the sport’s pre-eminent showcases—Foster hit two home runs to lead a win over the contending Chicago Cubs. Cincinnati won that series and it started an August where they went 21-11. But a four-game series with the Dodgers was a missed opportunity, ending in a split. And in any case, the calendar was making the division deficit unmanageable.

Cincinnati was still 10 ½ games back on Labor Day, even after the strong run through August. They were never able to make it a real race. They won four of five over L.A. in September, but it was far too little and way too late. The Reds otherwise meandered through the final month and finished with a final record of 88-74.

By the standards of today, they were fourth-best in the National League and 11^th-best in MLB overall. It would have been a playoff season by our own era’s more lenient standards. But it was still a sharp drop off from where they had so recently been.

After another good-but-not-great year in 1978, the Reds moved on. They fired manager Sparky Anderson. Rose and Morgan were not long for Cincinnati. With a new cast, they returned to the top of the NL West in 1979 and had good teams in 1980 and 1981. But 1977 signaled that the glory days of the Big Red Machine were ending.

The 1971 Cincinnati Reds came into the season with high hopes. A core group of young players had won a breakthrough pennant in 1970. From the perspective of history we know that this core group would do great things throughout the coming decade. But 1971 proved to be a year where nothing really clicked. The Reds did go wire-to-wire—but it was under .500 the entire way.

We know this cast of talent today as The Big Red Machine and many of them had off-years. Johnny Bench was a microcosm of the team. Coming off an MVP year in 1970, Bench still hit 27 home runs, but his overall stat line was a meager .299 on-base percentage/.423 slugging percentage. Tony Perez was similar at third base, hitting 25 homers, but the stat line a fairly pedestrian .323/.438.

There were non-productive offensive seasons from Tommy Helms at second base, Dave Concepion at short and Bernie Carbo in leftfield. Pete Rose played right field and hit .304—although for the man who would eventually become the sport’s all-time hit leader, even that was off the normal pace.

The one man who didn’t struggle in 1971 was Lee May. The Reds’ first baseman ripped 39 home runs, drove in 98 runs and finished with a stat line of .332/.508. But May’s production wasn’t enough to keep the Cincinnati lineup from slipping to ninth in the 12-team National League for runs scored.

The starting rotation was respectable. Don Gullett was the best of the group, winning 16 games and posting a 2.65 ERA. Gary Nolan and Jim McGlothlin had ERAs in the low 3s. Ross Grimsley won ten games with 3.57 ERA. Clay Carroll was a good and versatile reliever, saving 15 games, winning 10 more, working over 90 innings and finishing with an ERA of 2.50.

But while all of those were good to decent seasons, none was a standout and the depth—save for Wayne Granger’s 3.33 ERA in relief—was lacking. Cincinnati’s staff ERA ended up seventh in the National League.

The Reds dropped the first four games in the season in an overall 4-8 start. They lost three of four at home to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who would contend to the final day. Cincinnati dropped two of three at home to San Francisco, the team who ultimately won the NL West. When the Reds made their return trip to the West Coast, they lost seven of nine against the Dodgers, Giants and the lowly San Diego Padres.

Baseball’s alignment in 1971 had just two divisions of six teams apiece in each league. Cincinnati, by some convoluted thinking was in the NL West, as were the Atlanta Braves (meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals were in the NL East—good luck trying to make sense of that if you’re teaching geography to grade-school age baseball fans). The rest of the NL West included the Dodgers, Giants, Padres and the Houston Astros.

Furthermore, only the first-place finisher could go to the postseason. So when Cincinnati was 20-28 by Memorial Day, while San Francisco was soaring at 36-14, the Reds were in serious trouble.

Cincinnati stabilized the ship a bit in June, going 16-15 (doubleheaders were more common in 1971, accounting for 31 games in a 30-day month). But the Reds gave back the progress by losing seven straight going into the All-Star break, including three straight at the eventual World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates.

The record was 41-51. They were in fifth place and staring at a 15-game deficit. The only good thing that happened during the first half of the season was that the Reds swung a trade with the Giants, sending Frank Duffy and Vern Geishart to San Francisco in exchange for an outfielder named George Foster. The trade didn’t make immediate impact, but would eventually come to be seen for the mammoth steal that it was.

Cincinnati still had pride and they demonstrated it in when the leading NL West contenders came to Riverfront Stadium for a stretch of games that began on July 15. San Francisco, still comfortably in the division lead rolled into town for a three-game set.

Gullett started Thursday night’s opener, worked into the eighth inning and the pitcher’s duel was still tied 1-1 in the ninth. Perez won the ballgame with a two-out walkoff blast in the bottom of the ninth. When the Reds dropped a tough 4-3 decision on Friday night and then trailed 2-0 going into the ninth inning on Saturday, it looked like this would be just another tough series loss in a season full of them.

Then pinch-hitter Jimmy Stewart singled. Rose singled. Ty Cline put down a bunt intended to move the tying runs into scoring position. Instead, Cline beat it out and the bases were loaded. With nobody out, May worked a walk to cut the lead to 2-1. Perez delivered his second walkoff hit of the series, a two-run single that won it.

After splitting two games with the Padres on Sunday and Monday, the Dodgers came in on Tuesday night. Cincinnati broke open a 1-1 tie in the seventh with a five-run outburst, keyed by a three-run double from Helms. That momentum rolled right into Wednesday when the Reds scored six runs in the first three innings. That included a two-run single from Nolan, who went on to a complete-game 6-2 win. Even though the Reds dropped the finale and were nowhere near getting back in the race, the homestand proved to be spark for the rest of the season.

Cincinnati went on to go 19-10 through the month of August, including taking three of four at home from the Pirates. The Reds got oh-so-close to the .500 mark at 66-67 on August 27 before losing a couple games. Going into the final weekend, Cincinnati was 79-80, but they dropped the final three games. The final record was 79-83.

San Francisco and Los Angeles went to the wire and Cincinnati was there to play spoiler in September. They won four of five against the Giants in September and took three of five from the Dodgers. It wasn’t enough to matter in 1971. But it sent a message that the Reds were on the way back. By 1972, they were back in the World Series. They broke through and won the World Series in both 1975 and 1976. And they never had another losing season until 1982. 1971, particularly it’s first half, was just a strange aberration.

The great baseball town of Cincinnati had waited a long time for a winner. The Reds had not won the World Series since 1940. They ended two decades of mostly losing baseball with a pennant in 1961. But despite fielding mostly winning teams the rest of the 1960s, they had not returned to the Fall Classic. The franchise wanted more and they tapped a unknown minor league manager named Sparky Anderson to head up a roster that was burgeoning with young talent. It was the right combination. The 1970 Cincinnati Reds won the National League pennant and opened what would be a decade of excellence. 

This is a core group of players who would become known as “The Big Red Machine”, renowned more for their bats than for their pitching. And the regular lineup was awfully good in 1970, ranking third in the National League for runs scored. But the pitching was even better, with the second-best staff ERA in the 12-team NL.

Gary Nolan was the ace, winning 18 games with a 3.27 ERA. Jim McGlothlin and Wayne Simpson won 14 games apiece with an ERA in the 3s. And lefty Jim Merritt was the biggest beneficiary of the bats—a 20-game winner in 1970 even with an ERA of 4.08. Tony Cloninger’s 3.83 ERA came in a mix of both starting and relieving.

Anderson would become renowned for his adroit use of the bullpen in an era of baseball that was quite different from our own. Starters were expected to go the distance. But Sparky, who would eventually be nicknamed “Captain Hook” for his propensity to use the pen, got the most out of his relievers.

Wayne Granger saved 35 games and finished with an ERA of 2.66. Clay Clarroll worked over 100 innings, saved 16 more and posted a 2.59 ERA. Don Gullett, a 19-year-old rookie, who would soon become a top starter, broke in with 77 innings of relief work and a 2.43 ERA.

The everyday lineup was led by one of the great catchers of all-time. Johnny Bench was entering his prime and he had his best season in 1970. Bench’s 45 home runs and 148 RBIs led the league and he won the MVP award.

Cincinnnati’s corner infields were prolific in their own right. Lee May played first base and hit 34 homers with 94 RBI. Tony Perez would eventually shift to first base later in the decade, but for now he was playing third base. And racking up a 40 HR/129 RBI campaign in the process.

A power trio of Bench, May and Perez makes for a scary lineup on its own, but there was more. Bernie Carbo, the 22-year-old outfielder, hit 21 homers and finished with a dazzling .454 on-base percentage.

You still needed someone to set the table for all those who could clean it up. Bobby Tolan, the speedy centerfielder finished with a stat line of .384 OBP/.475 slugging percentage and stole 57 bases. And you may have heard of the leftfielder, a 29-year-old named Pete Rose, who’s final stat line read .385/.470.

Yes, the Reds were loaded. Now they needed to get to the postseason. It’s a task that Major League Baseball had just made easier. Through 1968, the American and National Leagues had simply sent their best regular season team directly to the World Series. When expansion came in 1969 and enlarged each league to 12 teams each, the decision was made to split them into East and West divisions. The League Championship Series was born.

The Central Division that today’s Cincinnati teams play was still nearly a quarter-century from existence. Although that doesn’t explain why MLB decided to place the Reds, and the Atlanta Braves in the NL West, while the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals went East. Cincinnati and Atlanta joined a division with the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres and Houston Astros.

It was the Braves who captured the first iteration of the NL West in 1969. The Dodgers were a perennial contender. And the April schedule gave the Reds a steady diet of these two key rivals.

After beating the Montreal Expos on Opening Day, Cincinnati promptly went west for a three-game series in L.A. Nolan threw a two-hitter on Tuesday night and beat the Dodgers 4-0. McGlothlin pitched well on Wednesday night, working into the eighth inning. Tolan provided him with the needed offensive spark. The centerfielder went 2-for-4, scored twice and drove in two runs. The Reds won 5-2.

Thursday night’s finale was a pitcher’s duel with Simpson going toe-to-toe with future Hall of Famer Don Sutton. Bench finally broke up a scoreless tie with a seventh-inning home run. Bench was later part of an insurance rally in the ninth,  capped when shortstop Dave Concepion hit a two-out/two-run double to secure the 3-0 win and series sweep.

The Dodgers made a return trip to old Crosley Field for two games in mid-April. It was Merritt’s turn to showcase some stellar pitching, working into the ninth inning and winning 3-zip behind two hits from second baseman Tommy Helms and a big two-RBI single from Tolan. The following night, the Reds’ offense decided it had enough of playing around with close games. May unloaded for four hits, including a grand slam in a 12-0 rout. Cincinnati had gone 5-for-5 in its early games with L.A.

A trip to Atlanta was soon after, on April 20. Bench and Perez each homered in Monday night’s opener, as did a young fourth outfielder named Hal McRae. Merritt went the distance for the 6-2 win. Cincy pitching finally showed some cracks the next night, giving up eight runs. No problem. Rose had three hits, Perez had four hits and homered. Bench homered. Carbo homered twice. The Reds won 13-8.

By the time Memorial Day arrived, Cincinnati was positively sizzling at 31-12, up 6 ½ games on Los Angeles and a clean seven on Atlanta.

June was a time of great excitement for the entire city. Not only were the Reds riding high, they were opening a new stadium. Crosley Field traced its origins back to 1912, the same year Fenway Park opened in Boston. In the summer of 1970, Crosley would give way to Riverfront Stadium.

The Reds won the final game played at Crosley, on June 24. They beat the Giants 5-4, thanks to back-to-back eighth inning home runs from Bench and May, off a future Hall of Fame pitcher in Juan Marichal. It was part of a lot of winning Cincinnati did in June, a month they went 20-8.

One of the losses came in Riverfront’s debut and it came against Atlanta, 8-2 on June 30. The Reds responded by scoring nine runs the next night and winning in a rout. Merritt won the series rubber match 2-1. Overall, the Reds won four of the seven early summer games they played against the Braves and Dodgers. And by the All-Star break, their NL West lead was up to nine games on L.A., with Atlanta well into the rearview mirror at 16 games back.

Taking three of four from the Braves right out of the break was a surefire way to put a foot on the necks on the defending division champs. Cincinnati was up and down in the month of August, but still split four games and extended their lead to a hefty 13 games over the Dodgers by Labor Day.

September was a time to cruise home and get ready for the playoffs. The only downside was that the Reds didn’t get to experience an on-field celebration—the NL West was clinched with two weeks to go when the Dodgers lost while Cincinnati was on an off-day. But that’s about the only thing that didn’t go right for the Reds in the 1970 National League season. They finished the year 102-60, 14 ½ games clear of the field in the NL West and easily the best record in the senior circuit as a whole.

Cincinnati met Pittsburgh in the National League Championship Series. Little did anyone know, it was the start of a postseason rivalry. The Reds and Pirates would meet in the NLCS four times in the 1970s. Each game of this series was riveting. And each time Cincinnati found a way to win. They swept their way to the NL pennant.

READ THE COMPLETE GAME-BY-GAME NARRATIVE OF THE 1970 NLCS.

It was time for a showdown in the World Series. The Baltimore Orioles were the only team who had won more games than the Reds during the season. The Orioles had also swept their way through the LCS round. Alas, this was where the Cincinnati run came to an end.

The Reds lost the first three games and the Series as a whole in five games. What that doesn’t tell you is how often Cincinnati took early, multi-run leads in games. Nor does it tell you that Baltimore third baseman Brooks Robinson put one of the great displays of championship performance in any sport, both offensively and defensively.

Even with the loss in the Fall Classic, the Reds had announced their arrival to the world. Even though they took a brief step back in 1971, the coming decade would be the best in franchise history. They won the NL West six times and the pennant four times. In 1975, they broke through and won it all, and in 1976 staked their claim to dynastic status. It was a run that began in this 1970 season.

The Big Red Machine was the National League’s pre-eminent team in the 1970s, including World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. In ’77, they took a step back and came up short of the postseason. The 1978 Cincinnati Reds were another good team, but when they too came up short, the organization changed course and started a new era.

READ ABOUT THE 1978 BASEBALL SEASON

Cincinnati was led by their offense in 1978 and that offense was keyed by the greatness of George Foster. The leftfielder followed up his MVP campaign of 1977 by hitting 40 home runs and driving in 120 runs. Pete Rose was 37-years-old, but the third baseman could still produce. Rose batted .302 and tied a National League record with a 44-game hitting streak in the summer of ’78.

The great Johnny Bench was still behind the plate and still producing, hitting 23 homers. Shortstop Dave Concepion hit .301. Ken Griffey Senior played rightfield and while he didn’t have a vintage year, his .344 on-base percentage and .417 slugging percentage were still respectable. The right side of the infield didn’t have much power, but Dan Driessen and Joe Morgan each had OBPs on the high side of .340.

It added up to an offense that finished second in the National League in runs scored. But the Reds were held back by their pitching staff. Tom Seaver won 16 games with a 2.88 ERA and he went to the mound 36 times in 1978. But after Tom Terrific, Cincy pitching was thin.

Fred Norman was respectable, but his 3.70 ERA wasn’t suitable for a #2 starter on a team that had World Series aspirations. Norman was the only starter besides Seaver to go the post 30-plus times. Paul Moskau and Bill Bonham were similarly manageable, but not great.

The spotty rotation had been something that manager Sparky Anderson was able to maneuver around during the championship years. But that was when the bullpen was deep. Now it was similar to the rotation—one good arm followed by mediocrity. Doug Bair saved 28 games with a 1.97 ERA, but everyone after him, from Tom Hume to Manny Sarmiento to Pedro Borbon to Dave Tomlin, struggled through mediocre seasons.

Cincinnati opened the year with a four-game sweep of the mediocre Houston Astros, averaging nearly seven runs a game in the process. It kickstarted a strong opening push to the season that included Rose getting his 3,000^th career hit in early May. By Memorial Day, the Reds were 28-18 and squarely in the middle of the race for the old NL West.

Prior to the realignment of 1994, the Reds and Braves were in the NL West. The alignment may have confounded the laws of geography, but it did create a great rivalry between Cincinnati and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won this division in 1977 and were right in the midst of the race again in ’78. The San Francisco Giants were in first place. Houston and the San Diego Padres rounded out the division and only the winner would advance, going directly to the National League Championship Series.

The Reds faced their first real test of the pennant race in late June and early July, with a 21-game stretch that was heavy on the Dodgers and Giants with a little bit of Astros sprinkled in. The test did not go well and Cincy lost 12 of the 21 games. Their potent offense failed them, being shut out four times in this stretch and averaging only 3.4 runs per game (compared to 4.55 in all other games).

There was one notable exception to the struggling Reds offense. On June 14, Rose had a pair of hits against the Chicago Cubs. No one knew it at the time, but it was the start of a streak that would soon get national attention. Before the summer was out, Pete Rose would make a run at one of the game’s most hallowed records–Joe DiMaggio’s legendary 56-game hitting streak from 1941. 

In the meantime, the Reds were 49-37 at the All-Star break, and in third place, but still within three games of the lead. The start to the second half went much better. Playing against NL East teams, the Reds went 16-9, including taking five of seven games from eventual NL East champ Philadelphia. Cincinnati was in a dead heat with San Francisco, with Los Angeles now chasing at 2 ½ games back.

Rose’s hitting streak would drive all the way through July. It would reach 44 games and tie the National League record set by Wee Willie Keeler all the way back in 1896. But Pete would fall short of Joe D. On August 1 in Atlanta, he was held hitless. The streak was over. 

And through it all, the rest of the Reds struggled after the break. An 11-game road trip to San Diego and Chicago, both mediocre teams, along with a contending one in Pittsburgh, resulted in a 4-7 record. The Reds again slipped three games off the pace. They needed to get back on their feet and an eight-game homestand against the Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates appeared just what the doctor ordered. St. Louis, like Chicago, was not particularly good in 1978.

The homestand started on Monday, August 21 and Bonham was rocked by the Cardinal offense in a 14-9 loss. Seaver was brilliant the next night and handed a 4-0 lead over to the bullpen in the ninth. Hume coughed it up and the Cards tied the game. Even though the Reds won 5-4 in 11, the victory didn’t inspire confidence.

And it would be their last win of the homestand. Cincinnati lost the finale against St. Louis. The Reds lost the opener to Chicago 5-2, mustering only five hits. The Cincy bullpen blew another game the next night, being given a 4-2 lead in the eighth and losing 8-6. Even Seaver struggled in the finale, although with the Reds only getting four hits in the 7-1 loss, it really didn’t matter.

The offensive woes continued against the Pirates. Cincinnati got just six hits and scored only one run in the two games combined, losing both. By the time this homestand was over, the Reds were seven games out of first place.

They never got back into serious contention. Even though San Francisco also fell hard, Los Angeles pulled away and had the division clinched before the final week began. The Reds swept the Dodgers in that final week and also swept the Braves to finish within 2 ½ games in the final standings. But there was no pennant race drama.

It was still a 92-win season and by the standards of today, Cincinnati would have easily been a playoff team. In fact, they were equal to or better than division champions from Philadelphia and Kansas City.

But the changes came. Rose left via free agency and went to the Phillies. Anderson was fired and resumed his Hall of Fame managerial career in Detroit. For the next three years, it didn’t seem to matter much. Cincinnati bounced back with a surprise division title in 1979. They were a contender in 1980. In 1981, they had the best record in baseball, although the bizarre strike-year format left them out of the playoffs. It wasn’t until 1982 that the Reds collapsed and began a rebuild.

But with Rose and Anderson joining Tony Perez as Big Red Machine cogs that moved on, 1978 was still a seminal moment in the decline of one of the 1970s great baseball teams.

The Cincinnati Reds had run the gamut during Lou Piniella’s first two years as manager. In 1990, they won a surprise World Series title. In 1991, they collapsed to 74 wins a fifth-place finish. The 1992 Cincinnati Reds returned to contention.

The organization made moves in the offseason. The Reds acquired lefthander starter Greg Swindell for a package of players that included a former All-Star pitcher in Jack Armstrong. Cincinnati traded closer Randy Myers, a hero of the championship team, to San Diego for versatile outfielder Bip Roberts.

But the biggest move of all came when they traded Eric Davis—the face of the franchise at the time—to the Dodgers in order to improve their pitching. The key acquisition was Tim Belcher, a veteran starter, who had been a key part of LA’s own title run in 1988.

Cincinnati’s offense was steady and deep. Even though a number of notable players—Hal Morris at first base, Billy Doran at second, Chris Sabo at third and Paul O’Neill in right—had ho-hum years at the plate, none of them were really bad. Indeed, the Reds’ offense had no obvious weak points.

The difference-makers were players like Reggie Sanders, a fourth outfielder who got over 400 plate appearances and finished with a stat line of .356 on-base percentage/.462 slugging percentage. Or Roberts, whose stat line was .393/.432 and he stole 44 bases.

And the biggest difference-maker of all was a shortstop who still had both an MVP season and a Hall of Fame plaque in his future. Barry Larkin was still just 28-years-old, posted a stat line .377/.454 and played excellent defense. Larkin was the key to an offense that consistently got runners on base, hit balls in the gap and finished fourth in the National League in runs scored.

The pitching had talent at the top. Belcher and Swindell joined with Jose Rijo to give the Reds three quality starting pitchers. They all worked over 200 innings and combined for 42 wins. But the rotation lacked the kind of depth the everyday lineup had. The fade of 32-year-old lefty Tom Browning was a big reason, with Browning only making 16 starts and posted a bloated 5.07 ERA.

The bullpen was similar. Norm Charlton and Rob Dibble shared the closing duties left open by the Myers trade and they were good. The lefty/righty combo combined to save 51 games and both had ERAs hovering around 3. Scott Bankhead won 10 games out of the pen and had a 2.93 ERA.

But there was nobody who was really “lock down” and over the long haul that took its toll. Cincinnati’s staff ERA ranked seventh in what was then a 12-team National League.

The Reds got off to a middling start. They were swept in San Francisco, who jumped out to the early division lead. Prior to the realignment of 1994, each league had just an East & West division with winners going straight to the League Championship Series. Cincinnati and Atlanta challenged the laws of geography in joining the Giants, Padres, Dodgers and Astros in the NL West).

A sweep of the Braves, the defending division champs, was the high point of the early season and while the Cincy record was only 22-20 on Memorial Day, they were within two games of the division lead.

They got hot in June and went 10-3 in a stretch of games against the Dodgers and Giants. San Francisco started to fade, while Atlanta joined Cincinnati in heating up for the summer months. The Reds matched up with the best the National League had to offer. They won four of seven games with the Braves. Cincinnati took five of eight from the Pirates, who were the best team in the NL East. And at the All-Star break, they were 51-35 and two games up on the Braves in what was now a two-team race.

But it didn’t stay a two-team race for long. Atlanta stayed hot, while Cincinnati stumbled in the early part of August. The Reds lost three straight in a head-to-head matchup with the Braves to start a stretch where they lost 11 of 18 games. It wasn’t a collapse by any means, but in a race with no margin for error it was enough to effectively end Cincy’s hopes of a return to the playoffs.

They were 6 ½ back on Labor Day and never got closer than that until there was a week and a half to go and it was too late. The Reds finished the year 90-72, eight games off the pace Atlanta set.

It was still a good year and proved to be a nice swan song for Piniella, who parted ways with the team after the season. Cincinnati had finished tied for the fifth-best record in baseball, a clear playoff team by the standards of today.