Cincinnati Reds bats stymied again in 3-1 loss to Pirates

Oof.

The struggles of the Cincinnati Reds against left-handed pitching had been accounted long before lefty Bailey Falter flummoxed them through 7 scoreless frames in yesterday’s shutout loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. With lefty Andrew Heaney scheduled to be on the bump for the Pirates in Thursday’s series finale, there wasn’t a whole lot of optimism about the Reds chances for salvaging this series victory.

There shouldn’t have been. Heading into a crucial early season matchup with the Chicago Cubs on Friday - with lefty Matthew Boyd slated to start the opener - it’s hard to muster a ton of optimism about anything the Reds try to do offensively at the moment.

Heaney held the futile Cincinnati offense to just a lone run in his 5.0 IP on Thursday, his bullpen mates helping stifle the Reds bats for the final 4.0 IP as Cincinnati fell 3-1 to drop the series against the Pirates. That’s the 17-33 Pirates, by the way, who look a lot like the now 15-34 Chicago White Sox who won a series against the Reds in GABP within the last week, too.

Today’s ineptitude by the offense of the Reds marked the 14th time already they’ve scored 1 (one) or fewer runs this season through just 51 games played. While the struggles against LHP have been easy to identify, that’s far from the only thing plaguing this offense at the moment. Since their 24-run outburst against the Baltimore Orioles (and several of their position players pitching) on April 20th, the Reds own just a 90 wRC+ overall (good for 24th among all teams in that span).

Were it not for the recent exploits of Will Benson, the entirety of this Reds offense would look horrendous right now, and Benson continues to ride pine when they’re facing left-handed starters (as he probably should). The simple truth right now is that what the Reds do have simply isn’t getting the job done effectively enough with bats in hand, with the big pieces expected to shoulder the offensive load on this roster all seemingly struggling at exactly the same time.

At the time of writing this, the Reds not only find themselves once again on the wrong side of .500 at 25-26, but also 5 full games back of the Cubs heading into Thursday’s day off. Then, they’re smacked with a run of games that features a pair of 3-game series against the Cubs sandwiching a trip to Kansas City, with each of the Milwaukee Brewers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, and Minnesota Twins set to follow over the next four weeks.

The Reds are entering the crux of their 2025 schedule, and are entering it swinging the wettest noodles of the year so far.