The big offseason move for the Cincinnati Reds wasn’t acquiring a big named player who could help their lackluster offense. No, the team went out and signed a new manager. A future Hall of Fame manager. And it was a manager who really wasn’t on anyone’s radar because as far as it appeared, he was retired. But the front office swooped in and brought in Terry Francona just after the 2024 regular season came to an end.
The move was so big that on the cover of the 2025 Reds Media Guide there’s only Terry Francona. Cincinnati had a top 10 MVP vote getter and a top 10 Cy Young vote getter and neither shows up on the cover, it’s just the manager. While the club made a few smaller moves to try and improve the roster, Francona was their big move that they were hoping would be the difference maker to help take them to the next level.
The offseason was spent by many talking about how he was a proven winner. He had experience that former manager David Bell didn’t. That he wouldn’t make the same kinds of mistakes that some felt Bell was always making. That he would sharpen up the team on the bases, hold players accountable, bring something to the clubhouse that was missing during Bell’s tenure.
Two weeks into the season it seems that for many that honeymoon phase is already over. The Reds are 5-8 and tied for last place with the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s early and the record isn’t so bad that anyone should be giving up hope. But there have been more than a handful of questionable decisions made by the manager this season that have left many people who thought changing leaders in the dugout would be a game changer.
It began on opening day. The Reds had a 3-2 lead entering the 9th inning. That’s when Ian Gibaut entered the game and proceeded to give up four runs. There were a lot of questions about why Gibaut, who seemingly only made the team because others were injured, was called on to be the closer on the day. When asked after the game, Francona noted that he had used Scott Barlow in the 6th and maybe he should have flipped the two.
That statement left people scratching their heads even more. Of all the players in the bullpen his plan for the closer was between Scott Barlow and Ian Gibaut?
The offense has struggled. In 10 of their 13 games they’ve scored four runs or less. In seven of the games they’ve scored fewer than three runs. They have plated less than two runs in four games.
There was talk during David Bell’s tenure about how the team wasn’t exactly smart on the bases. While the club generally graded out well on the bases overall, there were often cited for being too risky and at times just flat out unsmart (this isn’t a word?). Francona was going to fix that. Until he wasn’t. Or at least hasn’t been able to yet. The Reds have had their share of baserunning blunders in the first two weeks of the season.
And then there was the game on Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco. The Reds led 6-1 heading into the bottom 6th inning. Nick Martinez had been hit fairly hard the previous two innings, but had only given up one run to that point. With an off day on Thursday and a well rested bullpen, perhaps Francona should have had a shorter leash in the inning. Or a better plan for it.
Martinez gave up a single to begin the inning before striking out the next two hitters. But then he gave up a double, threw a wild pitch, and then an RBI single. That spelled the end of his day. With a righty, switch hitter, and two more righties due up for San Francisco, Francona brought in left-handed reliever Taylor Rogers. He gave up a triple and a single to the first two batters he faced, drawing the Giants to within a run.
San Francisco would tie the game up in the 8th and it would eventually go into extra innings. The Reds didn’t score in their half of the 10th inning. The Giants got a fly ball that moved their bonus runner over to third base to begin the inning. With the winning run on third base and one out, Reds broadcaster John Sadak asked “How do you pitch Mike Yastrzemski here?”, and that led to his partner in the booth Jeff Brantley to reply “I don’t think you do. Why not walk him, walk him to face Flores. Might hit into a double play, give you a righty on righty match up.”
Instead they decided to pitch to the lefty Yastrzemski. The first pitch thrown by Emilio Pagan to Yastrzemski landed in McCovey Cove for a walk-off home run.
The players have to do their job. And sometimes they just can’t. That is going to happen often enough. The other guys get big paychecks, too. But the managers job – or at least one of them – is to put those players in positions to succeed. It’s still quite early in the season, but for many, it seems that their idea that Francona was going to be different than Bell, going to do things in a way that didn’t leave them scratching their head was a thing of the past…. well, that idea hasn’t come to fruition. Questionable in game decisions are still happening. Baserunning mistakes are still happening. The Reds are still losing games that they “should have” won if not for these kinds of issues.
