Cincinnati heads into a doubleheader against Cleveland with three straight road series wins behind it and a clubhouse openly lobbying the front office to add.
Rain washed out Monday's series opener against the Guardians at Great American Ball Park, so the Reds will play two on Tuesday instead, with the first game at 1:40 p.m. and the second at 7:10 p.m.
The rain might have done everyone a favor, because Cincinnati just finished a trip that changes how a front office thinks.
The Reds went 6-3 through Colorado, Seattle and St. Louis, and closed it Sunday with a 5-3 win in 10 innings that the players treated like a statement about deadline week.
How Sunday Set the Tone
Elly De La Cruz tied the game 1-1 with a solo homer in the third, Ke'Bryan Hayes tied it again 2-2 with a solo shot in the fifth, and the game stayed there until the 10th.
Sal Stewart, batting as a pinch hitter, singled home Tyler Stephenson for the go-ahead run, and after an intentional walk to Eugenio Suarez loaded things up, Nathaniel Lowe added a two-run single to left.
Brock Burke escaped a bases-loaded jam in the eighth by getting Lars Nootbaar to foul out, then threw a clean ninth for the win, and Julian Garcia finished it for his first career save.
It was Cincinnati's third straight road series win, the first time the club has done that since 2023.
A Clubhouse Asking to Buy
Emilio Pagan said the quiet part out loud afterward.
"Just trying to make it weird," Pagan said. "We're trying to win as many games as we can to hopefully put us in a spot where you know guys aren't leaving and we're adding some guys, and we can go on a run."
Lowe sounded the same way.
"Anything's possible right now with the way things are shaping up," Lowe said. "We had a winning road trip, so anything can happen."
That is players telling the front office what they want, and front offices listen to the room more than they ever admit.
The schedule is cooperating too.
Cleveland arrives at 54-53 and, per MLB.com, has lost five straight while going 3-7 since the All-Star break.
Cincinnati sits at 49-55, so sweeping two at home would flip the shape of this week.
Chase Burns, who is 12-1 with a 2.42 ERA, starts the afternoon game, which is the matchup the Reds would pick if they could script one.
The Steer Injury
The trip ended with a real cost.
Spencer Steer left Sunday's game with a right wrist injury, and the club placed him on the 10-day injured list on Monday.
"He didn't fight me to come out of that game. That makes me nervous," manager Terry Francona said.
Losing a regular in deadline week cuts both ways, because it weakens the case that this roster is one piece away while also making that piece easier to identify.
The path to a step forward before the deadline runs through games like Tuesday's, and an organization that spent July juggling its draft class and its big-league needs now gets two chances in one day to prove Pagan right, with De La Cruz and his 18 home runs leading the way.
