How the Reds got to 11: In a win streak like this, each game has its own hero

CINCINNATI — The Reds trailed 3-0 in the fifth inning on Wednesday when the No. 9 hitter, Luke Maile, stepped to the plate with bases loaded and no outs.

Maile, a veteran whose five-plus years of service time trails only Joey Votto and Curt Casali on the active roster, said he didn’t really feel any pressure.

“I look at it like bases loaded nobody out, I have guys behind me, let’s go have a good at-bat,” Maile said.

Maile did just that, quickly getting down 0-2 before watching two balls in the dirt and pouncing on a sinker in the middle of the zone for a two-run single. TJ Friedl followed with another single, tying the game at 3. Jake Fraley would later break that tie with a two-run homer in the eighth, leading the Reds to a 5-3 victory over the Rockies and extending their winning streak to 11 games.

During the streak — the Reds’ longest since 1957 — they have from risen from 29-35 and third place, five games behind the National League Central-leading Pirates and Brewers, to 40-35 and in first place in the division by two games over Milwaukee.

It was Maile who spoke up in a team meeting in April, after the Reds were swept in a four-game series in Pittsburgh. Maile’s message at that point was simple, yet impactful: don’t worry if you don’t get it done, your teammate will pick you up. The Reds not only snapped a six-game losing streak after that meeting, they swept the Rangers with two walk-off wins in the series, beginning a five-game winning streak.

“He said it’s the next-man-up mentality and we have a team, a squad full of guys who are capable of producing; each and every night it’s a different guy,” Reds center fielder TJ Friedl recalled after he was the hero of the 10th game of the winning streak on Tuesday night.

Baseball-Reference has a statistic listed in every box score as Winning Team Win Probability Added (wWPA), which measures the percent change in a team’s chances of winning a game from one play to the next.

A single event in a baseball game doesn’t win or lose the game. It’s a collection of events. But heroes can emerge at different times, as they have over the winning streak, and indeed the entire season.

Here’s a look at the team’s winners in wWPA in each game of the winning streak: True to form, it’s 10 different players in 11 games, with only Tyler Stephenson appearing on this list twice.

Game 11

Reds 5, Rockies 3: Jake Fraley’s two-run homer in the eighth inning had a wPA of 27 percent.

Fraley, 28, was one of four players the Reds received in the unpopular trade that sent former All-Stars Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez to Seattle immediately after the lockout ended last spring. Fraley came to the Reds with a reputation as a good defensive outfielder, but he didn’t show it on the field. Although he’s battled injuries this season, he’s come back quickly and last week hit a homer in his first at-bat back from the IL.

Overall, his rate stats are similar to what they were last year — .270/.358/.465 in 2023 vs. .259/.344/.468 in 2022 — but he’s walking more, striking out less, hit his ninth homer of the season Wednesday and also has already tripled the number of steals he has (12) this year in nine fewer games. He’s also been more reliable in the outfield.

“Confidence is a choice,” Fraley said after the game. “I think for us to be able to establish that, I think a lot of guys in that locker room understand that.”

Game 10

Reds 8, Rockies 6: TJ Friedl’s three-run homer in the second inning had a wWPA of 27 percent.

There’s been a change in expectations for so many of the Reds players in 2023. Friedl debuted at the end of 2021 and spent much of 2022 shuttling between Triple-A Louisville and Cincinnati, playing 64 games with the Bats and 72 with the Reds. At the very least, the Reds knew they had an extra outfielder in Friedl. He put up a 102 OPS+ and he played good defense in all three outfield spots and could steal a base.

This year he’s become the team’s everyday center fielder and leads off more than he doesn’t. He’s hitting .320/.380/.486 with four home runs and eight stolen bases.

“With TJ, I always come back to getting a chance to play,” Bell said. “He’s one of those guys that maybe he just had to show it a little bit more than the next guy. He’s just continued to do that and every opportunity he’s got, the more opportunity he’s gotten to play, the better he’s played.”

Game 9

Alexis Díaz after recording the save. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

Reds 5, Rockies 4: Alexis Díaz strikeout of Ryan McMahon had a wWPA of 20 percent.

Nobody gets worked harder during a winning streak than the team’s closer. There are other times when, because a team is either losing or not playing close games, they don’t get much work.

Looking back, of course, Bell would have loved not to pitch Díaz on June 10. But he hadn’t thrown in three days and had only pitched twice in the week leading up to the Reds’ second game in St. Louis. While you normally don’t want to use your closer in an 8-3 game, Díaz, at the time, needed the work. He gave up his first homer of the season, but he finished off the game anyway.

There was no way to know it at the time, but Díaz would go on to pitch the next day and in seven of the first 10 games of the winning streak.

Game 8

Reds 9, Astros 7, 10 innings: Ian Gibaut induced a double play from Corey Jules that had a wWPA of 33 percent.

Gibaut has pitched in five games during the streak and walked away with the win in three of them, including Wednesday, improving to 8-1 on the season. Gibaut, 29, has appeared in 34 games, tied with Buck Farmer (who got the save Wednesday) for the most on the team. He has more than double the wins of any other Reds pitcher (Ben Lively leads the starters with four).

“He’s strong. We’ve asked a lot out of our bullpen,” Bell said.

Gibaut blew the save Sunday in Houston, but got the outs he needed after the Astros tied the game to force extra innings.

Game 7

Jonathan India celebrating a home run. (Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)

Reds 10, Astros 3: Jonathan India’s two-run homer in the first inning had a wWPA of 17 percent.

It’s hard to talk about this Reds team without talking about India. The 2021 National League Rookie of the Year dealt with injuries last season, but has now returned to his 2021 form.

India is perhaps the embodiment of this Reds team — always playing hard, never giving up and doing whatever he needs to do for the team to win. He leads the team in runs (56) and hits (76) and is tied for the lead in home runs (10) and steals (12).

Game 6

Reds 2, Astros 1: Tyler Stephenson’s solo homer in the seventh inning had a wWPA of 21 percent.

Stephenson’s had to adjust to changing roles and realities as the season has gone on.

Expected to move amongst catcher, designated hitter and first base, he’s started more games as the team’s DH (35) than catcher (29). He started just four games at first base and none since April.

His overall numbers are not quite what most expected coming into the season, but during the streak, he’s hitting .300/.333/.400.

Game 5

Reds 7, Royals 4: Matt McLain’s three-run homer had a wWPA of 18 percent.

For as good as Elly De La Cruz has been in the minors and since his callup, McLain has shown that he’s just as much the future as his fellow shortstop. The two have played interchangeably at shortstop, despite nearly a foot difference in height. If it weren’t for De La Cruz, there would be plenty made about McLain’s speed — he leads the team with three triples and is hitting .313/.365/.486. Among Reds rookies, De La Cruz has been the flashiest and Spencer Steer the steadiest. Maybe that makes McLain — a player who was twice drafted in the first round — the most unexpected.

Regardless, McLain has quickly become an important part of not just the Reds’ future but of their present.

Game 4

Reds 5, Royals 4: Lucas Sims’ strikeout of Salvador Perez had a wWPA of 15 percent.

Sims is the longest-tenured Red other than Votto.

Acquired at the trade deadline in 2018 for Adam Duvall, Sims had turned himself into a quality back-end reliever, but missed most of last year with a back injury. He returned this season and would be a natural closer if not for Díaz. He’s pitched in 28 games for the Reds, including a scoreless inning Wednesday with two strikeouts.

The Reds’ bullpen is fifth in baseball in innings (293) and top in the National League in FanGraphs’ WAR (3.6). Sims is second only to Díaz in WAR, according to FanGraphs.

Game 3

Reds 5, Royals 4, 10 innings: Ricky Karcher getting Edward Oliveres to pop up had a wWPA of 30 percent.

A limitation of wWPA may be that it only measures events that end a plate appearance, and only the batter or the pitchers (although, a fielder could be credited on a play that is credited to the pitcher). Curt Casali gets an assist in this game because, well, there were several places where Karcher, who uses “Wild Thing” as his walk-out song in the minors, could’ve given up a run on a. Wild pitch, but Casali bailed him out. Casali lived up to the name of his position, catcher, but on this night it was tougher than usual.

That said, Karcher delivered in his big-league debut, earning a save when he was the last pitcher in the Reds’ bullpen available.

Game 2

Reds 4, Cardinals 3: Stephenson’s RBI single off of Adam Wainwright had a wWPA of 14 percent.

Stephenson got the big hit, tying the game in the sixth off of the Cardinals’ starter, but this game may show the problems with using wWPA for this exercise. Stephenson’s sixth-inning single tied the game and then his fielder’s choice in the eighth resulted in the eventual winning run.

Both of those batted balls scored De La Cruz.

The streak has featured plenty of De La Cruz, but most of his heroics have been on the base paths rather than the towering homers that gathered much of the attention before his debut and in his second game when he homered against the Dodgers, nearly sending the ball out of Great American Ball Park.

In the second game of the streak, he walked in the sixth, stole second, tagged up on a fly ball to center to take third and then scored easily on Stephenson’s single.

He then walked in the eighth inning, went to second on a groundout, took third on a passed ball and scored on Stephenson’s grounder to short. That’s what the boxscore says. Watching live, Stephenson hit a grounder to short and De La Cruz was going home on contact. Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong made a good throw home, but De La Cruz dove in head-first, beating the throw and touching home plate before catcher Willson Contreras tagged him with his glove that didn’t have the ball in it.

That same game featured De La Cruz beating out a grounder to first for an infield single. Of his 18 hits, five have been infield singles. Others, including his double Wednesday were aided by his speed.

This was the day after De La Cruz pronounced himself the fastest man in the world.

Game 1

Reds 8, Cardinals 4: Luke Maile’s three-run double had a wWPA of 24 percent.

It seems only fitting that this streak began with the guy who gets the credit from many inside the team for helping the club find its way.

“I do think it took some pressure off the guys because it’s still mainly the same group and everyone was trying so hard,” Bell said. “Sometimes taking the pressure off helps. That’s exactly what I think Luke was trying to do. It helped. Definitely one of the moments up until now that you look back at.”

(Top photo of Stephenson: Jeff Dean / Getty Images)