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When fans woke up on the first morning of May, the Cincinnati Reds led the NL Central with a 20-11 record and were coming off their fifth consecutive series win. Since that point, the Reds have been the second-worst team in baseball with a 19-34 record, and those same fans awoke on the first morning of July with Cincinnati in last place by three games. There’s a bit of good news, however, as the team’s ace, Hunter Greene, will finally make his 2026 MLB debut in Saturday’s holiday game against the Baltimore Orioles. The return of Greene couldn’t come sooner, but is it a case of too little, too late for the reeling Reds?

A lot was expected of Greene coming into the 2026 season. The second overall pick in the 2017 draft out of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, Greene was a long time coming. At that point, he’d already been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, in a story by Lee Jenkins, touting him as “the star baseball needs.” His career came close to being derailed by two missed seasons in 2019 and 2020 due to Tommy John surgery, with an assist from COVID to keep him from a 2020 return. Greene’s stuff remained intact after the involuntary time off, and he finally reached the majors in 2022. The 2024 season was his true coming-out party. He posted a 2.75 ERA and a 3.47 FIP in 150 1/3 innings, good enough to rank 10th in the NL with 3.7 WAR. Greene slashed off a walk per nine in 2025, and likely would have received some Cy Young votes if not for two stints on the injured list with a groin injury.

While last year was marred by injury, it wasn’t an arm ailment, and the Reds hoped to get a full, healthy year out of Greene this time around. They needed it, too. Cincinnati was near the bottom of the league in team wRC+ in both 2024 and 2025, and the team hasn’t had a wRC+ of 100 or better since 2010. With the offense expected to be lousy, the Reds likely had to get a lot from their pitching staff in order to be playoff relevant this year. Naturally, that outcome would probably require their best pitcher. But after a single appearance in the spring, Greene had surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow. Now, after spending three months of the season on the shelf, Greene is back.

The offense has struggled, and without Greene, the pitching hasn’t been able to carry the load. Reds starters rank 17th in ERA, 27th in FIP, and 23rd in WAR. And that’s with Chase Burns having a breakout season that should land him on the NL All-Star team if merit has anything to do with it. Expected to be a team strength, the staff has been a weakness after Burns and Andrew Abbott, with absolutely none of the other starting pitchers threatening adequacy. The yearly slide of Nick Lodolo’s strikeout rate has continued, and he has both an ERA and a FIP north of five to go along with a total of two quality starts. Brady Singer’s numbers are even worse, and he remains a two-pitch pitcher with a sinker that doesn’t get grounders and a slider that doesn’t get strikeouts. Rhett Lowder has been rather crushable, and as for the rest of the cameos (Brandon Williamson, Chris Paddack, Chase Petty), this is a family website.

As hinted at above, the ZiPS projections don’t hold out a whole lot of hope for the offense based on what the Reds have in-house. At 13 1/2 games back in the NL Central standings and with four teams to leapfrog, winning the division likely requires a miracle that only divine intervention can provide. But the Reds, who are six games out of the final wild card spot, are still clinging onto a sliver of plausibility that they can rally to make the playoffs. Projecting out the month of July, ZiPS sees the Reds as the team most likely to enter the “dead in the water zone,” which I somewhat arbitrarily define as a 1% chance of making the postseason. Right now, they’re hanging on at 4%. That’s about the probability of a 25-homer hitter ripping a round-tripper in any given plate appearance; not likely, but hardly a shock.

The next 14 games or so, going through July 20, could be their undoing. To illustrate, I asked ZiPS to give Cincinnati’s playoff probability after July 20 based on how the team does over those next 14 games, against the Brewers, Phillies, Cubs, Orioles, and Rockies. Showing real signs of life against some serious NL contenders (not the Rockies) could put the Reds right in the zone where a trade deadline acquisition at the plate might make sense.

Going 14-0 or 13-1 is possible, but safe to say, extremely unlikely. This chart paints a picture of a team that is truly just about to run out of time. Winning from nine to 12 of the next 14 games puts the Reds in a very interesting spot, where there becomes a serious case for being buyers at the deadline. The Reds have two things going in this regard. First, rather than being mediocre from top-to-bottom, the lineup has very clear highlights and lowlights, and holes are easier to target than general mediocrity. Second, a wild card spot is slightly more valuable for the Reds than the average team, as a Greene-Burns one-two with an Abbott chaser projects as one of the best top-of-the-rotations among the various .500ish playoff contenders. Teams with top-heavy rotations can punch above their weight class in the postseason since they get a much heavier proportion of innings from their top starters than they do during the regular season. Get Cincinnati in the postseason, and the bad part of the rotation just becomes an occasional fourth starter.

The Reds made noise about running a six-man rotation in the preseason, without explicitly saying so. Injuries prevented that from being a thing, but for the first time this year, they could run a six-man rotation if they wanted to (Greene, Burns, Abbott, Lodolo, Lowder, Singer). I hope they avoid that for now, even with Greene coming back. Every win right now is absolutely crucial, so it’s not a great time to let your sixth-favorite starter get innings if it can be avoided. The Reds need to go on a tear immediately or they become sellers, so it’s time to push in their chips.

Will there be a postseason mayoral wager in which Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval bets unfortunate chili against another city’s probably superior offering? Probably not. But for that to happen, the team needs to have its best two weeks of the season and go into the trade deadline with a reason to add talent. To get there will probably require Hunter Greene to get back to Cy Young form, and quickly.