A Split Between Rainouts as Reds Escape with Walk-Off Win Over Cards in Extras
by William Meiners
We had a fire in the house over Memorial Day weekend. Not a kitchen mishap but burning wood in the fireplace to keep us a little warmer and add some ambiance to sitting around the house, playing cards, sipping wine, whatever we do in our do-little dotage. No ear on baseball for me as the Cardinals-Reds matchup gets rained out on Friday.
Not a single team in the National League Central is under .500 going into the holiday weekend. The Cubs themselves, who greeted the Reds so angrily in the friendly confines of Wrigley in the first week of May (with a four-game sweep) have gone on a losing bender. They’ll drop 10 straight before it’s said and done to which I say, “Blow Cubs, blow.”
Forget the wild west, the central seems like that running group activity where the guy in the back has to sprint to the front of the single-line pack. A fartlek, I think, but I don’t think you can say that on television. Nevertheless, my Reds dropped from first to last in the central after an 0 for 8 start to May. Cubs, Cards, and Brewers have all surged, but that Milwaukee team (and I hate them like hell), usually rises to the top. Up until the second round of the playoffs anyway.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Reds, entering the weekend have played more American League teams than division opponents in 2026. Had they only been playing them, they’d be faring very well. Early in the season (late March if you can believe it), they took game one from the Pirates in a Cincy series. Then lost two straight.
Looking a bit like April road warriors, they swept the Rangers in Texas, swept the Twins in Minnesota, and took two of three in Tampa from the Rays. After a good homestand to win back-to-back series against the Tigers and Rockies, I had the great idea to document the summer in this recap thing.
Fast forward to this near end of May and they’ve lost nine straight against central foes. In the day-night doubleheader on Saturday, the Cardinals punched them in the mouth in game one. An 8-1 final. Do you really need the details? Bad pitching, weak hitting on the home team’s side. It was too cold to go to the opening day of our swimming pool, where I might have drowned myself. Ten straight losses in the division.
In the nightcap, the Reds are down 1-0, but muscle up for a five-run fifth with a three-run homer by Elly followed closely by a two-run homer by Nathaniel Lowe. Chase Petty, making a spot start for a rotation with a few guys injured or rehabbing, promptly allowed a three-run homer to Jordan Walker in the top of the sixth. So an easy win would not be in the cards. Maybe for the Cards, not for the Reds.
Cincinnati clings to a small lead, but what now seems commonplace — a long ball, a walk, and a knock courtesy of the Reds reliever — locks it up at six a piece in the ninth. Neither team scores a run in the 10th inning, which just seems like bad baseball by not moving the ghost runner on second base.
Finally, Blake Dunn hits a grounder that a drawn-in shortstop fires to the plate. Spencer Steer, our Swiss Army knife who can play first, second, third, as well as left and right field, scrambled home fast enough and dove head first under a catcher’s tag. “Reds win! Reds win!” Like a buzzer beater in basketball, there’s nothing but pure joy as an entire team gushes out of a dugout to celebrate like little boys. And I’m happy, too.
Sunday, once again, is postponed by rain, so that Saturday joy will have to sustain me.
William Meiners is the editor of Sport Literate. Among his summer 2026 plans are the documentation of 33 Reds’ series. That should be about 600 to 700 words every few days. If you don’t expect too much breakdown or analysis, outside of his own troubled head, you may not be disappointed. From losing streaks through high-water marks, he’ll follow the club, sometimes literally, from the reluctant spring of early May through the dog days of August. Then he’s off to something else.