Cincinnati Reds Bet Big on Chase Burns and Win Two Series Out West as the Sell-Off Looms

The Cincinnati Reds came out of the All-Star break with a losing record, a last-place standing in the NL Central, and a front office openly drifting toward a sell-off — and then went out and had their most entertaining week in a month. Cincinnati went 4-2 on its West Coast swing, taking two of three at Coors Field and two of three in Seattle, and in the middle of it all handed ace Chase Burns a reported seven-year, $105 million extension. None of it changes the math on 2026 — the Reds sit at 47-54, buried 16-plus games behind Milwaukee — but for one week, the franchise's future and its present were both worth watching.

A 4-2 Trip Through Coors and Seattle

The second half opened Friday, July 17 in Denver, and the Reds treated Coors Field like a batting cage in a 7-2 win. Spencer Steer homered twice — a two-run shot and, improbably, an inside-the-park home run — while Eugenio Suarez went deep for a third consecutive game and Elly De La Cruz added his 16th of the year. Brady Singer allowed one run over five innings, and Tyler Stephenson punctuated the night by throwing out a Rockies baserunner in the ninth. Eleven hits, a tidy two hours and 27 minutes, and a nice way to shake off the break.

Saturday was the correction. Rhett Lowder got hammered early — Colorado scored two in the first and four in the second on the way to a 10-3 blowout, with Tomoyuki Sugano cruising to the win. Jose Trevino homered twice for Cincinnati in a losing effort, which is about as empty as two-homer games get. Sunday the bats answered again: Stephenson launched two home runs and Nathaniel Lowe added a three-run shot in a 9-6 win that clinched the series.

Seattle opened with a thud. The Reds trailed just 1-0 through six innings Monday before the bullpen coughed up seven runs over the final three frames of an 8-0 shutout loss — the kind of night that had MLB.com writing that it pushed the Reds "further into sellers' territory." Then Burns took the ball Tuesday and flipped the mood. Solo homers from De La Cruz (leading off the game), Suarez, and Lowe — a ninth-inning insurance shot the other way — carried a 4-2 win over former Red Luis Castillo. Wednesday's finale brought the series: JJ Bleday went deep, and rookie Sal Stewart crushed a go-ahead three-run homer in the seventh, his 21st, to send Cincinnati home with a 5-3 win and Emilio Pagan's second save in as many days.

Chase Burns Gets Paid, Then Gets Outs

The week's biggest news didn't come from a box score. During the Colorado series, the Reds formally announced a seven-year, $105 million extension for Burns that runs through 2033 — a striking commitment to a young right-hander who has made himself the face of the pitching staff. Then he went out Tuesday in Seattle and showed exactly why: five scoreless innings, three hits, two walks, six strikeouts on 91 pitches in his first start since making the All-Star team. The win pushed his record to 12-1 and trimmed his ERA to 2.42. Sam Moll, Tejay Antone, Brock Burke, and Julian Garcia bridged the final four innings without allowing a run, and Pagan closed it. Whatever happens at the deadline, Cincinnati has planted its flag: Burns is the guy they're building around.

The Bats That Carried Cincinnati This Week

For a team with a bottom-half record, the Reds got loud offensive performances all week. Stewart's go-ahead blast in Wednesday's finale was the swing of the trip, and his 21 home runs lead the club. Steer's two-homer Friday — with the inside-the-park job at Coors — was the week's most unusual line. Stephenson's two-homer Sunday extended a quietly excellent stretch; he's hitting .309 since May 18, which is precisely the kind of number that gets a catcher mentioned in July trade columns. Suarez homered in three straight games bridging the break, De La Cruz opened Tuesday's win with a leadoff shot, and Lowe delivered twice in run-scoring spots — the three-run homer Sunday and the ninth-inning dagger Tuesday. Bleday, whose season has been one of the genuine bright spots, reached 17 home runs with his shot in the finale. On the mound, Singer deserves mention beyond Friday's win: since the start of June he owns a 2.76 ERA with 46 strikeouts over 45.2 innings across eight starts, a run that has rebuilt his value considerably.

Where the Cincinnati Reds Stand in the NL Central

Now, the cold water. Even after a 4-2 week, the Cincinnati Reds are 47-54 and last in the NL Central. Milwaukee has run away with the division — the Brewers were 63-37 entering the week's final games, leaving Cincinnati roughly 16.5 games back — and Redleg Nation pegged the Reds' playoff odds at around one percent during the Seattle series. The two series wins were real, and beating up on Colorado and hanging with a Mariners club in the playoff hunt counts for something. But the standings say this week was about auditions and evaluations, not a charge up the division. The Reds' 0-8 loss Monday, sandwiched between all those wins, was the reminder: the bullpen outside the late-inning core remains combustible, and the margin for error is gone.

Injuries, Rehabs, and Deadline Noise

The health news actually trended positive this week, with two regulars starting the road back:

• Matt McLain — the infielder was set to begin a rehab assignment Friday, July 24.
• Blake Dunn — the outfielder began a rehab assignment Thursday, serving as a designated hitter only to start.

The deadline chatter is harder to feel good about. With July 31 approaching, MLB.com's coverage has framed Cincinnati squarely as a seller, and the names being floated in reports are uncomfortable ones: Stephenson and Lowe have both been mentioned as possible trade candidates, and Suarez — who returned to his old stomping grounds in Seattle this week — was the subject of an MLB.com story about his hope to stay a Red as the deadline nears. To be clear, these are reports, not done deals. But the Burns extension tells you how the front office sees the timeline: lock up the core of the future, and listen on veterans who can bring back pieces to surround it.

What's Next for the Cincinnati Reds

After a Thursday off day to fly home from the coast, the schedule turns immediately meaningful — for the deadline, if not the standings:

• July 24-26 at St. Louis Cardinals — a weekend set against a division rival with its own deadline decisions to make.
• July 27-28 vs. Cleveland Guardians — back home at Great American Ball Park, with the trade deadline looming Friday, July 31.

Watch three things. First, whether Stephenson and Lowe are still in the lineup by next weekend — every multi-hit game now doubles as a showcase. Second, how the rotation lines up behind Burns and a surging Singer, with Lowder trying to steady himself after the Coors beating. Third, whether McLain's rehab progresses quickly enough to get him back in August, when the Reds will want long looks at the group that's supposed to matter next year.

This is the strange in-between where the Cincinnati Reds now live: too far gone to buy, too talented in places to be boring. A week that delivered two series wins, a $105 million bet on Chase Burns, and a rookie's go-ahead homer in Seattle is a pretty fair preview of the path forward — sell the present where it makes sense, and let the young core show you the future is closer than the standings suggest.