“My biggest thing is overall consistency,” Brown said. “That’s the next step for us offensively — me being even more consistent.”

The 2025 Bengals’ offensive line wrapped up the season as the best one that Joe Burrow has played behind, and the unit should be better in 2026 with another year of growth from Amarius Mims and Dylan Fairchild. For the offensive line to take the next step, Brown also needs to have his best full season as a Bengal.

“For what I promised my dad, promised myself, I want to go win,” Brown said. “Me playing my best ball, I know, will be enough for us to go win. That’s the way I see it. That’s the way I like to approach it. I’m thinking about being as perfect as I can be.”

Time flies in the NFL, and it’s already Brown’s fourth season with Cincinnati. When the Bengals signed him in 2023, he was brought in to be the missing piece that the team expected would push the Bengals over the top. The step back that the Bengals’ defense took between 2023 and 2025 removed the Bengals from the playoff picture. Brown has been solid on the whole with Cincinnati, but he also hasn’t reached the status that he was at between 2019 and 2022 when he reached four straight Pro Bowls.

Brown was good for most of the 2023 season with the Bengals, but a groin injury in the middle of the season led to a dip in his production for a stretch of games. He played some of the best football of his entire career in the first half of the 2024 season, but then a leg injury kept him out for six games and hampered him when he was back on the field. In 2025, he had plenty of good reps but a few too many losses.

Brown still hasn’t put together that type of complete season in a Bengals’ uniform that he regularly delivered between 2019 and 2022. Getting that from Brown this season might just be what gives the Bengals the best offense in football.

“He holds himself to a high standard,” offensive line coach Scott Peters said. “He knows the areas he has to improve upon. There are plays he wishes he had back. To make that right, you have to keep pressing, evolving, growing and being honest with where you’re at. There are certainly areas he knows he has to get better at. He’s actively working toward that.”

Peters said that Brown has locked in on a couple of specific aspects of his game this summer. With the Bengals leaning more into their under-center offense, Brown has worked on getting his hand in the dirt and being a powerful blocker out of that stance. Peters also said that Brown is “getting back to core fundamentals as a pass protector.”

“He has the hardest job as a left tackle,” Peters said. “He knows what he has to do. It’s exciting to have a guy like him.”

Brown’s summer was known for one play — that loss against the Detroit Lions that led to Eric O’Neill smacking Joe Burrow.

“It’s always important to keep perspective,” Brown said. “That one play does not define me. Is it a play I want back? Absolutely. Is there something I could have done better? Absolutely, a lot. In terms of what other people say, it is what it is. I more so use it as motivation. I look forward to making this city and my teammates proud.”

That play led to a lot of conversation about where Brown’s game is at entering the season.

“Knowing who I am and what I do, it’d be one thing if I made that mistake against the Lions, didn’t recognize it and wasn’t self-aware,” Brown said. “I know what I did. I’m glad that it happened then and not in the regular season. I look forward to going out there and having a great year.”

While his start to training camp wasn’t great and while he struggled against the Lions, Brown was able to end camp on a positive note. He played his best football down the stretch as he got closer to the regular season. Brown was proud of how he played in the joint practice against the Bears, where he says he “put it all together.”

“There’s rust to knock off,” Brown said. “What we do is very unique. Just like with anything, you’ve got to ride the bike a lot to get calloused and get back to what it was before.”

This year, the development of Fairchild should help Brown. While Fairchild was a rookie thrown into the fire and figuring things out on the fly last season, he really knows what he’s doing entering 2026 and has proven to be an ascending offensive lineman. As a result, Brown will have a more reliable presence to his immediate right this season.

Mims looks like he’s ready to have a monster year. If Mims solidifies himself as “OT1” and has opposing defensive coordinators game planning with that in mind, then there would be a ripple effect that would help Brown.

Brown, the 47th-highest paid offensive lineman in the entire NFL, brings a lot of value just with his leadership, football IQ and durability (Brown has only missed seven total games in eight years in the NFL). He’s also still just 30 years old, and there are plenty of offensive linemen playing well into their mid-30s.

Brown has a better setup around him this season. He’s also motivated to be the reason why this offensive line raises the bar up a level.

“He’s always coming to work with the mindset to evolve,” Peters said. “That’s what it takes. You can’t rest on your laurels or worry about what you did in the past. It doesn’t mean anything. You have to line up, play, produce, you’re going to be evaluated. You’re always tested. He has done a great job with that. He has a great mindset. He’s coming to work with a specific focus on a daily basis to get better.”

Six-hundred-and-seventy-nine days will have passed between that game and Week 1 of the 2026 season. All missed a year and a half due to that knee injury. Recently, he was asked about highlights he delivered and qualities that he showed as a rookie in 2024.

“I showed them that I can handle myself as a blocker,” All said. “I felt like I needed to show more with inline blocking. I needed to do better. I was able to show them I could catch the ball downfield and break some tackles.”

But nothing specific from that season stands out to him as he looks back on it.

“I haven’t thought about that in a while,” All said.

It’s been a long time, but now he has the chance to pick up right where he left off.

“This guy’s really worked hard in the rehab phase for someone who’s really had football taken away from him for close to two years,” Zac Taylor said. “Now he has a chance to get back there, and I’m happy for him.”

It’s not hyperbole at all to say that All’s return changes the entire offense. The goal line offense and the four-minute offense hit a different gear with All on the field. The under center offense takes on a different form, and All gives the Bengals a tight end threat on under center play action passes. Even in the traditional shotgun offense, All has the juice to get open and make plays down the field.

“He’s such a different style of player,” tight ends coach James Casey said. “There aren’t a lot of guys out there who are as aggressive as he is and play as tough and physical as he is. Coming off that major of a knee injury, as a coach, you’re worried about if he’s going to move the same. Is he going to be as fast and explosive? It’s hard to tell until you get into game speed, but I’ve been impressed.”

All’s highlights from 2024 are reminders of what he brings to the table.

It’s a fun highlight reel.

As a receiver, he caught a seam ball on a fake screen, was a weapon downfield on under center play action passes, made defenders miss with the ball in his hands, turned simple chip and release plays into exciting gains and even caught a first down pass on a play that was a fake jet sweep/deep ball to All.

As a blocker, he moved a defender downfield by about 20 yards on a Chase Brown screen, he held the point of attack as the critical blocker on a screen to Ja’Marr Chase that turned into a touchdown and he pummeled defenders from the Ravens and Eagles on goal line touchdown runs. He lined up just about everywhere, from fullback to the slot.

This is the part of the game that All most looks forward to resuming.

“If I’m on the field and I’m playing and I’m blocking, I’m out there to try to win and be the guy that’s willing to go through hell and back to put the team in a better opportunity to win,” All said. “I want to be who I am. Be a dog when I get the opportunity to inline block. I want to show these guys I can put my hand in the ground and get after some big-name guys on the defensive side.”

Who does he have in mind?

“Every last one of them,” All said. “I’m not calling out anybody. I want to go out there and (expletive) embarrass guys in every which way possible.”

He’s going to get the opportunity. Taylor said that All is going to be full-go for the season opener.

All may not get announced as a starter and run out of the tunnel, but he’s going to be one of the most important 11 people on the Bengals’ offense.

For all of the talk about the Bengals establishing an under center offense and finishing games with their rushing attack, All is a piece that can really bring that to life.

“I know he was in a car crash,” Taylor said. “That’s a little silly to say that it’s like a car crash on every play. It’s the mentality he plays with, and it’s really good for an offense to be able to utilize a guy in a lot of different ways. He loves football. I think everyone that’s talked to him sees that very clearly. Really excited to get him back out there.”

With All in 2024, the Bengals leaned more heavily into two tight end sets. They weren’t able to do as much of that in 2025 because they didn’t have versatile enough tight ends to make it worth it. They were better off sticking with 11 personnel and Andrei Iosivas in the slot.

Now, entering a 2026 season where the big trend around the NFL is expanded to be an increase in two tight end sets, the Bengals have All back in the mix to execute that.

The Bengals can put him on the field with Mike Gesicki and be more of a “spread” 12 personnel team that can run a high-powered shotgun offense with two tight ends on the field. The Bengals could also put All on the field with Drew Sample for more of a power 12 personnel grouping that can pummel through linebackers and safeties.

Even within those specific 12 personnel groups, All could line up almost anywhere. The Bengals can use him as a fullback, an inline Y tight end, a moving tight end who roams across the line of scrimmage for sift blocks or a slot receiver.

“You’re always looking for what your advantage is on offense,” Casey said. “A lot of it is based off what the defense does and what we feel like our matchups are. He’s such a unique player where it gives you a lot of value when you have a guy who can do the stuff he does. It can keep the defense off-balanced.”

All is full-go now, and the Bengals managed have him to get him to this point. There were times in training camp where his snap count was scaled back to help him get through the summer fresh. He experienced some expected soreness as he worked in his rebuilt knee, and he “had to be held back” at different points of the summer with the Bengals being careful.

All went through the comeback process the right way, and now he gets to play real football.

Casey has been most impressed with All’s route running. There was no doubt that All would come back ready to hit people. The question coming back from a torn ACL was about what All could do in space.

“He can run,” Casey said. “He’s back to being Erick.”

How would you describe “being Erick?”

“If you tell a guy to run into wall, most guys are not going to really do that,” Casey said. “He’ll run right through the wall. Hopefully, he hits the guy.”

Finally, he has a chance to do what he loves again.

“It will feel great,” All said about his upcoming season debut. “When you go out there and do your job and get it done and we win, there’s no better feeling besides having your kids. That’s it.”

“You don’t just wake up today and start saying you’re a champion,” said new Bengals defensive end Boye Mafe, who won a ring with the Seahawks in 2025. “It’s something you have to develop. You figure out an identity and you create that. You don’t just wake up and say that we’re going to win the Super Bowl. You have to talk to yourself and talk to the guys, making sure you have those conversations. It’s a constant reminder every day you go out there to make that choice.”

To reach that ultimate goal, the kinks need to get worked out early. You can’t afford to start slow. You can’t waste reps, and every day matters.

There shouldn’t be any distractions.

“We’re trying to win a Super Bowl here,” Mafe said. “If you’re trying to do that, you don’t have time for those types of things. You have to lock in. You have to make a choice. You’ve seen that we’re locked in. it’s because we’re making that decision every day.”

The way that the Bengals’ urgency was “manifested” all summer was the story of training camp this year.

That mindset goes hand-in-hand with the fact that this was by far the Bengals’ quietest training camp since 2021.

Throughout the offseason, the Bengals have been acting like a contender.

It’s all in the details, like the intensity of back-to-back practices in what felt like 100 degree heat this week.

“It’s (expletive) 100 degrees out there, and nobody on this whole team tapped out for two days in a row,” Ted Karras said on Wednesday. “I haven’t been a part of a team like that for a long time. I’m very proud to be a part of a team like that.”

This has been the vibe all offseason.

The Bengals have had perfect attendance since OTAs. There were no loud holdouts or critical comments aimed at the team. The Bengals had to have set a record for most live training camp reps by good players in contract years — DJ Turner, Chase Brown and Myles Murphy all seemed to get more training camp reps than they’ve ever had in the past as the Bengals amped up the intensity of training camp this year. Dax Hill was also a part of that mix before he suffered a minor injury that sidelined him for a few weeks.

Instead of sitting out and talking a lot about potential new contracts, these guys kept their focus on the task at hand.

“That was very important,” Murphy said. “The whole spiel going into this year is making sure we’re going full-speed every rep. A team rep against our team or another team, or an individual drill. We’re not taking a rep off.”

The focus is on this year’s team.

“It comes from each person,” Murphy said. “Everyone has to show up and make a decision that that’s the way it’s going to be. The building doesn’t make a team. The players make a team. We’ve got to come in here and make a decision that we’re going to dominate.”

Turner, the most high-profile player eligible for an extension, exemplified the Bengals’ training camp urgency. He’s in line to get paid at some point in the near future. All summer, he carried himself like a player with everything to prove. He was more physical, competitive and impressive than he has ever looked. The approach should help Turner be even better in 2026 than he was in 2025.

“His routine, his attention to detail, his motivation to be the best — he wants to be one of the best corners in the NFL, which he can be,” cornerbacks coach Charles Burks said. “He loves to be matched up on somebody. He loves to follow the No. 1 (receiver). Whenever you give a guy like that that challenge, it’s not for everybody. Everybody doesn’t really want that. He does. When you consistently feed that fire, you get the best version of him.”

It’s examples like Turner’s that should fuel Joe Burrow’s confidence in the Bengals this season.

Every training camp, there’s something that becomes the story of the summer for the quarterback. Some QBs spend all summer talking about being better at throwing deep. Some QBs emphasize accuracy. With some QBs, the focus is on their health.

With Burrow this year, as he’s so established with what he does on the field with the ball in his hands, the spotlight has been on his message to the team.

“I’m trying to put it out into the world,” Burrow said. “I’m trying to manifest it. I’m trying to show our guys the urgency that I have and that I want us to have as an organization to go and make it happen. You can keep pushing it down the road, or you could talk about it now and say this is the year. I’m tired of saying next year.”

In his career, Burrow has never carried himself in the way that he is now. He wears on his sleeve how much believes in this group. It’s like he can smell the success that he expects is ahead of the Bengals. He genuinely cannot wait for the season.

When asked about Burrow’s performance in training camp, Taylor goes back to this point.

“You feel with him and a lot of our guys, just the urgency,” Taylor said. “The way we’ve ended years in the past, it’s enough of that. It’s a new year. We’re starting zero-and-zero. But that’s just the feeling I think we all have right now, is let’s get it together.”

If Burrow is the voice for the Bengals’ urgency, Dexter Lawrence is the symbol of it. The trade changed the entire tone of the offseason and helped shift the vibe in the locker room. Even better for the Bengals, he looked like an even better player in training camp than the Bengals could have hoped for.

Burrow is the central point of the locker room and of the offense. Lawrence gives the defense its own unique central point. Lawrence is the sun, and everything on that side of the ball revolves around him.

Lawrence matched Burrow’s urgency from the moment that the defensive tackle walked into the building.

“In the spring, the first day that he got here, our coach introduced Dex to talk to the team,” Barrett Carter said. “I saw this serious side of Dex. He said, ‘What’s up fellas. I’m Dexter. This year, I’m here for one thing and one thing only. That’s to win a championship.’ He dropped the mic.”

There’s a good blend with the main additions to the defense this year. Mafe and Cook have won Super Bowls, and they’ve been vocal about exactly what it takes to get there.

Lawrence and Jonathan Allen haven’t won much in their careers (outside of a miracle run to the NFC title game by Allen’s Commanders in 2024).

Lawrence and Allen are well aware of how rare it is to enter a season with the type of expectations that the 2026 Bengals have.

“Not every team goes into the year with the level of anticipation and excitement that we have,” Allen said. “I’m excited for the opportunity, but we’re just trying to work. We didn’t spend unnecessary time on things that didn’t matter.”

Cook says that the biggest lesson that he has learned from his time with the Chiefs is how different September football is from January football. It’s a whole different ball game in the playoffs when everything about your opponent is already on tape and when it all comes down to execution. To win in those season-defining moments against the best teams, Cook says that all of your kinks need to be worked out in training camp and early in the season.

You need to have had a great training camp.

The Bengals just wrapped up their best camp in a long time. They look like a really good team. Spend some time in the locker room, and you can tell that they know it.

Dealing with muscle fatigue in his throwing hand, Pagán had just come back from a couple of necessary days off. The discomfort stemmed from when he’d throw his splitter. Speaking with the media before the game, he vowed that he wouldn’t let the hand issue impact that way that he was pitching.

Pagán didn’t just back that up on the mound that night. He went on to throw splitters on each of his first two pitches, with one of them resulting in a soft ground out. Then, Pagán went on to use his splitter to also get the second out of the inning. It looked like he was making a point that the hand discomfort wouldn’t stop him from being the pitcher he was capable of being.

Pagán is cruising right now. He has recorded a save in each of his last 14 opportunities, which is the longest streak of his career. On Wednesday, he closed out a 7-3 over the Padres with a great ninth inning.

“He’s filling up the zone,” Reds reliever Pierce Johnson said. “His heater is up to what it was last year, or better. His splitter and his cutter are great pitches. The way he attacks the zone in big situations, pounds the zone, he forces them to swing the bat.”

Four months ago, Pagán thought that his season was over. He fell to the ground as he strained his hamstring at Wrigley Field in May. Even though his numbers weren’t great at the time before he went on the injured list, Pagán felt like he was close.

He made it back from the at the end of June and leaned on what was working for him in his final few outings before the injury.

“I tried to re-feel what I was feeling before I got hurt for those last few days (in May),” Pagán said. “I said it then. Eventually, I was going to get good results. The game is designed for pitchers to be successful, especially when you’re throwing strikes and have good stuff. I believe in my ability to do that.”

The hamstring was bugging him before it fully strained in May, and that issue prevented him from repeating his delivery consistently for most of April. He put that issue behind him with his rehab as he made his comeback, and Pagán quickly looked like the pitcher he was in 2025 when he was back from the IL on June 30.

Right now, he actually looks better than he has at any point of his Reds’ career.

“I’ve always loved the way he competes,” Johnson said. “Now that he’s back to 100%, you can see it. He feels it.”

Since he returned from the IL, he has a 2.53 ERA in 22 appearances with 25 strikeouts. He’s tied for the most saves in the National League since he returned from the IL, even though Terry Francona uses Pagán in games where the Reds have a four-run lead that don’t qualify as save situations (like Wednesday’s win over the Padres).

He has stuck with the splitter, his fastball is explosive at the top of the strike zone and he’s throwing strikes. Pagán has allowed six runs since he came back, and his worst outing (two runs allowed) during that stretch were a game where he was pitching in such a bad downpour that his cleats were covered with so much mud that he couldn’t get his footing on the mound.

Overall, Pagán is locked in right now.

“I’m generally better the more that I throw,” Pagán said. “My command gets better. The shape of my pitches gets better. I definitely feel locked in right now.”

During the time that he missed during the first half of the season, the Reds posted a 19-27 record. They weren’t the same team, and the bullpen was crumbling.

“I told them for a while that we’re trying to get through games and keep guys healthy,” Terry Francona said. “It was challenging.”

Tony Santillan went in the worst rut of his career around that time, and Graham Ashcraft also got hurt. The bullpen quickly became the biggest weakness on the team for a couple of months.

It’s been a different story since June 30. It’s also helped that Santillan has returned, Tejay Antone and Julian Garcia have emerged and Luis Mey has developed. But the biggest difference in the bullpen is Pagán’s presence in the ninth inning.

“We have more order,” Francona said. “I know they appreciate that. I do, too.”

The most memorable highlight of Pagán’s summer was a 14-pitch strikeout in a save against the White Sox. That at-bat showed a lot about his comfort and his energy in high-stress moments.

Last week, in his return to the mound where he got hurt at Wrigley Field, he recorded two saves.

Pagán’s reaction to his performance in that series showed a lot about his confidence right now.

“Ever since I’ve come off the IL, I’ve tried to put that in the rearview mirror,” Pagán said. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“Al (Golden) is giving us the keys on a lot of the calls — it’ll be a three-man or four-man rush,” Murphy said. “Then, he’ll let us do what we want to do as long as we coordinate it.”

Instead of having every piece of the pass rush plan be micro-managed, there’s trust and empowerment for players to read what they’re seeing on the field to make the right adjustments.

“It’s more player leeway,” Murphy said. “It’s a very quiet defense. Because of that, we’re playing faster. They’ve put a lot of trust in us. The veterans we have have laps around the sun and know what to expect.”

It’s a whole new universe with Dexter Lawrence and Jonathan Allen in the mix on the defensive line.

In Year 2 for Demetrius Knight Jr. and Barrett Carter, a lot more is being put on their plate. They’re also getting a lot of good help behind them with Bryan Cook, a very vocal communicator who literally has their back.

The Bengals paid a premium to turn a young defense into a veteran defense during the offseason. They’ve already seen how those investments should pay off in 2026.

“Really good teams have veteran players that aren’t just trying to protect their job,” Zac Taylor said. “They’re trying to help those guys around them get better, too, so that we can go win a championship, as opposed to just preserve my job and have a good career but don’t have anything to show for it as a team. And I really feel like we have veterans at every position that are really going out of their way to help young guys improve so they can help us win.”

The new-look defensive line starts with Dexter Lawrence. BJ Hill played with him on the Giants in 2019 and 2020. Hill sees a different player now six years later.

“He’s a more mature guy,” Hill said. “You can see he loves football. He loves being around the building. He loves the guys in our room and around the building. You love to have guys like this.”

Allen’s presence as a pass rush savant has given Taylor and the Bengals a lot to worry about over the years. He has been as advertised.

“He shows up,” Boye Mafe said. “No matter what, you’re going to feel him. I respect that, being that long in his career to still show up like that every day for practice.”

Mafe is getting the chance to play an every down role that he was blocked from playing in Seattle, and he’s showing that there’s more versatility in his game than he was able to demonstrate with the Seahawks.

“He has an ability to really impact the passer, and he can stop the run,” Allen said. “A lot of times, guys like him are one-dimensional. His ability to do both is big.”

Lawrence, Allen and Mafe are all good, smart players who are taking pride in the chance to build a new-look Bengals’ defense.

“For me, it’s understanding how to help and play off others,” Mafe said. “I’m not worried about myself right now. I’m worried about making sure that we play the best football that we can. A lot of people talk about production, this, that and the third. At the end of the day, I’m here to win. I left a winning program to come to make another winning program. What it takes for us to win, if it takes me being less productive, so be it.”

They’ve already earned a lot of trust from the coaching staff. Murphy says the conversations between the pass rushers on the field are now along the lines of, “This guy is doing this. Let’s run this stunt or this game.” The defensive line is showing more creativity and more savvy.

“We’ve played really fast and free,” Allen said. “A lot of times, when you have a lot of young guys, things can be slow. We played with a lot of confidence.”

The linebackers have shown the coaching staff that they’re ready for more. A few weeks ago, backup linebacker Swayze Bozeman shared that linebackers coach Mike Hodges has empowered Carter and Knight to read the offense and “have some independence on our side to move the front. Him giving us that range to do that gives us confidence. They trust us. That autonomy brings a lot of confidence to the group.”

It also helps Carter and Knight to have Cook’s presence right behind them.

“Cook and the safeties, the No. 1 thing is they’re problem solvers,” Carter said. “If they see something messed up, they’re going to un-mess it up. If they see something that’s wrong, they’ll take the initiative. They’re not going to wait for anyone else. They’ll handle it on their own. They have the intelligence to do that.”

There’s a cool blend on this defense between veterans who know what they’re seeing and talented young pieces who are just starting to have the game slow down for them.

Right as Murphy, DJ Turner, Dax Hill and Jordan Battle are starting to hit their stride and play with a lot more confidence, they’re teaming up with veterans who know exactly what they’re doing. The Bengals’ young veterans and their new additions are making each other better.

“(The older players) give directions to the energy,” veteran safety Kyle Dugger said. “Oftentimes, younger players have a lot of energy but nowhere to direct it. The veterans that have been brought in have shown what it looks like. They’ve played. They know where to put that energy, attention and focus.”

The corners and safeties are also being empowered. Turner spent all of training camp shadowing Ja’Marr Chase and following him around the field. Turner is getting the full CB1 treatment. And Cook and Battle have been vocal and played fast all summer.

“If I know it or see it, it’s my job to say something,” Cook said. “Being of the tenure we are, we do a great job of getting our side lined up and prepared. We know what’s coming, we know the play call, play faster. That can be the difference between a tackle for loss or a gain of two yards.”

It’s all a 180-degree shift for a Bengals’ defense that was way too young in 2025. Last October, Taylor literally pounded the table in his press conference as he said that he was looking for a leader to step up on defense.

Now, the defense has so many confident, experienced players on defense that the scheme is evolving to play to those strengths.

“The guys we brought in, we brought in the best group of guys we possibly could,” Carter said. “The defense together, as a whole, we have a great group.”

And yet his fastball looks sharper now than it has all season.

“It has more life,” Burke said. “I’ve worked on my mechanics, trying to stay in it a little longer. I was jumping out of things a little early and getting around the ball. I’m trying to stay behind the ball longer. It’s definitely helped the explosiveness of the fastball.”

Burke pitched a scoreless eighth inning on Tuesday, delivering another successful high-leverage outing. Burke, who has a 2.58 ERA, overpowered Manny Machado with a strike three fastball, got the Padres’ most valuable hitter this season (Ty France) to fly out on a fastball and then ended the inning by using his fastball to strike out catcher Luis Campusano.

In a part of the year where he should look much more fatigued than he does, Burke is hitting his stride.

“I’m ready for it,” Burke said. “Whatever the team needs for the rest of the year, I’ll do what I’ve got to do.”

Burke’s walk rate is worse than he’d like it to be, but other than that it’s been a great year for the lefty reliever. The Reds acquired him in a three-team trade in January where they dealt Gavin Lux, and Burke has proven to be the Reds’ most consistent reliever over the course of this season.

Entering Tuesday, Burke had allowed one hit or fewer in 57 of his 68 appearances, tied for the second-most instances in MLB (Burke added another game to that list against the Padres).

Burke also had 52 scoreless appearances this season entering Tuesday, which ranked fifth-most in MLB (he added another scoreless appearance against the Padres).

He’s having this level of success while pitching in just about every type of relief situation.

“You don’t have enough time for me to (explain his importance),” Terry Francona said. “He’s a lefty that you can bring in against righties. He has pitched a lot. It’s valuable.”

Francona has used Burke in save situations (twice), in tie games in the ninth inning or in extras (five times) in high-leverage seventh and eighth innings (19 times) and in close games in the fifth and sixth innings (eight times). There have been games where Burke got one big out to get the Reds out of a jam, and there have been games where he pitched two-plus innings.

His ability to get righties out has made him even more versatile.

“I stay ready,” Burke said. “I’ve always been the same way. Once the starter gets to 50 pitches, I’m getting ready. Until the game is over, I’m expecting to get in every single time.”

In a year where Emilio Pagán, Tony Santillan and Graham Ashcraft all spent extended time on the injured list, Burke has been the steady presence who has been in the late-game mix all season.

Now, Burke is getting better with the stretch run of the year approaching. He says that how much he has pitched works in his favor.

“I’m slowing the game down,” Burke said. “I tend to pitch better the more games I get into. If I can pitch every two or three days, it’s perfect for me to stay mentally in it. Being able to slow the game down is good for me mentally and mechanically.”

The best season of Burke’s career was in 2022, when he posted a 1.87 ERA with the Rangers. In that year, the Rangers pitched him a lot on a pretty regular schedule. He took a step back in 2023 (4.37 ERA), and he says that was because the frequency of his relief appearances changed.

In 2026, the Reds are pitching him plenty.

“You feel better when you’re throwing a lot,” Burke said. “When you haven’t pitched in five days, you feel rusty and the game speeds up on you. It’s about the consistency of getting into the flow of the game.”

While the Reds aren’t realistically chasing a playoff spot right now, Burke is exactly the type of pitcher who’s well-suited for that type of run. The Reds really, really could have used him at this point of the season in 2021, 2023 and 2025. He would have played huge roles on all three teams and filled a need on those teams. It also speaks to Burke’s value that he would have played a completely different role on each of those teams (likely a traditional high-leverage reliever in 2021, a versatile chess piece whose durability would have been critical in 2023 and a more traditional lefty role in 2025).

With one month left in this season, Burke will blow past his career-high for appearances in a season. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the year, and he has a chance to further solidify his value entering the offseason.

The next step for Burke is further cutting down the walk rate. If he does that, he says, he’d be excited to pitch in an even higher rate of games.

“I want to try to attack guys,” Burke said. “Get ahead, stay ahead and get rid of guys in three pitches or less so I’m available (again) the next day.”

“It was just weak,” Williamson said about that hand.

Then in June, as he was ramping up and coming back from a shoulder injury that landed him on the injured list in April, he was doing clapping pushups.

“I had my feet elevated, came up, clapped and went back on my knuckle,” Williamson said. “I came down on it again in the gym and it recracked at the same spot. It was an unfortunate setback. I would have been back at least two weeks sooner.”

It’s been that type of season so far for Williamson. But as he returns from the IL this week, he gets a chance to write a different ending to his season.

Williamson will start for the Reds on Wednesday. Then next Monday, he’ll do a piggyback start with Chase Burns and back up Burns as the Reds manage the All-Star’s innings count.

Williamson should get plenty of innings down the stretch.

“I just want to feel good,” Williamson said. “I want to pitch. I want to test where I’m at. I want to see what I need to do, take that into the offseason and be ready to rock for next year, too.”

No one in the Reds’ rotation had a stronger spring training than Williamson. He literally pitched his way into forcing the Reds’ hand to use a six-man rotation (that plan got scrapped when Nick Lodolo went on the injured list with a blister). Williamson’s velocity was up, he looked like much more of a strikeout pitcher and he changed the way that he sequenced pitches. Williamson more often went “fast-to-slow,” getting ahead with his fastball and using off-speed pitches to finish at-bats with strikeouts.

On April 6, in Williamson’s second start of the season, he threw 6 ⅔ shutout innings against a good Marlins lineup. On April 17, he allowed one run in 5 ⅓ innings in an impressive home-state start against the Twins. Over a three-start stretch, he looked like he was beginning to hit his stride.

“I was in such a groove in spring training,” Williamson said. “I don’t want to say it was easy, but I felt like I knew what I was doing. My arm was flowing. The game was coming easier than it normally does.”

Then, a shoulder issue that has troubled Williamson for a lot of his professional career popped back up. Williamson, who missed nearly all of the 2024 season with a shoulder injury and then missed the entire 2025 season after having Tommy John surgery, went back on the IL with a shoulder injury at the end of April.

“After two years of not pitching, getting back into it, it caught up to me,” Williamson said. “I think we have it behind us now. We’ve done a lot of good stuff in the last few months to negate that.”

Williamson said that his shoulder is checking out well now after months of rehab and training. His biggest changes revolved around his stretching routine, and now he does a lot more to loosen his shoulder before and after he throws.

The hand injury that he suffered doing clapping pushups in June was a setback, but now Williamson is all the way back.

The 28-year-old was the centerpiece of the Jesse Winker/Eugenio Suárez trade with the Mariners in 2022, and Williamson has still only pitched in 33 games with the Reds. Twenty-three of those starts were in 2023, when Williamson saved the rotation and was as consistent as any Reds’ starter during his rookie year.

He has had to adjust to try to better manage his shoulder injury. Now is his opportunity to show that he can put that behind him.

Recently, he has been choking up on the bat. It gives him more control of the barrel and prevents his hands from getting “flippy” through the zone. But you have to give up something to get something, and choking up typically takes away some power because you can’t quite snap your hands in the same way.

Needing a homer to complete the cycle, whether to choke up or not was on Bleday’s mind as he stepped into the box.

“I choked up every at-bat (in that game),” Bleday said. “Should I choke down to possibly have more of a chance to slug or get a home run?”

He makes up his mind as he gets into his stance. He doesn’t choke up.

“I just didn’t want to change anything,” Bleday said. “Keep doing everything the same and be ready to hit.”

He reminded himself of a few cues.

“Be loose, be early and let it rip,” Bleday said.

Listen to the podcast with Bleday here

Zach Littell gave Bleday a first-pitch fastball over the plate. Bleday hit a topspin line drive that carried over the right field fence for the homer. He got the cycle.

“You dream of this as a little leaguer,” Bleday said. “Shoot, I just hit a cycle in the big league.”

Over the weekend, Bleday sat down with me in the dugout and broke down each at-bat and each pitch that he saw on Aug. 21 as he hit for the cycle. We went through the adjustments he made against the pitchers he faced and the importance of being selective early in the game but then hunting the first pitch later on. When the television copy showed a close-up of his face, Bleday broke down how he looked and what was racing through his mind.

We went beat-by-beat through the game. You can hear our conversation on a special episode of Power Stacks, the Reds podcast that I do regularly with Brian Giesenschlag. Listen to Bleday describe in detail the entire night.

“I want you to watch (Pete Crow-Armstrong) today,” Votto told De La Cruz, which he shared during the first inning of a game broadcast. “When PCA gets these MVP chants, that’s going to be Elly De La Cruz in 2027. And I think he’s motivated… He has every single tool identical to PCA. He has not tapped into his full potential. His full potential is best player in baseball.”

De La Cruz appreciated hearing that from his former teammate.

“It meant a lot,” De La Cruz said after the game. “He knows the game. He played the game. He was a great hitter. Great player. It means a lot.”

In their season as teammates, De La Cruz learned several lessons from the future Hall of Famer.

“Play the game the right way,” De La Cruz said. “Show up for the guys every single day.”

He knows what he’s capable of. Votto reminded everyone what De La Cruz’s ceiling looks like as Votto described the Reds’ shortstop on the broadcast.

De La Cruz said his next step is being consistent: “That’s what you’ve got to do,” he said.

He exited the game on Sunday with left quad tightness, and Francona pointed to a moment where De La Cruz beat a throw to first base. Francona said that they’ll need to get De La Cruz looked at, but early indications were positive.

‘I don’t think it’s very bad,” Francona said. “Me and Freddie kind of double-teamed him about coming out. There’s a chance he plays tomorrow or DH’s tomorrow. We need to get him looked at.”

De La Cruz also spoke positively about his prognosis.

“It’s good,” he said. “Just a little bit tight.”

***
In the Reds’ clubhouse on Sunday afternoon, a few players were talking about Knicks star Jalen Brunson. Sal Stewart was in the middle of the conversation.

“I said, ‘If I go deep, I’ll do the Brunson,’” Stewart shared after the game.

Brunson’s signature celebration is a specific hand motion where he sticks out his thumb and two fingers.

Typically, Stewart said, he does the celebrations of different soccer players. “It’s funny how (my teammates) laugh when they see which one I choose.”

On Sunday, Stewart honored the NBA champion in Brunson.

“I did it, and the boys loved it,” Stewart said.

The NL Rookie of the Year favorite has a lot of respect for the Knicks point guard.

“He has overcome so much adversity,” Stewart said. “When he could have taken the most money, he actually declined it and took less so he could put out the best team he could. I feel like that’s really cool.”

In 2024, according to ESPN, Brunson signed a long-term extension with the Knicks. He took $113 million less than he could have (below the max salary) on a a four-year, $156.5 million contract extension. The extra cap space allowed the Knicks to keep their core (Bridges, Anunoby, etc) together.

Stewart’s called shot on Sunday was his 31st homer of the season. His 105 RBI this season are the most by any Reds batter since Jay Bruce (109 in 2013), and it’s not even September yet.

“He’s incredible,” Chase Burns said. “Ridiculous. I tell him every day.”

***
Terry Francona said about Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong, “The first time we were in here, he was hitting ninth. Remember that? Now, they want to hit him first, second and third.”

Crow-Armstrong was hitting .237 with a .667 OPS when the Reds faced the Cubs in early May. Now, after a two-homer game against the Reds on Sunday, he has the second-best OPS in MLB (.954) and has the second-most homers in the league (38). He’s also the best defender and the base runner in baseball.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a 9 WAR before,” Francona said. “You’ve got a premium defensive position, a guy hitting like he’s hitting and he’s hitting lefties better than he’s hitting righties.”

The Reds got very well familiar this weekend with how scary PCA has been over the last four months.

“He’s a pretty good talent, man,” Francona said.

***

Francona pointed out postgame that everyone is talking about what the plan is going to be for Chase Burns down the stretch as the Reds keep an eye on his innings. What gets overlooked is what he’s doing now.

“He has held his stuff all year,” Francona said. “That’s a big credit to that kid and his work ethic. We sat him down in the spring — it’s not a knock on him, he had just never been through it before.”

Burns’ stuff looked like it was in midseason form on Sunday. He allowed just two earned runs in 5 ⅔ innings, recorded a terrific rate of whiffs with his slider and saw his fastball velocity tick up.

Back in spring training, Burns went through a “dead load situation” where the Reds scaled back his work for a short period of time. That’s when the Reds sat him down.

“He took it to heart,” Francona said. “If it’s not, he would have run out of gas.”

Burns knew that he was feeling good as he warmed up in the bullpen.

“You can tell before the game,” Burns said. “It helps that this environment was electric. I had a lot of fun out there.”

In front of a packed crowd in a great ballpark, Burns showed the pitcher he has been all season. His night ended with an incredible 11-pitch battle with second baseman Pedro Ramirez with one out in the sixth inning. The at-bat went 11 pitches.

“Given the situation and where the game was at, it was going to be his last batter,” Tyler Stephenson said. “Feeling whatever he could throw a strike with. Sure enough, he got him to pop up. Challenge him. He did a good job of throwing strikes in that situation.”

Burns threw a 98.3 mph fastball over the plate on the 11th pitch, and Ramirez flew out to left field. That was the end of Burns’ night with him at 100 pitches and a lefty due up.

It was another memorable moment and another memorable victory.

“He was pretty good,” Francona said.

***
The biggest swing of the game came from rookie Héctor Rodríguez, who made an adjustment recently that has helped him flip the script at the plate.

Rodríguez has started visualizing his at-bats ahead of time.

“When the pitcher is warming up, I’m visualizing his pitches and what I want to hit,” Rodríguez said via interpreter Tomás Vera. “It’s concentration and choosing the pitches I want to hit, and making sure I make good contact.”

On Sunday, Rodríguez hit a three-run homer in the fourth inning that turned a 2-0 deficit into a three-run lead.

Entering this road trip, he was hitting .118 with a .336 OPS through his first 12 big league games. On this road trip, he has 10 hits and four homers in the seven games he has played.

“I told you guys,” Stewart said.

Maybe no one in the Reds’ organization has been hyping up Rodríguez over the last few years more than Stewart. They grew up through the Minor Leagues together.

“He’s coming,” Stewart said. “He’s going to keep getting better. I’m happy that he’s up there with us.”

Rodríguez’s emergence offensively also coincides with Francona putting him in the leadoff spot when the Reds face righties, which began last Wednesday in San Francisco.

“He built my confidence,” said Rodríguez, who hit two homers in that game on Wednesday.

He’s still rounding out his game. Rodríguez struck out twice on pitches that he chased way out of the zone on Sunday, and a throwing error cost the Reds a run. He’s still struggling with the breaking ball. Rodríguez needs to be more consistent.

But there are signs.

“He’s dangerous right now,” Francona said. “He got a ball up and he whacked it. It’s interesting. He’s ultra-aggressive. That’s ok. We don’t need nine guys that are going to walk. I’m not sure you want nine guys who are ultra-aggressive. If he is who he is and swings at strikes and he does damage, the kid is pretty interesting.”

Rodríguez said that the biggest lessons that he has learned in his first month in the big leagues are the importance of concentration, the importance of listening to his teammates, the need to be more selective in his at-bats and the fact that he needs to run the bases better. He has known all along that he has to continue to develop defensively, and he has exceeded expectations in the outfield so far (Sunday’s error notwithstanding).

The last month of the season is going to be a great opportunity for the 22-year-old Rodríguez to continue to grow.

“I’m going to make some mistakes,” he said. “If you’re ready, you can make good off that.”

In 2022, when the Reds were on their way to 100 losses, TJ Friedl and Jake Fraley received playing time that they probably wouldn’t have if the team was a contender. Those guys took so much advantage of their opportunity that it became a springboard for them to be regulars in the lineup for the next several years.

Also in 2022, Jose Barrero and Aristides Aquino got that same opportunity to play regularly down the stretch. They both flopped, and how they played was the beginning of the end of their time with the Reds.

Ideally, the 2026 Reds would have more young players in the mix on the roster right now and give those young players a chance to show if they can stick. Instead, the Reds are missing most of an entire wave of young players who at one point there were hopes for.

The Reds were counting on a couple of young pieces like Noelvi Marte, Edwin Arroyo or Will Benson to give the team some consistent production this year.

Marte was the Reds’ No. 2 hitter at this point last year. In 2026, he posted a .550 OPS in the big leagues and now is back in Louisville.

Arroyo, who was called back up to the big leagues on Friday, had the chance over the summer to take the reins as the Reds’ second baseman and flopped in his first stint in the big leagues. Now, he gets a second chance.

Benson saved the Reds with an offensive spark several times in 2025. He posted a .643 OPS in the big leagues this year, was taken off the 40-man roster during the summer and has had a bad month at the plate in August in Louisville.

Rece Hinds, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Tyler Callihan are a different tier of player, but at one point they looked like the types of guys who you’d want to give a shot to in a situation like the Reds are in now — out of the playoff race, searching for offense. Hinds and CES got DFAd, and Callihan was traded for a pitcher who got DFAd.

Young players struggling to get established in the big leagues has become too much of a trend for the Reds.

“If a guy isn’t getting hits, we can certainly work with them and you do,” Terry Francona said. “You certainly try to put them in a position where you think they can succeed. Sometimes, coming to the Major Leagues, it can be difficult. José Ramírez got sent back twice (in Cleveland). You hope that guys learn and get better. There are going to be growing pains with all young guys. If they get better, it’s worth it. If they don’t, it makes it difficult.”

A defining aspect of this Reds’ season is this entire wave of players falling apart, at least outside of Rookie of the Year favorite Sal Stewart (and we’ll see how this goes with Héctor Rodríguez, who’s still getting settled into the big leagues).

“We caught a big break with Sal (Stewart),” Francona said. “I hit him cleanup from the first day. That’s pretty rare. He hasn’t skipped a beat. But that doesn’t happen very often,”

The fact that the Reds have Will Banfield and Ivan Johnson on their bench right now shows how much of the team’s upper-level depth has evaporated. It’s a problem that right now, the top of Louisville’s lineup includes Marte, Benson, Juan Brito, Francisco Urbaez and Michael Chavis (guys who couldn’t stick in the big leagues and organizational depth guys).

The two players on the Reds’ big league team with a chance right now to use the runway they have are Héctor Rodríguez and Edwin Arroyo. They’ll be the most interesting Reds to watch down the stretch and could be anything from top-half of the order hitters in 2027 to players who open next year in Triple-A.

Rodríguez debuted after the trade deadline and started his big league career extremely cold (.336 OPS over his first 12 games). This has been a good road trip for him, one that’s included nine hits, three homers (one monster splash hit) and four RBI in the five games that he has played on this trip entering Saturday.

“What we tried to tell (Rodríguez) is we’re still trying to figure out kind of who he is,” Francona said last week. “Sometimes, you come up here and all of a sudden you’re seeing pitches you’re not used to. Just hit how you hit. And if we have to make some changes, we can. He was maybe trying to be somebody he wasn’t. But you can kind of see him relax a bit (recently).”

The 22-year-old has the tools to be an impact hitter. He just has to reign in his approach at the plate. Also, there’s room to grow with the all-around consistency of his game.

“It just takes time,” Francona said. “With Héctor, we’re trying to see who he is. He’s ultra-aggressive. Then, all of a sudden, he’s trying to lay off the breaking ball and you don’t get to the balls you’re supposed to. This can be a tough league. You want to give guys a chance to settle in. Sometimes, it’s hard. You’re trying to win games. You want to be patient.”

Francona is trying to put Rodríguez in positions to succeed, which is why he hasn’t been in the lineup every single day. It’s a part of the balance between development and winning.

“My job is to try to put guys in positions to succeed,” Francona said. “Not just the young guys. Everybody. You’re trying to develop guys. Getting them beat up isn’t necessarily developing.”

Calling up Arroyo on Friday to replace the injured Ke’Bryan Hayes was a surprising move. In each of the Reds’ games this weekend, even with Arroyo on the roster, Matt McLain was still the second baseman. McLain should continue to get the bulk of the of starts (also, he’s not going to be in the center field mix even with Arroyo back on the roster).

Now, despite the fact that Arroyo has only played five minor league games at third base, he’s going to be in the mix at third base. On Sunday, Eugenio Suárez is expected to DH with Arroyo starting his first big league game at third.

Arroyo is another Reds young hitter who was called up and initially fell flat in the big leagues. During his time on the roster between June and July, he posted a .568 OPS with just five RBI and played subpar defense. This is going to be an important stretch for him over the next month.

“It’ll be interesting to see,” Francona said. “A lot of times, when guys come back (to the big leagues), they’re not seeing things for the first time. They know what to expect. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes. Kind of exciting to watch.”

Discussing the trend of young Reds’ hitters (outside of Stewart) not producing right away in the big leagues, Francona brought up the example of Dustin Pedroia. When Francona was the manager in Boston, Pedroia debuted and hit .191 over his first six weeks in the big leagues.

“He was hitting (.191), but we were good and he didn’t panic,” Francona said. “He played the game, kind of like McLain in a lot of ways. He’s not taking it out to the field, not throwing helmets. He played the game. Because we were good, you could be kind of patient. He was hitting ninth at the time.”

If Pedroia were a rookie on the 2026 Reds, he’d be hitting much higher than ninth.

While Ke’Bryan Hayes isn’t a rookie and is currently injured, Francona looped him into this conversation as Francona discussed this trend last week.

“Ke’Bryan gets more glaring when the rest of our guys aren’t hitting,” Francona said recently, before Hayes went on the IL. “We didn’t get him to hit fourth. We certainly want him to hit better than he is, but you get my point.”

The Reds’ lineup is top-heavy with Elly De La Cruz and Stewart relied upon for almost all of the production. JJ Bleday (outside of hitting for the cycle) and Tyler Stephenson have cooled off recently. So has De La Cruz.

Putting Rodríguez in the leadoff spot and having Arroyo pick up third base on the fly in the big leagues is a glaring reminder of how much the Reds are counting on their least established players.

***
Hayes landed on the IL with a groin strain. Francona said he has a chance to return this season.

“On the day off, he asked if he could get looked at. I was talking to him the last day in San Francisco about base running,” Francona said. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, my groin is a little sore.’ That spurred it on. We treated him. They thought he was going to be ok. But on the day off, he said, ‘I need to get this looked at.’ That’s probably a good thing.”

Graham Ashcraft pitched another rehab game on Friday and hit 98 mph on the radar gun. He’ll pitch again on Sunday and then has a back-to-back scheduled for next week.

Brandon Williamson is stretched out and looks ready to contribute in the rotation if needed. There’s no update yet on what his next step is.

***

Arroyo said that after he was optioned back to Triple-A in late July, his biggest focus was his defense.

“They told me defense, so that’s what I was trying to do, what they want me to do,” Arroyo said.

He said that he specifically focused on his work at second base. On Friday, after Arroyo was called back up, he was told that he’d be playing more third base in the big leagues.

His footwork and throwing mechanics have been discussed this year.

“I’m glad I could hear from them what they wanted me to do,” Arroyo said. “I think it worked.”

Offensively, while Arroyo has 15 homers in 72 Triple-A games this year, he doesn’t have a homer yet in his 44 big league games.

“I’ve got the power,” Arroyo said. “Sometimes, I show it. Sometimes not. I can’t think about that. I just want to have good at-bats.”

After his first stint in the big leagues didn’t go his way, he’s working to turn the page.

“You always try to make a better first impression,” Arroyo said. “It didn’t happen. I‘ve got another chance now. That’s what I’m trying to do… This time is going to be different. I know that. I’m excited to show it.”

Running back (3): Chase Brown, Samaje Perine and Tahj Brooks

Wide receiver (7): Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Andrei Iosivas, Dohnte Meyers, Colbie Young, Mitchell Tinsley, Ke’Shawn Williams

Tight end (4): Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Erick All and Tanner Hudson

Offensive line (9): Orlando Brown Jr., Dylan Fairchild, Ted Karras, Dalton Risner, Amarius Mims, Jalen Rivers, Connor Lew, Brian Parker, Javon Foster

Defensive line (10): Myles Murphy, Dexter Lawrence, Jonathan Allen, Boye Mafe, BJ Hill, TJ Slaton, Kris Jenkins, Shemar Stewart*, Cashius Howell, Cedric Johnson

Linebacker (5): Barrett Carter, Demetrius Knight, Oren Burks, Swayze Bozeman, Shaka Heyward

Cornerback (6): DJ Turner, Dax Hill, Jalen Davis, DJ Ivey, Tacario Davis, Ja’Sir Taylor

Safeties (4): Bryan Cook, Jordan Battle, Kyle Dugger, PJ Jules

Specialists (3): Evan McPherson, Ryan Rehkow, William Wagner

Outside looking in: Josh Johnson, Charlie Jones, Jack Endries, Jacob Bayer, McKinnley Jackson, Landon Robinson, Joe Giles-Harris, Josh Newton, Daijahn Anthony

I’m at 47 locks.

There are four positions that I view being filled internal option or an outside addition: RB3, OT9 (tackle specific), LB5 (Heyward or Giles-Harris) and the fourth safety.

A roster spot would open up if Stewart opens the year on IR and misses the first month of the season. Right now, we don’t have any information on his timeline.

That leaves two flex spots that could be anything from sixth/seventh receivers (specifically a returner), a tenth offensive lineman, Robinson, seventh corner or Josh Johnson.

Right now, I’m going with a receiver in Tinsley and a returner (also a receiver) in Ke’Shawn Williams. The projection would be subject to change based on what’s available at offensive line on the waiver wire.

Meyers is on this team. You don’t need me to explain why. Just look at the way Johnson has fed him all preseason. These are literally valuable reps for Johnson that will shape how much longer he gets to play. He put his career in Meyers’ hands, and Meyers delivered like he has all preseason.

There has been a notable change in the receiver room even over the last two weeks. What if Meyers isn’t competing for the final spot in the room? What if he’s WR4 or 5? What if he doesn’t need to be the returner to be on the active game day roster?

It seemed very notable that Meyers was not used as a returner on Friday. It looks possible that he might just stick on this roster based on his merits at his receiver alone.

The stats aren’t out yet for the preseason finale, but 27 out of Meyers’ 44 snaps in the first two weeks of the preseason were in the slot. He’s not the physical one-on-one winner down the field that Andrei Iosivas is, but Meyers can take the top off a defense, is great on routes that get him the ball in space with room to run as well as outs toward the sideline where he spins back around. He can help what’s already the best receiver room in the NFL.

Without Meyers returning kicks and punts, the Bengals would need to keep one of Jones or Williams (who split the punt return reps on Friday). Since this would be a seventh receiver who you wouldn’t expect much on offense anyway, I went with the better pure returner in Williams. While Jones has more straight line speed that results in touchdowns, Williams’ ability to change directions makes him tougher to tackle.

Williams takes one of the flex spots.

The other came down to Tinsley, Endries, Bayer and Robinson for me.

Tinsley looks like the player who’d be set up to help the Bengals the most in the short term.

Since Meyers has mostly been playing the slot, Tinsley gives the Bengals a different look with his versatility as well as his ability to block. Troy Walters has called him a “safety blanket” for a coach. Tinsley a dynamic presence on contested catches as well as a consistent piece on special teams, where Colbie Young has much less of a track record.

The question would probably come down to how ready Young would be for all of the nuances of this role in the Bengals’ offense and on special teams.

Also, Tinsley can play. If all of these guys on the roster bubble were draft picks, I’d draft Tinsley for 2026 ahead of Endries, Bayer and Robinson.

The 2020 Bengals opened the year with seven receivers, including returner Alex Erickson. Seven receivers is a lot, and I don’t love doing it. It’s not the best roster construction, but it gets the best players on the team. You carry odd numbers through cutdown day sometimes. Last year, the Bengals had 11 defensive linemen.

The case for Endries is about the future in a tight end room that doesn’t have much set in stone past this year, which you could talk me into. He’s more physical than he got credit for in the pre-draft process, and he’s known for his ability to be quarterback friendly with his route running. But he just didn’t get enough reps in practice for me to gage his game, and outside of the preseason opener his performances in games were very quiet. He’d be in a true developmental role if he made the roster.

There’s no defensive tackle in the league who you’d want playing every snap of a preseason finale more than Robinson. His hustle, motor, intangibles, focus and pass rush slitheriness have shown up in games. It’d be a tough cut. Still, I’d prefer more run defense from a backup defensive tackle who wouldn’t be on the field in prime pass rush situations.

Brooks had a rough preseason. As well as Jamal Haynes and Kentrel Bullock played on Friday, they barely received any reps on offense all training camp.

The lowest bar to clear for a waiver claim would be at running back — think a Khalil Herbert type who has some comfort in different areas of the game (under center, gun, receiving, pass pro, special teams) over a true hammerhead back (they have that in the building already in Kendall Milton) or a de facto wide receiver (the Demetric Felton mode, this is a guy who played for the Bengals recently).

I like Bozeman’s game. He’s a nice LB4 considering his special teams history. Feels similar to Joe Bachie.

Heyward was ahead of Giles-Harris on the depth chart for the stretch run of camp. Heyward is a rangier tackler on defense. The case for Giles-Harris revolves around his elite special teams production last year and his presence as a team leader (he was deservedly a game captain on Friday). The tough moments from Giles-Harris on the field led to me flipping my projection to Heyward.

Jules was ahead of Anthony and Russ Yeast on the depth chart based on usage in the games. Jules struggled on defense this summer. Anthony is rangier, and Yeast is smoother in coverage. Jules is the clear frontrunner on special teams, and he’s still the best overall tackler despite a couple of misses in the preseason.

Piecing together the back of the Bengals’ offensive line room feels like a board with strings attached like a detective would use.

I know that Lew and Parker will be on this roster.

I think that Rivers’ versatility should get him on the active game day roster and that he showed enough last season to enter Year 2 on an upward trajectory.

I think that Foster is the best pure tackle of this group, and this has been a successful preseason for him.

I think you need both Foster and Rivers on the team or else you only have one tackle option on your entire bench.

I know that Bayer had an unbelievable summer in his role and I know that he’s better than old backup centers like Matt Lee and Trey Hill. Bayer can play, but he’s much better at center than guard and hadn’t moved around the line until this week. While I’d be more excited to see Bayer sub into a game than Lew in Week 1, Lew will be on the team and Parker also is an option at center.

I don’t know who the first guard off the bench (Rivers or Parker) would be, who the first tackle off the bench (Rivers or Foster) would be, if there would be a waiver claim option better than Foster or if the Bengals would be able to find a match to capitalize on their depth at receiver, tight end or defensive tackle to work a trade for a new swing tackle. I also don’t know what Lew is going to be ready for in Week 1. One more fun question that could shape who’s active and who isn’t is who the sixth offensive lineman in jumbo sets would be — that’s a notable subpackage role for teams that go under center.

You could shake this snow globe up and get a dozen different backup offensive line combinations for the Bengals by Week 1.

The cornerback room is interesting. Ja’Sir Taylor didn’t play on Friday, and his extensive special teams resume gives him a chance to play a role on the active game day roster, where he’d also be Jalen Davis’ backup. If Taylor is active for special teams, would Tacario Davis be a healthy scratch despite his notable,strong close to camp (through the preseason finale)? Would the Bengals instead go light at defensive tackle (or make Tanner Hudson inactive) to get Davis on the active game day roster despite his limited special teams experience?

Tacario Davis deserves a lot of credit for his growth as a tackler and for his progress continuing to refine his technique. He really started to pick up steam over the last two weeks, and what you want to see from any young player is improvement over time in these early stages.

To close out the preseason, here’s a 16-man practice squad roster projection. I wouldn’t be offended if you stopped reading here.

Quarterback: Josh Johnson/Sean Clifford

Running back: Kendall Milton and Gary Brightwell Jr.

Wide receiver: Noah Thomas

Tight end: Jack Endries and Cam Grandy

Offensive line: Jacob Bayer, Andrew Coker and new practice squad signing

Defensive line: Isaiah Foskey and Antwaun Powell-Ryland

Defensive tackle: Landon Robinson

Linebacker: Joe Giles-Harris

Cornerback: Josh Newton and Bralyn Lux

Safety: Russ Yeast

Johnson played so well that he should get looks for backup quarterback jobs around the league. Fortunately for the Bengals, Clifford played well enough to prove that he can stick around. If the Bengals need an outside addition for the practice squad, it seems like Jake Browning may be available on Sunday considering how Tampa Bay’s preseason finale went.

Milton and Brightwell have been getting the reps all summer out of these practice squad candidates at running back. Milton is a between the tackles, downhill runner and Brightwell is more of a versatile shotgun back who plays special teams. Neither player really popped, and you could make the case to add a new face here. The Bengals typically carry five running backs in the organization, so with three on the 53-man roster I have two on the practice squad. Maybe they should have given Bullock and Haynes reps sooner, but you don’t know what you have there.

With my projection carrying seven receivers, I only go with one at receiver. Charlie Jones should be on a 53-man roster somewhere. I’d be really interested to see what Thomas could develop into. He got plenty of chances in practice, as well as games, and he certainly gets your attention with his frame as well as his ability to get down the field smoothly. If it all goes right, Thomas could be 2027 Mitchell Tinsley. You can also always make the case to keep a steady hand like Pryor around.

Grandy isn’t going anywhere, and he’s one injury to a blocking tight end away from playing meaningful snaps. Of course the Bengals would want to keep Endries around and see if time on task in the building would help bring more of the feel as a pass catcher that was his calling card when the Bengals drafted him.

Bayer played well enough to be on the 53-man roster, but with the center depth already in house it gets harder to keep a center-only player (unless Bayer’s guard tape tonight, which I’d need to review and don’t have a feel for yet, was incredible). You could make a case to elevate Bayer from the practice squad for the first few weeks and stash Lew for a bit as he ramps up.

They’d need a practice squad tackle, and that’s Coker’s spot on the depth chart right now unless they add someone new (for example, a trade for a player on the 53-man roster would push Foster down into this spot). Coker is a workmanlike lineman with limitations that will prevent him from being consistent, but his sturdy frame gives him good roots in pass protection.

Behind Coker, the other lineman on the roster barely played in the preseason. I’d add a new face at guard or a guard/tackle onto the back of the roster mix.

The practice squad conversation on the defensive line is the most interesting.

Based on the television copy, Foskey dealt with an injury late in the game. Is he alright? (If not, would you put him on IR and then have depth when he’s ready to return like the Bengals had with Cedric Johnson last year?) The only other edge on the roster is Antwaun Powell-Ryland, who I hadn’t noticed all camp until a nice game on Friday. Powell-Ryland does offer the edge/linebacker versatility to back up Mafe and Howell down the depth chart in that role.

Especially if Foskey is out, the Bengals would need practice squad help on the edge. The team was really light at that position from a numbers perspective all summer.

While they were light at defensive end, they were loaded at defensive tackle. It’s a great sign for the Bengals depth that Howard Cross (who opened the year on the roster last year and had a nice preseason) isn’t on this practice squad projection. Maybe you just carry both Robinson and Cross to keep the 16 best players on this practice squad and go light on the offensive line. The Bengals look set with their nose tackle depth, and it’s hard to see a role for Jackson.

Giles-Harris is plug and play on the practice squad.

Newton had a rollercoaster of a camp, but some good practices mixed in there as well as a highlight leaping pass breakup on Friday were reminders of the talent that’s in there. The bad stretches mixed in for this summer keep him off of my roster projection.

I think Lux plays for the Bengals at some point in 2026. The feisty slot corner would be the most interesting guy on the scout team, and he received more first-team snaps in camp than you realize.

I swapped from Anthony to Yeast in this practice squad projection as I was typing this. An outside addition could be in play.

On Friday, as the Reds beat the Cubs, 10-8, Stewart had two hits, two RBI, scored two runs and provided a homer. He just set the franchise record for most RBI by a rookie in Reds’ history. He has 102 RBI, and it’s not even September yet.

“He’s not just one of the best rookie hitters,” Emilio Pagán said. “He’s one of the best hitters in the league.”

It’s hard to even fathom what the Reds’ offense would look like without Stewart.

The entire team has 534 RBI this year. Stewart has 19% of them. Outside of Elly De La Cruz, who ranks 24th in MLB in runs scored this year, Stewart hasn’t had much help ahead of him in the lineup. He opened the year as the Reds’ cleanup hitter, and TJ Friedl and Matt McLain were hitting in the top-two spots in the lineup. Then, Stewart was moved up to third in a lineup that featured Blake Dunn in the leadoff spot. Stewart then hit second in the lineup for two months, which meant that the runners he was in position to drive in often were the bottom-of-the-order guys in a top-heavy Reds’ lineup.

The chances haven’t been there as often as the Reds would like. But man, does he deliver.

“It’s incredible,” Tyler Stephenson said. “A hell of a first year. It’s been cool to just see him do it every day. He’s one homer away from 30. He has been doing it all year. Any time guys are on, you know he’s going to get the job done.”

He should be the NL Rookie of the Year, but Stewart isn’t soaking in that spotlight.

“I don’t want to keep talking about that,” Stewart said. “There are a lot of great players. I’ve said it once. I’ll continue to say it. I’m proud of all of their seasons. I’m happy for them. Do I want to win it? Yes. But I don’t want to keep bringing it back up. I want to focus winning games. It’s not fair to these guys right here who have played a lot of games. I want to go out there each day and play to win.”

As for the RBI record, Stewart says, “You’ve got to drive in runs to win a game. That’s kudos to my teammates for being there and kudos to my hitting coaches for helping me every single day. I’m happy I’m able to achieve that.”

While you never expect a rookie to lead the league in RBI, the Reds saw this type of season coming. The action of putting Stewart in the cleanup spot on Opening Day said it all.

Now, he’s getting better as the season goes along.

“You see it every year (where) a rookie will hit the proverbial wall in August and September,” Pagán said. “His at-bats seem to be getting better. It speaks to the quality of at-bat, his mind, the way he prepares for the starting pitchers. He can almost talk his way into what they’re trying to get him out with, and they you see it happen and he’s ready for it.”

Stewart did more than make an impact at the plate on Friday.

It looked like he made the very heads-up decision to drop a pop fly on purpose with a runner — the best base runner in baseball, Pete Crow-Armstrong — on first base so that Stewart could nab him at second and get a slower runner on first base to replace him.

With two outs in the sixth inning, Stewart hit a ground ball to shortstop and beat the throw to first for an RBI infield single.

He has played good defense all season, and the infield construction would fall apart without his versatility. This year, he has been the Reds’ every day first baseman, their every day third baseman and also their backup second baseman, and his ability to move positions in-game has given Terry Francona much more flexibility this year.

It’s hard to imagine a rookie season going much better than this one.

“Credit to him and all of the work he has put in for his entire life,” Pagán said.

“This season, making every start and limiting my pitch count and innings, that’s huge for my body,” Burns said. “That’s the plan. Making every start is the biggest thing. I don’t need to go out there at the end of September and throw 110 pitches. Make every start if I feel great. Constantly communicate with them.”

The Pirates used a similar plan with Paul Skenes during his first full year in the big leagues (2024).

Burns is still very early in his professional career. At Wake Forest in 2024, he threw 100 innings. In 2025, between the Minor Leagues and the Major Leagues, Burns threw 111 innings and the Reds moved him to the bullpen last September to help manage his innings.

In 2026, Burns is already at 139 ⅔ innings with a month left to play.

“I’m in the grind season,” Burns said. “This is the most innings I’ve pitched in my career. I take it in and try to grow from it. I’m figuring out what I have to do to really bear down and get through it and get to the next one.”

Last Monday, in San Francisco, he had his worst start of the season and allowed five runs in 3 ⅔ innings.

“You just forget about it,” Burns said. “Bad games are going to come. This year, I’ve had pretty good success so it hurts more. We’ve got a game coming up. It doesn’t really matter. You get off the mat and move onto the next one.”

Burns has thrown more innings this season than anyone in MLB who’s 23-or-younger. He’s admittedly feeling some fatigue, but he’s healthy as he prepares for his 26th start of the season (coming up on Sunday Night Baseball).

“You take it day by day,” Burns said. “Your body is sore, but I feel good. Of course I’m going to feel some fatigue. What we have going on later to end the season and what our goals are for me and the growth aspect… I’d be lying if I said my arm wasn’t fatigued, but I feel great. I’m doing a lot of things in the weight room and the training room to get ready for each start. I want to grow and learn for next season so I can throw 170 innings (in 2027) or whatever.”

The fact that Burns is even where he’s at right now — 26 starts into the season and still going strong — shows a lot about his growth.

It feels like forever ago, but back in March, the Reds put Burns through a “de-load” program during spring training and scaled back his work a bit as he prepped for the season. His routine between starts needed improvement.

Clearly, he has made the necessary adjustments.

“To be able to say that in my first full season in the big leagues that I made every start feeling good and healthy, it says a lot about our staff and me,” Burns said. “I did face some adversity in spring training throwing too hard. Now, knowing what I didn’t know, there has been growth. I know what my body needs and will take that into next year.”

While the Reds in theory could shut Burns down right now, there’s real value in having him continue to pitch. The starts that he’s making now could pay off in 2027 and 2028.

“Being able to finish off this season healthy and feel great is the biggest thing,” Burns said. “One, we have no clue what’s going to happen next year with the lockout stuff. For years to come, if I shut down right now and then next year we don’t have a full season, that’s two seasons where I don’t get a full year of throwing. The year after that (2028) is when I’m supposed to be the man, doing my thing. My body just wouldn’t be able to handle a full season.”

While Burns is expecting to make every start, the Reds can still get creative to take a longer-view look with him. Brandon Williamson is nearing his return from the IL. While the Reds haven’t shared publicly their plans for Williamson, he’d be an option to piggyback with Burns or even slot in as a sixth starter in a six-man rotation when rosters expand in September. Williamson threw 4 ⅓ innings (84 pitches) in a rehab start on Thursday. Using Williamson, or a different minor league pitcher, in the mix would help take some innings off of Burns’ plate.

The communication between Burns and the Reds is going to be critical down the stretch.

“I want to keep throwing the rock, but I know that I’m going to be here for a long time and they want to make sure my arm is healthy,” Burns said. “They’re looking at it from a bigger aspect.”

“I was giving guys grief for playing chess,” McLain said. “He found out. I smashed his board.”

Votto loved it. He was the 39-year-old bound for Cooperstown one day, but to McLain he was “just another one of the guys.”

“He was giving insight,” McLain said. “He was a good teammate. He was very helpful to all of us.The work and the preparation, most importantly, the intensity he brought every single day. The mindset toward the game. If you want to be great, he exemplified that better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

The Reds will reconnect with Votto this weekend. He’s going to co-host the pregame show from Wrigley Field for the Reds’ Sunday Night Baseball game against the Cubs on NBC, and Votto will also provide “Inside the Pitch” commentary during the game.

Three years after he played his final game with the Reds, he still has a lasting impact on the group.

During the 2023 season, Spencer Steer watched Votto lift weights after every single game. Steer figured that if Votto was doing it, he ought to try it himself. It worked so well for Steer that he added postgame weight lifting to his routine, and he has kept that routine up ever since.

“It was a lot of work before the game and a lot of work after the game,” Steer said. “It’s not a surprise that he was able to have success in this game for as long as he did because of how much he took care of his body. It was a wakeup call for me. If I want to play this game for a long time, this is what it takes.”

In September of 2022, with Votto on the IL as he recovered from shoulder surgery, Steer ended up moving to first base. While he had played two career minor league games at first base, he quickly became the team’s go-to first baseman.

Votto helped Steer with the position change.

“He gave me a lot of stuff you don’t think about like footwork around the bag,” Steer said. “For me, the toughest thing when I first started playing first base was how far you’ve got to play off to take away the four hole. It’s sprinting to the bag, getting to the bag and picking up the ball. When I started playing first base, that sped up on me. He helped me a lot with that footwork — sprinting to the bag, finding it and picking up the ball from your infielders. That really helped me.”

Votto and Steer also talked hitting. A lot.

“He had a really interesting way of speaking about hitting and what it takes to be a good hitter in his opinion,” Steer said. “His opinions were impactful. I got to play with him at a special time in his career. He was a lot more vocal, I think, than he had been in the past. He was really helpful. I think he understood how much of an impact he had on our team because of how young we were. You could tell he really took it upon himself to check in with us and really approach us first about certain things.”

Before games, Steer would go to Votto with questions. He said that he’d ask Votto, “What’s your play on this (pitcher) today?”

“The way that he thought about hitting and approached hitting, it was just really unique,” Steer said. “I didn’t get to play a ton with him, but the time I did was really impactful.”

The 2023 season ended up being Votto’s last one in the big leagues. He was on an extremely young Reds team.

“He was a mentor for all of us,” Tyler Stephenson said. “He was for me, especially. He’s a guy that I still keep in touch with. It was cool to just get a front row seat to him every day and see how great he was and how he always continued to work. He was a great player.”

When Stephenson looks back on playing with Votto, he goes back to the plane flights.

“We sat on the plane for multiple years,” Stephenson said. “It’s a lot of baseball. A lot of conversations. A lot of questions and talks. He was very serious when it came to baseball. Very knowledgeable, as we all know.”

Votto was more than a mentor. He made an impact on the field until the very end.

An underrated part of his career was how in 2021, he reemerged as a great home run hitter and finished the year with 36 homers, 99 RBI and a .938 OPS that was tied for sixth-best in baseball. That year, Votto finished 16th in NL MVP voting.

He dealt with the shoulder injury in 2022 that eventually needed surgery. He made it back in 2023. People around the Reds still tell stories about how hard they saw Votto work that year to get himself ready for those games in his final season with the team.

“It was incredible,” TJ Friedl said. “I’ve never seen anyone work like that guy.”

Votto definitely had his moments in 2023. He returned in June right in the middle of the Reds’ 12-game win streak. The highlight of that run was the Elly De La Cruz cycle game. Votto homered twice that night. He was hot through his first 23 games, posting a .910 OPS.

Between his first game in 2023 (June 19) and Aug. 2, he hit at a 47 home run pace.

Votto then cooled off, and he briefly went on the IL (Aug. 24 to Sept. 10). He returned for the stretch run, and he delivered some big hits.

In a win in September over the Twins, Votto had two key RBI. Against the Pirates during the stretch run, Votto’s hustle on the bases initiated a rally. Later in that series, his pinch-hit single and the run he scored nearly started a comeback that could have saved the Reds season.

At the end of the 2023 season, former Reds manager David Bell said, “I wonder if, when his career is all said and done, if he doesn’t look back at this year and be most proud of this season that he has had for us. I really believe he’ll look back and feel really proud of himself. I hope he does. He has given everything he has to our team.”

Four years later, Votto’s old teammates still feel the impact that he had on them.

“A lot of us didn’t really know what went into a full season and how to prepare yourself,” TJ Friedl said. “Getting to watch him and how he went about his work was watching a true professional do what he does best. Even for all of us to just witness that — not even picking his brain, which of course we did.

Early in his career, Friedl remembers being in the batting cage for some extra work. Votto was also there.

“He was doing this crazy lefty angle upshoot machine where the machine was on the ground behind him, shooting up and away fastballs,” Friedl said. “I was lingering in the cage, trying to stay in the background.”

Votto calls out to Friedl: “You want some of this?”

“Let’s do it,” Friedl said.

He starts paying even closer attention to Votto’s drill before Friedl steps into the box for his turn.

“(Votto) is smoking every ball repeatedly down the third base line,” Friedl said. “Every time. I get in there and try to do it. I’m getting blown up by this upshoot machine — fouling balls off straight up in the air. He gave me some cues about keeping the barrel high. I got the hang of it. He goes back in there, and it’s just like clockwork. Every single swing, he smoked it.”

Friedl still does that drill.

“Just to see how he went about his business as a professional,” Friedl said, “A lot of us still take a lot from that today.”

“I told the guys that this game was crazy,” Eugenio Suárez said. “We were down almost the whole game. That inning late, we had little things that helped us win this game. Those little things are what we need to do more. Like I told the guys, it’s not just about the big homer.”

After the Reds recorded their first win since 1958 in a game where they trailed by six-or-more runs entering the ninth inning, a 10-9 victory over the San Francisco Giants, Emilio Pagán said something similar to the group.

“It’s a good reminder to keep playing the game the right way,” Pagán said. “Whether we are able to fight back and get into this fight or not, it’s our job to show up and play the game the right way. It’s a good reminder that when you do that, you get rewarded for it. It’s a lot more fun to show up when you’re winning games. It’s a reminder to keep going.”

For 26 innings, this was one of the worst series that I’ve ever seen from the Reds. Hitters weren’t anywhere near “stubborn” enough with their approaches at the plate. Manager Terry Francona repeatedly uses that as a description of what he’s looking for: choosing good pitches to hit. Reds’ pitchers’ command was getting away from them. The overall play was sloppy with frustrating mental mistakes. It looked ugly.

Facing a Giants’ team that’s 25 games under .500 with a truly anonymous lineup of players who even diehard baseball fans had never heard of and a rotation that lost two starting pitchers mid-game in the opening two games of the series, the Reds lost the opener in San Francisco 5-0 and lost Game 2, 3-1.

Game 3 was even uglier for a while. The Giants took a 9-3 into the ninth.

“That was not a real fun day,” Francona said about the first eight innings on Wednesday.

The feeling changed in the ninth inning.

“They made some mistakes, and we capitalized,” Francona said. “Also, to get where we were, we made some mistakes. At least we kept playing.”

Too often this season, the Reds have been the team that it was for the first 26 innings in San Francisco. The Reds are out of the playoff race because of that.

Still, Wednesday’s seven-run comeback in the ninth inning was pretty sweet.

“Like (Pagán) said postgame, ‘Today was the game of baseball that we know we’re capable of and should continue to play,’” Tyler Stephenson said. “We’ve got to hold ourselves to that standard.”

The top of the ninth inning started with an announcement at the plate.

Rookie Héctor Rodríguez, hitting leadoff for the first time in his career, had two homers on Wednesday. His swing in the ninth inning landed in McCovey Cove as he became the 70th visiting player in the history of Oracle Park to record a splash hit.

This kid can hit.

“Héctor looked like he hit that ball 1,000 feet,” Pagán said

“I’ve seen his bat speed and seen him hit,” Dane Myers said. “I’m not surprised.”

“He absolutely crushed that one,” Stephenson said. “Statcast said 423 (feet). It looked a lot further.”

The 22-year-old Rodríguez made his big league debut after the trade deadline. Over his first 12 big league games, he had a .118 average and a .336 OPS.

Now on this road trip, in his four starts, he has reached base eight times and recorded four extra-base hits.

“He has such good hitter’s hands,” Francona said. “If he just can relax and swing at strikes, he’ll do some damage.”

There’s a reason why Sal Stewart has been hyping up Rodríguez up for years. There’s a reason why the Reds seriously considered calling Rodríguez up for the playoff push last September.

Not many hitters can deliver the type of swing that Rodríguez did on his ninth inning homer.

And that swing was more important than just the run that it generated.

“Maybe that big homer by Héctor woke us in the dugout,” Suárez said. “We’ve never seen a big homer like that here in San Francisco.”

Elly De La Cruz followed Rodríguez with a single to right field. The comeback was still in the very early stages.

Next, Sal Stewart worked a six-pitch walk. He carried himself in that plate appearance like it was the biggest one of his season. After drawing the walk, Stewart looked back and said something over his right shoulder (which happened to be the direction of the Giants’ dugout).

“He never gives up,” Suárez said. “He wants to get on base. No matter what the score is. We always want to compete and that at-bat was a good example.”

JJ Bleday followed Stewart with a walk, and the Reds were in business with the bases loaded.

“It was passing the baton,” Stephenson said. “It’s easy in that situation to chase one. Two huge at-bats. An opportunity for Geno.”

Suárez stepped up to the plate looking for a fastball. The first one was way above the zone. The second one was letters-high.

“It’s always important to not let that fastball beat me,” Suárez said. “I was ready for that one. I know he liked it. He has some carry on it. My goal there was to put the barrel on one of those fastballs.”

For most of the season, the high fastball was the hole in Suárez’s swing. Between March and July, Suárez had six total hits, 27 outs in play and 21 strikeouts against the high fastball.

In August, he already has five hits (including three homers and a double off the wall) against the high fastball.

Suárez’s homer made it a 9-8 Giants’ lead.

“Geno hits the home run,” Francona said. “You’re like, ‘Why can’t that be the tying run?’ You hate to come that far back (and lose). To our guys’ credit, they kept going.”

With how the Reds had performed for the first 26 innings of the series, scratching across that final run was far from a guarantee. The Giants made a pitching change as Dylan Smith replaced Spencer Bivens.

In a ninth inning that included a couple of huge homers, maybe the biggest play of the game took place right after Suárez’s homer.

In a 1-1 count, Dane Myers decided to lay a bunt down the third base line.

“I faced Smith the other night,” Myers said. “He has a good fastball. I swung and missed at the first fastball (on the first pitch). I had a feeling I had a good chance of getting it down if I made it down the line.”

Third baseman Buddy Kennedy, who was playing back, fielded the ball on the run. His bouncing throw got past the first baseman and rolled into the expansive foul ground. Everyone in a Reds’ uniform who could see the ball was yelling at Myers to run to second. The entire bench was pointing to second base.

Myers hesitated. He couldn’t find the ball.

“I don’t know if Myers quite knew where the ball was,” Francona said. “He knew it went somewhere. We were all trying to help him get to second.”

Myers said, “It was a little hectic. Thankfully, I was able to pick it up and see it roll away so I could get to second. People were yelling. It got loud. I’m glad I was able to get to second.”

With Myers on second base and the Reds down by a run, Matt McLain went for a sac bunt. It was such a slow roller that even though the pitcher fielded it, McLain beat the throw to the bag. Myers took third, and the Reds had two runners on with nobody out.

“You do the little things, and they turn into big things,” Francona said.

McLain then made a really smart play to take second base against a sleeping Giants’ defense. All of a sudden, the go-ahead run was in scoring position. In Pagán’s postgame interview, he made a point to shout out McLain.

With two runners in scoring position, Jose Trevino drove in Myers with a sac fly and McLain advanced to third. Tyler Stephenson pinch-hit with a chance to get the go-ahead run in. He was looking to just get the ball in play and not try to do too much. Seeing an elevated breaking ball, Stephenson roped a single to shallow left field that scored McLain. As Stephenson ran to first base, he flipped his bat and shouted to the Reds’ dugout.

Pagán locked down the save in the ninth. After the game, he called the win, “A complete team effort.”

Stephenson said, “To get some energy back, this is a great win.”

“These guys don’t deserve to see me with my tail between my legs,” Francona said. “That’s not going to help anybody.”

He said that there’s no one that he really talks to for advice about this type of stuff when his team is going through it. No one except for himself.

What does Francona say to himself?

“Get your (expletive) tail from out between your legs,” Francona said. “Be a leader. Everyone is human. This is all I do. I don’t want to do other (stuff). I don’t want to go sightseeing. I’ve taken a lot of pride in the fact that I’ve never been in an (expletive) library or a museum in my whole career.”

Francona has more than twice as many wins as any other active manager in the big leagues. He has seen it all in this game, and his time as a big league manager has almost exclusively been full of seasons that involved intense playoff chases and races to October.

Seasons like the one he’s a part of now are pretty foreign to him. He hasn’t had many months of August where a playoff spot looked on paper like a distant possibility.

The Reds enter Tuesday night with a 62-70 record. They’re nine games out of a playoff spot, and they’re on pace to finish the year with 76 wins.

In Francona’s 25 years as a manager, Francona has only finished a season with fewer than 80 wins five times (excluding the shortened 2020 season in Cleveland, which made the playoffs that year).

Four of those years with fewer than 80 wins were in Philadelphia, where Francona managed between 1997 and 2000. The fifth season was 2023, which was Francona’s final season with Cleveland.

The Reds’ 2026 season is on pace to join that list for Francona.

“I try to stay consistent and in the moment,” Francona said. “I know what our record is. I don’t feel like I have to do babysitting, which I appreciate. Regardless of what our record is, I want us to play the game right and then if we’re good enough, we’ll be ok. If we’re not, we’ll have to make some adjustments. Just play the game right.”

What he believes in is the same. He’s also trying to make adjustments.

“You always try to learn. If you’re not, you’re missing the boat. I try to be patient. You don’t want to make excuses. It helps that I like the guys I work with. Nick (Krall) and Brad (Meador) are phenomenal people. That helps me a ton.”

Coming off a playoff berth in 2025, the Reds opened the 2026 season with a 20-11 record. After that, the Reds went 10-17 in May and crashed all the way to last place in the division. In June, the Reds went 9-17. While the Reds had some positive series stacked together after the All-Star break, they’ve never really been back in the mix in the Wild Card chase.

Francona had to remind himself of a few things during stretches of the year where the team was really struggling.

“When the losses start to hurt more than the wins are good, that’s not good,” Francona said.

He has actually even only been sightseeing in a city, he says, once in 25 years. About five years ago, when he was with Cleveland, he visited Alcatraz.

Whether it’s the 2004 Red Sox or the 2026 Reds, Francona is focused on the job.

Last week, the Reds dropped a game against the Cardinals after Dane Myers dropped what would have been the game-ending out. Francona took note of the feeling that he had on the long plane ride to Arizona following the game.

“I can’t say that was a fun day,” Francona said. “But you get on the plane, and you’re all together. Going through (stuff) together, it’s meaningful. Does that make sense? Even the tough stuff.”

If he’s said it once, he has said it a thousand times. Francona likes this group.

“That really helps,” he said.

It all only works if the Bengals get impact guard play.

They expect that they’re going to. In 2026, right guard Dalton Risner and left guard Dylan Fairchild should be the best guard tandem that Burrow has played with in the NFL.

“It’s a blessing,” Fairchild said. “The cohesiveness we have with each other, it’s a blessing. It’s been great so far. Our biggest thing is picking up where we left off and not having to go through those growing pains again. It’s been great.”

To establish the power run game, the Bengals need guards who create push with impact force at the line of scrimmage.

To smooth out the under-center play action passing game, the Bengals are figuring out specificities of the pass protection plan on those plays. It often includes guards pass protecting in space, even pulling guards, for it all to work.

The Bengals have high hopes for their guards this year, and Fairchild has the chance to be the face of the group. He’s an ascending player with a chance to be a real difference maker.

“He’s a raw, rugged player,” Risner said. “He can do things that a lot of football players can’t. He has strength and power that I wish I could have. I expect for him to have a great season.”

Fairchild was thrown into the fire last year as a starter from the day that he walked into the NFL. He struggled early on and then suffered a minor knee injury in early October. He was out for two weeks.

“Having a mental break, being able to step away and come back really helped me catch up mentally and look at where I was at,” Fairchild said.

When he came back from the injury, he immediately had a matchup against then-Jets (now Cowboys) star defensive tackle Quinnen Williams. On a day where the Bengals scored 38 points, Fairchild held Williams to one of his worst games of the season. While Williams had three pressures in the game, none of them were against Fairchild.

Looking back, Fairchild says that game was a big confidence boost that allowed him to feel more comfortable.

He had a really nice second half of the season. Fairchild and right tackle Amarius Mims started to play like the future of the Bengals’ offensive line. In a recent conversation about the Bengals’ offensive line, Dan Pitcher looped Fairchild right into the conversation with Mims when he discussed the unit’s upside.

“With Dylan and Amarius, there’s a very high ceiling,” Pitcher said recently. “They’re one year closer to getting there.”

As well as Fairchild played on the whole during the second half of last season, there were a few examples of one bad, crushing play from Fairchild derailing a drive or a game during his rookie season. Pressures allowed by Fairchild resulted in interceptions against the Steelers, Bills and Ravens.

The next for Fairchild is eliminating those sporadic bad plays from his game.

“Consistency is the biggest thing for me,” Fairchild said. “As a player, you have to be able to say that you’re there or your not. I want to be real every single day with myself, recognize what I need to do to get better. We’re judged by our consistency. You can make a great block, but can you do it again and again?”

If Fairchild accomplishes that, then he’ll cement his status as one of the better young guards in the league.

“Last year was a blessing, but it’s time for this year,” Fairchild said. “I’m looking forward to doing more. I know I’ve got more in me. The sky is the limit for what you can do. I believe in myself, my coaches and the guys next to me. I believe in this team.”

Risner, 31 years old, is coming off of a career year. Everyone wanted him back in Cincinnati in 2026, and he re-signed before the official start of free agency.

“I fit in here,” Risner said. “I’m valued here. I was always meant to end up a Cincinnati Bengal.”

This year, instead of joining the team at the end of training camp and being thrown into a game unexpectedly in Week 1, Risner has been the starting right guard all offseason.

“I feel like I’m getting better with time,” Risner said. “This is the best I’ve felt in training camp in my career. Last year was one of my best seasons. That’s not just a testament to me. That’s a testament to the guys around me, the tackles I play next to, Ted, Scott Peters, Zac Taylor, the organization, the city, the fans, my wife, Jesus. I do feel like this is the best I’ve felt in my career.”

Risner knows how well he fits the Bengals’ system, and the Bengals know what they’re getting from him.

“I’m not reinventing the wheel,” Risner said. “It’s about being a pro and making sure you’re mentally and physically ready. Showing up here in camp, putting the work in and understanding what’s on paper doesn’t matter. You have to earn your job every day and earn the right to be in this league.”

In 2026, among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances, Friedl had the fourth-worst on-base percentage in MLB entering this week’s series against the San Francisco Giants.

“It’s the damndest thing,” Terry Francona said. “He had a really good spring. The season started. He got in a rut where he was chasing changeups down. He had a tough time laying off. Because of that, they’re starting to beat him with fastballs up.”

Along the way, Friedl got benched, had a stint in Triple-A and made an adjustment to his stance.

‘He never reeled it in,” Francona said. “It’s hard. He’s one of the better teammates I’ve ever been around. Ever. The kid does all of the right things and lives it out. He’s just having a tough time hitting.”

Friedl was the best bunter in baseball for a while. Between 2023 and 2025, he had the second-most bunt hits in MLB (35) even though he missed half of the season in 2024. This year, he has six bunt hits. They all took place in April and May.

The Reds don’t have a leadoff hitter, and it’s one of the biggest flaws on the roster. Elly De La Cruz can hit wherever he wants, but Francona has been consistent about preferring De La Cruz to be in the middle of the order. Out of necessity, De La Cruz has had to hit leadoff.

The Reds’ offense hasn’t been nearly as effective this year, and they’re missing the table setter that Friedl was between 2023 and 2025.

“I was chasing a lot of pitches early,” Friedl said. “I was caught in between timing of being late and that led me to chasing pitches out of the zone and being late on fastballs.”

He got benched in May and optioned to Triple-A in June. In Louisville, he simplified his swing and went to a no-stride stance.

When the Reds called him back up at the end of June (a necessity as Blake Dunn went on the IL and the Reds’ center field depth was gone), Friedl kept tinkering. He said that his timing got “messed up.”

“I was trying to perfect my swing in an imperfect game instead of going out there and treating it like you’re just playing wiffle ball in the backyard and just being ready to hit,” Friedl said.

It’s a tricky balance. Do you change your routine, overhaul your entire process and rework your swing when the results aren’t there to this degree? Or do you trust what has made you successful in the past and take that as far as it can take you?

Friedl said that he has tried “countless” drills and tweaks and adjustments to his routine.

“I continued to work on different things,” Friedl said. “I tried to piece together a perfect swing instead of just being myself. I got some good advice. I was really tense in the box. I wasn’t able to get my A-swing off because of the tension. That was a piece of advice I got. Relax and have fun.”

Between July 17 (coming out of the All-Star break) and Aug. 20, while playing sparingly, Friedl went through an 0-for-29 stretch at the plate.

He tried to handle that rut by trying to take some pressure off of himself.

“I’ve gotten out of that perfection mindset, trying to have the perfect at-bat whenever I got the opportunity,” Friedl said. “The biggest thing is that wiffle ball mindset. You’re in the backyard playing wiffle ball. As long as I’m free and loose in the box, my swing is my swing. It’s always been my swing.”

Between 2023 and 2025, Friedl was one of the better on-base guys in baseball. He was exactly what Francona was looking for in a leadoff hitter. When he managed Cleveland, Francona hated facing Friedl because of how much of a “pest” he was at the plate. Friedl’s eye, pesky approach and underrated pull power made him one of the most underrated center fielders in the game over a three-year stretch. He became a valuable guy who would be tough to replace in center field.

Friedl hasn’t been the same player in 2026.

Because of how thin the Reds’ outfield is right now, Friedl will continue to get some opportunities.

“I’m just trying to make the most of my opportunities right now and always be ready to go,” Friedl said. “That’s how I’m attacking things right now.”

In his career, Abbott has a 5.27 ERA in August and a 4.88 ERA in September. In 2025, he posted a 4.45 ERA in August and a 3.95 ERA in September.

“I haven’t been really good,” Abbott said. “There’s really only one direction to go in those months. You just have to keep throwing. Don’t try to reinvent anything. I’m just trying to focus on the basics and stay as simple as I can. Have a simplified attack.”

Abbott has shown some good signs with how he has pitched recently. Some terrible weather — brutal heat in St. Louis, a relentless downpour in Cincinnati — have made a couple of his starts more challenging. He has also had starts in August where he has allowed three runs in 6 ⅔ innings and two runs in 6 ⅓ innings. He’s pitching well right now.

“The emphasis is tempo and mechanics,” Abbott said. “We had it going early on this year. Now, we’re back onto it. We’re starting to get into the dog days, we’re starting to get a little tired every start, it’s starting to add up innings wise. Me and (pitching coach Matt) Tracy and the (biomechanics) people, we’re trying to create plans so we’re staying in tune. It really starts with mechanics.”

Abbott’s career-high for starts in a season is 29, and his career-high for innings in a season is 166 ⅓. Right now, he’s at 26 starts and 139 ⅓ innings in 2026.

Since the very start of spring training, Abbott has emphasized the goal of ending the season on a high note. Now, it’s that time for Abbott to execute that goal.

“This is when you really need to turn it on as a starting pitcher,” said Abbott, who will start against the Diamondbacks on Sunday. “You really want to finish strong. You want to start strong and finish strong in a perfect world. That’s the message for all of us.”

As a rookie in 2023, Abbott ran out of gas in August and September. In 2024, he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury. In 2025, Abbott pitched through the stretch run but there were games where his execution was poor and where he wasn’t generating the swing and miss that he needed. Abbott said last fall that he was fighting his tempo on the mound, and Terry Francona said that Abbott didn’t quite have his typical swagger during some of the stretch run last year.

The comparison to how he was pitching at this time last year shows the progress that Abbott has made at handling the grind of the season.

Right now, Abbott feels like his routine is “bulletproof.”

“The main thing you learn over the years is how your body feels,” Abbott said. “When you need a day, you need to take a day. That type of stuff. When you’re young, you don’t really want to do it. When you need a day to decompress, learning that part of yourself during these months is crucial.”

The four-year veteran says that he’s spinning the ball right now as well as or better than he ever has.

That’s helped him overcome the fact that Abbott’s fastball isn’t firing on all cylinders right now.

“That’s just me knowing that I haven’t been as good with my fastball, which has been my best pitch since the Minor Leagues, that’s made me better in every other area,” Abbott said. “If I don’t have fastball command, I have to have command of something.”

It shows a lot about his approach on the mound that Abbott is figuring things out even without a fastball that’s really clicking.

“When you finally figure one thing out and go game-to-game and pitch-to-pitch and know what you need to do with no question about it, it’s amazing,” Abbott said. “What can I do? If I know the answer, then I can make the adjustment.

His most recent outing, a quality start against the Cardinals, was another example of how Abbott is in a rhythm right now. His first 17 pitches were strikes, and all game he was able to locate different pitches in different parts of the plate to keep the Cardinals off-balanced while staying very aggressive in the zone.

Before that start, in a random conversation on the bench, Abbott asked the question: What would happen if you threw 80% strikes in a game?

He tried that out against the Cardinals, and Abbott pitched deep into the game. He wants to stick with that approach going forward.

“I want to make them swing and what I want to throw when I want to throw it,” Abbott said. “I want to try to use that mentality for the rest of the season.”

It was fitting that the two milestones happened on the same night.

Now, the most memorable moment of Bleday’s career-to-date is in a Reds’ uniform. And that milestone came on a night where he solidified the fact that his first year with the Reds is the best season of his career so far.

The 28-year-old debuted in the big leagues in 2022, and the start of his career has been a rollercoaster. He was a top-five pick who wasn’t set up to succeed with the Marlins. Then, he was traded to the Athletics, where he had some good moments but became one of the faces of a 2025 team that disappointed.

At the end of the 2025 season, the Athletics non-tendered him. About 10 months later, he clearly sees the biggest positive of that.

“I got to pick the team myself in the offseason and see what would be the best fit for me and for my family,” Bleday said in early August. “I didn’t start in the big leagues in the beginning of the year, but I knew I’d have some opportunity if I kept my head down and put my work in.”

Since 2022, Bleday has gone from Miami to Oakland to Sacramento. He opened the 2026 season in Louisville in Triple-A with the Reds. He’s well-traveled.

Now and for the foreseeable future, though, he won’t be known for what has happened in his past.

He’ll be known as a starting outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds.

“It feels good to be staying here after all of that,” Bleday said recently. “I can’t wait to see what happens going forward.”

Bleday was in demand last month at the trade deadline. The Reds made a point to hold onto him. With that, he became a piece of the core.

Bleday has earned it. His .784 OPS ranks 55th in baseball among qualified hitters. He has plenty of power and a fantastic walk rate. He’s reliable on defense and moves between left and right field as needed. He’s the type of player that you win with.

He has also been a classic change of scenery candidate.

“He was the fourth pick in the draft not all that long ago,” Terry Francona said earlier this season. “He had whatever struggles he had in Oakland. Our guys did a really good job of signing him because he’s obviously helping us.”

In Miami, Bleday was still learning who he was as a player and he was on a franchise that was going through a lot of instability. With the Athletics, while Bleday had a big 2024 season, he got into a funk in 2025 and later shared that he went through some mental struggles. He was pressing to do more at the plate, and he made adjustments that took him too far away from his natural strengths. The down year cost him his job with the Athletics.

“It took me a long time,” Bleday said earlier this year. “You can’t rely on anyone to really help you in this game. You’ll have help, it’s there for you. But at the end of the day, it’s all on you. It took me a while to realize that. The failure has helped. Now, you’ve had all these experiences. Use it to your benefit, trust yourself and trust your swing. Know your game and trust that you’re good enough.”

The Reds signed him for $1.4 million last December. They told him that they were looking for a corner outfielder, but that he’d have to come in and earn a job. Bleday went on to have a very good spring training, but Noelvi Marte and Will Benson’s track records of success with the Reds from the prior season took away the path for Bleday to make an immediate impact. Nathaniel Lowe won the bench bat job, and Bleday went to Triple-A.

He was called up in late April. Within a week, Bleday was hitting in the heart of the Reds’ order. On May 16, Francona said, “I don’t think it’s a fluke. I think he’ll continue.”

Bleday went on to win the NL Player of the Month in May. He became a very confident hitter.

“It’s a breath of fresh air playing for this team and this organization,” Bleday said at the time. “I’ll continue to get better. There’s always room for improvement. I want to keep on carrying through.”

It hasn’t all been steady. In June, he hit .161 with a .611 OPS. In August entering Saturday, Bleday was hitting .164 with a .521 OPS. He said that he was having struggles with keeping his swing repeatable, and he honed in on what he could do to make an impact with runners in scoring position.

In 2025, when Bleday was with the Athletics, a slump snowballed and he ended up getting optioned to Triple-A.

This year, Bleday didn’t let that happen.

“You’ll get hot, you’ll get cold,” Bleday said earlier this year. “It’s about riding the wave. When you’re in those moments where you’re not getting the results you’re hoping for, if you can draw walks, move a guy over, do something somewhat productive and try to wait it out and keep up the hard work and not feel bad for yourself — it’s easy to feel bad for yourself in those situations. You try to show up ready to compete and get the job done that day. That’ll help you get out of that.”

It’s helped that even when he has been struggling, Bleday has never struggled to hit a fastball. Back in spring training, Bleday’s ability to crush fastballs was one of the first things that Francona recognized about him (the first one was simply the fact that Bleday has a beautiful swing).

Even when Bleday is in a rut, he’s one fastball over the plate away from a big moment.

As Bleday hit for the cycle, his homer and his double were off of fastballs.

He knows who he is, and so do the Reds.

There are a lot of questions going forward about what the Reds need to do to produce more offense. Bleday has become one of the answers. Entering this year, Bleday was a fringe big leaguer. Now, he’s one of the Reds’ guys.