CINCINNATI — Hitting coach Joel McKeithan called the Reds hitters together for a meeting before Monday’s game against the Rangers.
The Reds had just come back from Pittsburgh, where the Pirates swept them in four games and scored a total of six runs. The Reds were in the midst of a six-game losing streak, getting shut out by the Rays in the two games ahead of the road trip.
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Team meetings are never quite what they are in movies, where someone gets up, gives a rousing speech and then one person starts clapping, the rest join in and everyone runs out to the field together toward victory.
When there are 162 games during a season, there’s every type of slump and surge, not to mention the degrees in between. The idea is not to get too high or too low.
Outside factors can change that, but the delivery has to be consistent. McKeithan’s message was simple — don’t try to do too much.
“It was something that Joel wanted to do and I was in there to support it and reiterate some messaging on hitting,” Reds manager David Bell said before Tuesday’s game against the Rangers. “But what made the meeting effective, and a lot of times this is the case, is when the players get involved and they communicate what they’re seeing and they have something to offer their teammates. A couple of players spoke up. Luke Maile in particular said something that really hit home for a lot of the players. Those are the best.”
Yesterday the Reds were down 5-1 to the Rangers and came back to win. Tonight they were down 6-0 and came back to win
— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) April 26, 2023
After the Reds rallied once again — following up Monday’s comeback from four runs by overcoming a six-run deficit Tuesday night for a 7-6 victory over Texas — Maile seemed a little surprised to hear his manager had singled him out.
“That’s nice of him to say, but it was nothing special,” said Maile, who is in his first year with his hometown team. “Just to relax. I think the tendency, if you have a few weeks in the big leagues or 13 years, when things start snowballing and not going your way, you kind of feel the weight of the world on your shoulders from time to time. It’s not an earth-shattering message, it’s just a reminder that there’s a lot of innings to be played.”
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Those words have been proved correct in each of the first two games against the Rangers. Monday night the Reds walked four times in the two-run eighth inning, and Tuesday, it was a hit batter, a walk, four singles and a double in the six-run eighth.
“It’s fun baseball, it’s playing with your foot on the gas while also having the discipline that you don’t have to just jump this guy and hit it off the scoreboard in order for us to score,” Maile said. “I need to have my foot on the gas, but I can be aggressive with something that I see that I want. You get nine guys doing that, I’ll take that team, I don’t care who is on the roster.”
The Reds haven’t homered for more than a week now, the last coming in the second inning of the series opener against Tampa Bay on April 17 when Kevin Newman started the scoring in the victory over the Rays with a solo shot. In the two victories over the Rangers, the Reds scored 14 runs and had just three extra-base hits. Tuesday’s lone extra-base hit was a double by Jake Fraley that scored two and brought the Reds to within a run.
Eight of the nine players in the Reds lineup reached base at least once Tuesday, six players scored, seven players had hits and three players had multiple hits.
After Monday’s game, Bell said he’d seen good things from Nick Senzel and that maybe the walk he drew in the team’s eighth-inning rally would spark something. Senzel finished with three hits — just the 10th game in his career with three or more hits — Wednesday, including RBI singles in the seventh and eighth.
“(Monday) night, I was super happy with my last at-bat. It was a big at-bat for the team and myself,” he said. “I felt like I was going to get some momentum from that. Like DB said, sometimes it does take a walk. It was a fun night for me personally. Hope to enjoy some more of those.”
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In the end, the final big at-bat came from India, who had struck out in his first two at-bats against Rangers starter Martín Pérez and then popped out to end the fifth with two runners on and ended the seventh with a flyout, again with two runners on.
With runners on second and third and two outs in the eighth, it was up to India again.
After the game, Maile said he told India that he had all the confidence in the world that the team’s second baseman would come through.
“I told him after the game that I’d have bet any amount of money that he was going to hit the ball over 100 mph or he’d walk,” Maile said. “Just the way he walked up to the plate, everything about it.”
With a 2-1 count, India lined a fastball up the middle — at 103.4 mph — to score Jose Barrero from third and Jake Fraley from second.
“The bigger the moment, the bigger the situation, the bigger the game, he just rises to those occasions,” Bell said of India. “He’s able to put everything else aside, be in the moment, be in the present, and he knew he had a chance to win the game right there and put all his focus into the baseball.”
For India, it was a way to help erase a bad day and move forward. For the Reds, it was a way to erase a bad week and move forward.
“It’s amazing how 48 hours can change things in this game, because the opposite of that is what we did for four games,” Maile said. “Overall, over the span of an entire game, entire series, when guys are playing like this at-bat isn’t for their life and the guy behind them might get it done, there’s just a better feeling and typically better results too. It’s fun baseball.”
(Photo of Luke Maile: Aaron Doster / Associated Press)