Why Hunter Greene's return is coming at just the right time for a Reds team climbing into a playoff race

The Cincinnati Reds in 2025 have mastered the art of just hanging around. Their low point came on May 14, when a loss to the White Sox dropped them to 20-24 and a season-worst four games under .500. Their high point is the present juncture, as Wednesday's 8-0 wipeout of the Phillies pushed them to a season-best six games over .500 (64-58). We're in the middle of August and those are some fairly compressed margins given that the comfortable majority of the regular season is behind us -- never too far out of it, never securely in playoff position. 

With three wild card berths now available in each league, there's value in, yes, hanging around, as the Reds have done. Speaking of which, the Reds going into the weekend find themselves just one game out of that third and final wild card spot in the National League. The Mets, who cling by the fingernails to that No. 6 seed, have greatly abetted the Cincy cause by going 2-9 in August and dropping 12 of their last 14. Hang around -- there's that term again -- and sometimes your competitors do the work for you. 

All of this gives us cause to examine the Reds and their suddenly realistic designs on making the playoffs in an actual season for the first time since 2013 (2020 doesn't count and never counts). Let's undertake that now with three things to know and ponder as Cincy girds itself for meaningful stretch-drive baseball.

Their ace is back

That 8-0 win over Philly noted just above? Here's the line of the winning pitcher for the Reds: 

Hunter Greene

CIN • SP • #21

vs. PHI, 8/13/25

IP6

H3

R0

SO6

BB0

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Greene for the night earned 16 swings and misses, including nine on 18 swings against his slider, and his fastball averaged 99.3 mph. That's vintage stuff and results from Cincy's 26-year-old ace and, more importantly and impressively, it was his first start since June 3. Yes, the Reds had been without their best pitcher for more than two months with a groin strain. Earlier in the season, he landed on the injured list for the same injury, so Greene undertook a more methodical recovery this time, all in the service of being 100% for the stretch drive and staying that way. "He pitched Opening Day for us, so we obviously thought pretty highly of him," manager Terry Francona said of Greene on the eve of his return (via MLB.com). "Getting back a main member of your staff should help."

It already has. Wednesday's return gem lowered Greene's ERA for the season down to 2.47, which is good for an ERA+ of 185. In 12 starts and 65 ⅔ innings, Greene has struck out 79 and issued just 14 unintentional walks. Absent that groin malady, he'd likely be on the NL Cy Young shortlist. Instead, Greene will "merely" helm a contending rotation over the final six weeks of the regular season with the crosshairs on October baseball.

The Reds made a trio of notable additions leading up to the July 31 trade deadline -- third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes from the Pirates, DH Miguel Andujar from the Athletics, and starting pitcher Zack Littell from the Rays. However, none will move the needle like a healthy and vintage Greene. Yes, sometimes lead execs will cite a player's return from injury as cover for not making hard decisions at the deadline, but that doesn't describe the Reds with regard to Greene. 

This isn't your typical Reds team

In recent years at least, we've become accustomed to perceiving the Reds as a team that scores runs but struggles to prevent them. In part, the offense-friendly tendencies of Great American Ball Park exaggerate these perceptions, but there's some truth to it. This year it's been a very different state of affairs. Consider:

• The Reds' offense this season ranks 24th in MLB with an OPS+ of 92. This means their team OPS has been 8% worse than the league average after adjusting for ballpark effects. 
• The Reds' pitching staff this season leads MLB with an ERA+ of 120. This means that the Reds' staff ERA is 20% better than the league average after adjusting for ballpark effects. 

Remove Greene's numbers from the rotation calculus, and the Reds' starting pitchers have still registered a sub-4.00 ERA and a sub-4.00 FIP this season. Bear in mind those numbers don't apply ballpark context. 

With Greene back, the Cincy rotation may be the deepest in baseball. Andrew Abbott has been one of the best pitchers in the National League not named Paul Skenes. Nick Lodolo has been almost as good. The recent pick-up Littell has a 115 ERA+ and 4.35 K/BB ratio for the season. Rookie phenom Chase Burns, who throws almost as hard as Greene does, has struck out a whopping 37.7% of opposing batters through his first eight big-league starts. Sure, Burns' ERA is above 5.00 right now, but his sparkling FIP of 2.44 and top-line stuff strongly suggest he'll course-correct soon enough. This is to say nothing of Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, who've both been quite useful this season. Yes, that's six starting pitchers. 

The season to date says that if the Reds are to make the playoffs, then it's the rotation that will do the heavy lifting. With Greene back at the front end, that rotation is now more than capable of said heavy lifting. 

The remaining schedule is working against them 

Let us now moderate all this Reds enthusiasm with a bit of reality. That reality is found within the remaining schedule. The Reds play the narrow majority of their remaining games on the road, but the real story is the quality of opposition. Here are the five toughest schedules left to play as measured by opponents' average winning percentage to date: 

As you can see, the Reds have the roughest go of it by a notable margin. That's in contrast to their strength of schedule (SOS) to date. Thus far, the opponents the Reds have already played have combined for a winning percentage of .496, which by that measure amounts to the fifth-easiest schedule in MLB thus far. Cincy is in for a hairpin turn when it comes to schedule difficulty, at least by MLB standards of such things. 

The Mets, meantime, rank ninth in remaining SOS with an opponents' average winning percentage of .510. That's not easy, but it's a bit easier than what the Reds face. 

Speaking of what the Reds face, the Mets are on the docket for a three-game set in Cincy from Sept. 5-7. Might the final wild card spot hinge on that outcome? We'll only know in retrospect, but it's almost certainly going to be a high-stakes encounter. 

In light of the schedule difficulties, modest present deficit, and "south of a coin-flip" playoff odds (SportsLine gives the Reds a 40.6% chance to make it, while DraftKings puts them at +250), it may take more than "hanging around" for Cincy to get there. With Greene back at the helm of the team's greatest strength, though, the Reds are better poised than ever to do more than just hang around.