The most underrated team in Reds history?
Part 2 of a loving tribute to the 1995 Cincinnati Reds
If you missed Part One of me waxing poetic about the ‘95 Reds, read this first.
With an 8-4 win over the Cardinals on June 3, the Reds took over first place by themselves. That’s where they would remain the rest of the season.
The next day, Pete Schourek and Jeff Brantley combined for a shutout two-hitter against St. Louis. Can we talk about Schourek for a moment? The lefty was the surprise of the league that season. The Reds picked him up after the Mets had waived him the year earlier, and his 1995 season started horrifically, as he gave up eight runs in 2.2 innings in his first start.
But Schourek found that he worked well with pitching coach Don Gullett, and by the time summer rolled around, he began to establish himself as the anchor of Cincinnati’s rotation. From June 24 to the beginning of September, he won six consecutive starts and 11 of 14. By season’s end, Schourek was 18-7 with a 3.22 ERA and he finished second in voting for the NL Cy Young Award (Atlanta’s Greg Maddux won). That was the best season of his career — by far — and it came just when the Reds needed it, as the pitching staff was shaky early in the year.
With Schourek’s ascendance, however, the Reds had a reliable one-two punch. Thirty-year-old lefty John Smiley was in his third season with the Reds. Smiley had been a twenty-game winner for the Pirates in 1991, and by mid-season of 1995, he looked like he was destined for a similar season. He was 9-1 with a 3.06 ERA at the All-Star break and, unsurprisingly, he joined Gant, Larkin, and Reggie Sanders in representing the Reds at the Midsummer Classic in Arlington, Texas.*
*Larkin was elected by fans to start the game at shortstop and Gant was chosen by manager Felipe Alou to be the starting DH. Larkin, Gant, and Sanders combined to go 0-for-6 on the big stage. Smiley pitched two innings and gave up two runs.
It’s hard to overestimate how important Schourek and Smiley were in 1995, given a key injury. Entering the season, Jose Rijo, now thirty, had been presumed to be the ace of the staff. After all, he was already a Reds legend who had been an All-Star as recently as one season prior. He followed the Opening Day fiasco by giving up six runs in 4.1 innings; after two games, Rijo’s ERA was 9.31. But over his next twelve starts, Rijo was 5-2 with a 3.34 ERA and looked like he’d be the Rijo of old down the stretch.
But on July 18 — just three weeks after Schourek began his summer brilliance — Rijo left a game against the Padres after only two innings with elbow discomfort. A few weeks later, he would have elbow surgery and his career was effectively over (though he made a memorable comeback at age 36, making 44 appearances for the 2001 and 2002 Reds).
All of a sudden, the Reds rotation was in a precarious spot. You might want to assume that Reds general manager Jim Bowden was able to predict Schourek’s rise — you might want to do that; I don’t recommend it — but he leapt into action anyway. Bowden traded center fielder Deion Sanders* and four other players to San Francisco in exchange for pitchers Mark Portugal and Dave Burba, along with center fielder Darren Lewis. Portugal (6-5, 3.82 ERA in 14 starts) and Burba (6-2, 3.27 ERA in 15 games, nine of which were starts) were both effective over the final two months of the season, stabilizing the rotation.
*Sanders may be the greatest athlete ever to wear a Cincinnati uniform, but his four seasons with the Reds were largely undistinguished. Neon Deion hit only .260/.319/.346, and though he stole 94 bases, he also led the league in times caught stealing in 1994. He remains, however, the answer to my favorite Reds-related trivia question: Who is the only Reds player ever to host Saturday Night Live?
Bowden also called up Rick Reed to join the rotation in late July. Reed had been one of the replacement players during spring training, and his time with the Reds didn’t go well. He wasn’t popular in the Reds clubhouse and after posting a 5.87 ERA in four games, Reed was summarily sent back to Triple-A. His career was hardly over, however. Reed would pitch until age 38, making two All-Star teams with the Mets.
Bowden wasn’t finished. At the trade deadline, he acquired lefty David Wells in a trade with the Tigers. If you are a Reds fan of a certain vintage, you probably remember how exciting this trade was for the Cincinnati faithful. He was already 32 years old, but Wells had just represented Detroit in the All-Star Game a couple of weeks prior (as it turned out, Wells would play a dozen more seasons before retiring). All of a sudden, Cincinnati’s rotation looked pretty good, even in the absence of Rijo. Wells would ultimately go 6-5 with a 3.59 ERA down the stretch for the Reds before making two post-season starts.
By mid-August, Cincinnati was cruising, seven games ahead of the closest competitors in the division, Houston. On August 15, Reggie Sanders nearly made baseball history. Sanders hit home runs in his first three at-bats against Colorado at Riverfront Stadium, but couldn’t collect his fourth to join a small group of hitters to achieve that particular feat.
And here’s the thing most Reds fans willfully forget about the 1995 season: Reggie Sanders was simply brilliant all season long. He hit .306/.397/.579 with 28 homers, 99 RBI, 36 stolen bases, and posted 6.6 wins above replacement. It remains one of the best individual seasons, by WAR, that a Reds right fielder has ever put together. In fact, only one right fielder in club history has ever put up a better season: the legendary Frank Robinson.*
*Somehow, Aristides Aquino hasn’t topped that total, but hope springs eternal.
And yet, Sanders wasn’t even the best player on the team, at least according to the baseball writers who vote on post-season awards. That honor went to future Hall of Famer Larkin, who was named the National League MVP after hitting .319/.394/.492 while being the best fielding shortstop in the league. Larkin, Sanders, and Gant formed the best offensive trio in the NL, and one of the best we’ve ever seen for a single season.
Cincinnati mostly cruised through August and September, atop the standings, but there was one wild moment. By the time September 5 rolled around, the Reds were 13.5 games ahead of second-place Houston, and the teams weren’t overly fond of each other. In the second game of a three-game set at the Astrodome, seven players from both teams were ejected after three separate bench-clearing incidents. As described by Redleg Journal:
The first (incident) occurred in the sixth inning when Reds pitcher Xavier Hernandez threw behind the head of Brian Hunter. In the seventh, Ron Gant and Houston catcher Pat Borders began jawing at each other at home plate, and Gant landed a punch to Borders’ head. Later in the inning, Hernandez plunked Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell.
Fun! Hernandez was later suspended for eight games, Gant was suspended four, and manager Davey Johnson* had to serve two games.
*Let’s talk about Johnson for a moment. He had been a consultant with the Reds when he was tapped to manage the club after Tony Perez was fired in 1993, just 44 games into his managerial career. Johnson, who had managed the 1986 champion Mets, is in the conversation for best Reds manager of all time, based on his team’s performances in 1994 and 1995. But after this brilliant season, he was replaced as Reds manager by Ray Knight.
After two great seasons, why would the Reds part with Johnson in favor of Knight, who had never managed before (and who would ultimately earn a spot among the very worst managers Reds fans can remember)? Well, Marge Schott evidently didn’t approve of Johnson living with his girlfriend before they were married. You can’t make this stuff up.
On September 22, the Reds finally clinched the Central Division championship with a 3-2 win in Philadelphia. For the first time since the early days of the season, however, the Reds were struggling a bit. They finished the regular season by losing 18 of their final 31 games, giving fans of the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers a little hope as the Division Series opened in LA on October 3.*
*The same day OJ Simpson was found not guilty of murder elsewhere in Los Angeles.
The Dodgers had edged the upstart Colorado Rockies by one game in the division race and were led by a future Hall of Famer, catcher Mike Piazza, that year’s rookie sensation, Hideo Nomo and, most importantly, future Reds coach Delino DeShields. Immediately, however, the Reds looked like the team that had been so dominant for much of the season.
Cincinnati jumped out to a 7-0 lead behind catcher Benito Santiago (3 for 3, homer, 3 RBI) and second baseman Jeff Branson (2-3, double, walk, 2 RBI). Schourek picked up the win by allowing two runs over seven innings.
Game 2 was closer, with the Reds winning 5-4. Reggie Sanders blasted a two-run homer in the fourth to give the Reds a lead, but the Dodgers tied the score in the bottom half of the inning. Then, in the eighth, Larkin drove in the go-ahead run, and then the Reds scored two more in the ninth on Mark Lewis and Mariano Duncan RBIs. Jeff Brantley surrendered a two-run homer in the ninth, but hung on for the win.
The series shifted to Cincinnati for Game 3, where the Reds executed the sweep in a laugher, 10-1 before 53,000+ at Riverfront Stadium. It was a tight contest until the sixth, when Mark Lewis launched a pinch-hit grand slam to put the game — and the series — away for good.
It’s hard to describe just how exciting this grand slam was for Reds fans at the time. I was absolutely certain that the Reds were destined to win the World Series at that point. In my mind, it was destined to be the next version of Eric Davis’ memorable 1990 World Series home run, launching the good guys into the stratosphere.
Well, you can’t blame me for being optimistic. After all, the Reds had been mostly good for the last decade-plus. Young Chad hadn’t learned to be cynical about the hometown nine just yet.
Alas, Lewis’s homer was the last hurrah for this underrated Reds squad. With a shot to make their second World Series in six years, the Reds were swept by the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS.
The series started off with a bang, with Schourek pitching eight shutout innings and the Reds taking a 1-0 lead into the ninth inning. Schourek surrendered the tying run in the ninth, however, and the Braves ultimately won 2-1 in 11 innings. The big story wasn’t a Reds loss; it was only one game and many expected a competitive series. But only 40,382 Reds fans showed up at Riverfront Stadium for Game 1, a disappointing number almost certainly attributed to the after-effects of the strike that had ended the previous season.
In Game 2, the Reds once again lost in extra innings, with the Braves scoring four in the tenth before another less-than-capacity crowd. And that was the end of Cincinnati’s hopes. Atlanta won the next two easily, and all anyone remembers about that season, it seems, is the unbearably bad performance of the Reds offense during the series. Cincinnati’s bats were only able to notch five runs in the four games, and didn’t hit a single long ball.
In the years to come, Reggie Sanders would garner the bulk of the criticism for his performance in that series. And that’s a crying shame, since he had been the best player on the team in 1995, and Cincinnati might not have even been in the playoffs if not for Reggie.
On the other hand, let’s not sugarcoat it: Sanders went 2-for-16 with 10 strikeouts against the Braves. But it’s not like Sanders was alone in struggling in that series. Only one Red did any damage in the NLCS: Larkin, who was 7-for-18 with two doubles and a triple. As a team, the Reds hit .209/.282/.261 (and that includes Larkin’s numbers). Yes, Reggie struck out a lot, but let’s not pretend that he is the only player deserving of blame for Cincinnati’s offensive woes.
Let’s also not forget that the Reds were facing (a) a team that would go on to win the 1995 World Series and (b) had three Hall of Fame pitchers in their starting rotation (Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz). Is it really so surprising that the Reds would struggle in a short series against that club?
Oh well, as I noted last week, that abrupt ending colored the season for many Reds fans in the years to come. Attendance in the Queen City didn’t truly recover until after that magical 1999 season. But for me, the 1995 Reds unexpectedly triggered my romantic response to this sport and this club.
As I said a few weeks ago here at The Riverfront:
Baseball betrayed me in 1994. I was obsessed with the sport and the Reds before the strike that wiped out the season. That strike destroyed me. But then the 1995 Reds came into my life. Many baseball fans will say the Sosa/McGwire home run battle of 1998 is what brought them back to baseball. For me, it was Larkin and Sanders and Gant and Schourek and Smiley who brought me back, almost immediately. They reminded me why I loved baseball, and why I loved the Cincinnati Reds.
Like many of us, Davey Johnson also has good memories of that team:
“I’ve had a lot of good ballclubs and that one was right there with the best of them,” said Johnson, who also won division titles with the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles.
“You had Lark [shortstop Barry Larkin], [pitcher Jose] Rijo, [second baseman Bret] Boone, [outfielder Reggie] Sanders and [outfielder] Deion [Sanders]. What a great bunch of guys. We had a great time.”
Reds fans had a great time too, Davey.
So let’s raise a toast to the 1995 Reds, one of the two or three best Reds teams of the last three decades. And now I shall go cry for a moment.
What I’m reading
The Bengals are finally looking like the team we expected to see! This is more of a “listen” than a “read,” but The Riverfront has a new Bengals podcast and this week’s episode — featuring Ron Burgundy, Ferris Bueller, and Billy Madison — was the most entertaining episode yet.
FC Cincinnati lost to end an exciting season, but the Enquirer’s Bebe Hodges went inside a wild supporters’ section. “They were one of many groups who came to (just outside) the city of Brotherly Love in hopes of cheering FC Cincinnati to victory. They were one of many who boarded planes or drove for nine hours and hundreds of miles to see fifth-seed Cincinnati take on first-seed Philadelphia Union for the chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Final and, then if all worked accordingly, the MLS Cup.”
Wick Terrell previews the Reds off-season: “No, when things aren’t going well around their parts - a situation we’ve been forced to face more often than not over the last few decades - there are usually three go-to moves they use to begin the assuaging process.”
Justin Williams asks if expectations are too high for the #20 Cincinnati Bearcats ($). “That’s not necessarily a criticism, either, but rather the price of poker in high-stakes college football, one of the few sports where victory is only part of the equation. It’s a simultaneous blessing and curse the country’s top programs know all too well.”
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