C. Notes: Reds sweep Guardians as Will Benson steals the show against former team

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CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Reds closer Emilio Pagán is as impressed as everyone else at what his teammate, Will Benson, is doing right now.

Benson hit two homers, driving in all three runs in the team’s 3-1 victory on Sunday to seal the Reds’ three-game sweep of the Cleveland Guardians — Benson’s old team. Since being called up from Triple-A Louisville on May 9, Benson is 11-for-26 with five home runs over eight games, with homers in each of the last four games.

As everyone, including Pagán and his teammates, watches the 26-year-old in amazement, the only person who doesn’t seem surprised is Benson himself. There’s an immediate reaction after hitting the ball hard and seeing it clear the fence, but as he rounds the bases, Benson said he’s moving on to the next half-inning in the field, his next at-bat, looking forward, not backward.

“I surrender, I thank God for that successful moment, but it’s on to the next,” Benson said of his trip around the bases. “That’s the type of mindset I have.”

In a series built up around a struggling Reds team and manager Terry Francona’s first regular-season action against the club he managed for 11 seasons, it was the former Guardian who stole the show.

“He’s worked really hard, but it seems like if he misses a pitch early in a count and they come back with it, he hasn’t missed it a second time,” Francona said. “I’m sure his confidence is (high) — it should be. He’s swinging the bat really, really good and he’s dangerous right now.”

The game was scoreless in the fourth when Benson came to the plate for the second time against Guardians starter Luis L. Ortiz. Benson watched a changeup inside for a ball and then a cutter down and in for a strike before he swung through a 1-1 slider. As Francona noted, Ortiz tried to throw another slider to Benson, but this one was in his wheelhouse and he launched it into the right field stands for a 2-0 Reds lead.

In the sixth, Benson came up against reliever Hunter Gaddis with one out and nobody on. He fouled off a changeup, watched another one for a strike and then hit another ball nearly into the same spot.

“I’m definitely getting results at the moment, which I’m grateful for, but my focus is really on just showing up and being consistent with what I’m trying to do,” Benson said.

All four of Benson’s homers in the series came against off-speed pitches on the inner-third of the plate.

Hmmmm… Will Benson seems to be handling the pitch on the inner third… there are his 4 homers against the Guardians this weekend

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— C Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 4:59 PM

Benson said he was expecting a different approach from Guardians’ pitchers Sunday and saw an 0-1 fastball in his first plate appearance against Ortiz that he jumped on, hitting it 106.7 mph off the bat for a single.

Benson’s streak of four straight games with a home run is the most since Joey Votto hit homers in seven straight games (and nine home runs total) in July of 2021. Like Benson, Votto hit two homers in his fourth game of the streak. Votto hit two homers in the fifth game, too.

“I’m doing a really good job of swinging at pitches I want to swing at and taking pitches I don’t want,” Benson said.

Stay the course

Reds first-year hitting coach Chris Valaika didn’t tell anyone anything they didn’t already know before Thursday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, but he gathered the team’s hitters to reiterate what everyone already knew — with Cincinnati struggling to score runs, pressing at the plate wouldn’t help.

“We went through a two-week stretch there with every at-bat with a runner in scoring position or a runner on second with no out, it kind of felt like life or death,” Reds first baseman Spencer Steer said.

“He just wanted to reiterate the fact that if you don’t get the job done, the guy behind you is going to take pride in getting the job done for you.”

It’s a familiar refrain, not only in general among baseball teams, for the Reds. It’s similar message to the one former Reds hitting coach Joel McKeithan and catcher Luke Maile gave the team in April of 2023 after getting swept in Pittsburgh to start the season 7-15. The Reds won their next five games after that talk, including a sweep of the Texas Rangers, who went on to win the World Series that year.

A message doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be impactful, sometimes it just needs to be the right thing said at the right time.

“That’s what good offenses do is pick each other up and get the job done when the guy in front of you doesn’t,” Steer said. “And when you don’t get the job done, trusting the guy behind you to get it.”

Andrew Abbot on Sunday pushed his streak of not allowing a hit in the first inning to nine starts. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

First-inning mastery

Reds starter Andrew Abbott had a runner on second before he had an out in each of his first three innings on Sunday, but still managed to throw five scoreless frames, pick up his third win of the season and push his ERA down to 1.80.

Abbott needed 28 pitches to get through the first inning, hitting Steven Kwan with his first pitch of the game and walking a pair of batters to boot. But Abbott got out of the inning unscathed with a strikeout and a lineout, to push his streak of not allowing a hit in the first inning to nine starts.

According to Elias Sport Bureau, he matches Jim Maloney for the longest streak of starts without a hit allowed in the first inning by a Reds starter since expansion in 1961. Maloney’s streak lasted nine starts from Sept. 17, 1968, to April 30, 1969. Abbott last allowed a hit in the first inning on Aug. 7 of last season, when he gave up three hits and five runs against the Miami Marlins, including a grand slam by Derek Hill.

Trent’s dumb questions of the week

Often, I have random questions that pique my curiosity, and I have to ask them. On Sunday morning, I asked Connor Joe how long it takes to have all the right color gear after being traded in the middle of the season.

Joe said the only thing he has to wait on is appropriately colored cleats, and his agent takes care of that — knowing exactly what model he wants. That’s not as vital as it used to be since the 2018 amendment to the Collective Bargaining Agreement eliminated the old rule that required at least 51 percent of a shoe’s color to be a team’s primary color.

Joe said it’s really just cleats and batting gloves that need to be changed out, and even then, it’s not like a certain color is mandated; it’s more of a player preference. But Joe said clubhouse staffs have enough batting gloves on hand that the right color is always available.

“Our staff is so good, you don’t have to do much,” Joe said of Rick Stowe’s clubhouse crew.

Santiago Espinal hits an RBI single in the sixth inning on Saturday against Cleveland. (Albert Cesare / The Enquirer / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

The second question was to Santiago Espinal about his successful butcher boy play in Saturday’s victory over the Guardians. (In the so-called butcher boy play, the batter, seemingly squares up to bunt, pulls the bat back and swings at the pitch.)

Did Espinal, I asked, go up with the intention of the butcher boy, or was a bunt a possibility until the second he pulled back the bunt?

“There’s a point where I’m still thinking bunt, the first time I tried it, the whole defense separated, so I knew there was a good opportunity for me to do that,” Espinal said Sunday morning. “I just saw the defense move, separate.”

With the score tied at 1 in the sixth, the Reds’ TJ Friedl led off the inning with a double. Espinal, batting second, squared around to bunt on the first two pitches he saw from Guardians’ starter Slade Cecconi. He pulled back on both, with the first called a ball and the second called a strike. More importantly, Espinal saw the Guardians running the wheel play, with the first baseman and third baseman crashing in from the corners and the shortstop and second baseman moving to cover third base and first base, respectively.

“When you see the shortstop and second baseman breaking, you know you have that whole (middle of the field) open,” Espinal said.

Espinal said it didn’t even really matter where the pitch was, as long as he could hit it, he felt good about his chances of a hit. Entering Sunday’s game, Espinal missed on only 14.7 percent of the swings he takes, good for the 94th percentile in MLB. So combine his bat-to-ball skills and a wide-open infield, all that he had to do was make sure he didn’t hit it at someone or in the air, and he had a good chance of a hit and a better chance of at least moving the go-ahead run to third with one out.

The week that was

The Reds were a season-worst four games under .500 following Wednesday’s loss to the lowly Chicago White Sox before winning four straight, including the sweep of the Guardians to pull back to .500 at 24-24.

The week ahead

Cincinnati hits the road for a quick three-game series in Pittsburgh — and again will miss Pirates ace Paul Skenes — but then return home to face the Chicago Cubs for a three-game homestead.

Injury updates

• RHP Hunter Greene (right groin strain) threw 35 pitches in a bullpen session before Sunday’s game in Cincinnati and is on track to start Friday night against the Cubs at Great American Ball Park. Greene said he felt good and will throw another bullpen this week.

• IF Jeimer Candelario (lumbar spine strain) was sent to Arizona to begin working out before a rehab assignment. Candelario began baseball activities in Cincinnati before heading to Arizona.

• RHP Rhett Lowder (right forearm strain) made his third rehab start Saturday and first at Triple A. Lowder didn’t make it through the first inning of his start against the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis, allowing four runs on four hits, one home run and a walk. The only out he recorded was via strikeout. Lowder threw 29 pitches (17 for strikes) and was removed because of his pitch count. Lowder continued pitching in the bullpen. He is scheduled to pitch again the next time through the rotation, but will likely be limited to 75-80 pitches, Francona said Sunday, instead of stretching to 90. He was scheduled to throw 75-80 on Saturday.

• RHP Ian Gibaut (right shoulder impingement) has pitched in four games at Triple-A Louisville on his rehab assignment, allowing one hit and a walk with five strikeouts over four innings. Gibaut had back-to-back scoreless outings on Saturday and Sunday.

• LHP Sam Moll (left shoulder impingement) made a scoreless appearance Saturday for Louisville and gave up two runs on two hits and two walks on Tuesday. In 10 rehab appearances, Moll is 0-2 with a 6.52 ERA over 9 2/3 innings.

Minor-league report

• Triple-A Louisville (19-24): Benson hasn’t been the only outfielder to take advantage of his opportunity when called up. OF Jake Rogers had three hits in six at-bats for the Bats while Benson was briefly called up to the big leagues in April, before going back to Double-A Chattanooga. When Benson was called up to the big leagues on May 9, Rogers once again was moved up to Louisville. While the 2021 ninth-round pick hasn’t exactly done the same kind of damage Benson has in Cincinnati, he’s hitting .333/.400/.417 in 12 games with the Bats. Overall on the season, he’s hitting .329/.389/.424 and has driven in 20 runs in his 27 games this season.

• Double-A Chattanooga (18-20): IF Sal Stewart had his Southern League-best 15th multi-hit game on Saturday in his 37th game of the season. Stewart had an RBI double in Sunday’s win and is also leading the Southern League in batting average (.319), hits (46), doubles (12) and three-hit games (six).

• High-A Dayton (14-25): C Connor Burns had himself a week, going 7-for-20 with four home runs and 21 total bases over five games at Quad Cities (Royals). Burns had two homers on Friday, two doubles Saturday and then another homer on Sunday.

• Class-A Daytona (17-22): RHP JeanPierre Ortiz improved to 5-0 with a win Saturday. Ortiz, 21, has thrown 29 2/3 innings over eight appearances this season with no starts. Ortiz’s five wins were the second-most in the Florida State League entering Sunday, and he was one of just seven pitchers in the full-season minors with at least five wins and no losses.

(Top photo: Katie Stratman / Imagn Images)

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