C. Notes: Scooter Gennett welcomes Eugenio Suárez to 4-homer club

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Scooter Gennett was asleep Saturday night when a buddy called. Gennett didn’t understand why his friend would be calling, so he went back to sleep.

When you have a newborn like Gennett and his wife, Kelsey, sleep is paramount.

But sometime around 10:40 p.m. at his home in Parrish, Fla., the texts started coming in.

“GENO!” the first text read.

At that point, Gennett knew what had happened. His former teammate had joined Gennett and 17 others in one of the game’s most exclusive clubs: hitting four home runs in one game.

“I went to bed with a smile,” Gennett said. “It might have been the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while.”

Sunday, 12 hours after Suárez’s four-homer game and nearly eight years from when Gennett achieved the feat, it was still hard for Gennett to believe anyone can hit four homers in a game, especially a pair of teammates from a team that lost 94 games in 2017.

“Baseball is so hard and you fail so much that a four-homer game, it’s like, c’mon, there’s no way I can do that,” Gennett said.

Gennett was the 17th player to hit four home runs in one game. J.D. Martinez, then of the Arizona Diamondbacks, did the same nearly three months after Gennett.

“I’d be interested to see how many three-homer games there have been,” Gennett said. “There’s been probably, like, a thousand. Why are there so many of those and not just one more?”

According to Baseball Reference, 656 players have had three-homer games since 1900, not including the 17 players since 1900 who have hit four in a game.

Gennett figures he would’ve been one of those guys who had “just” three homers in a game if St. Louis Cardinals reliever John Brebbia hadn’t pitched to him, which wouldn’t be out of the question with Gennett having already hit three homers and the Reds up 10 runs that night. Gennett said it also wouldn’t have happened if Brebbia hadn’t thrown him an 0-2 fastball.

“They could’ve thrown me anything else right there, and I probably would’ve swung and missed and struck out,” he said.

It was impossible not to think about the fourth homer when he went to the plate, Gennett said. For one, he was playing left field that day, not second base, and if he hadn’t realized he had a shot at four homers, the fans certainly let him know.

But he also had the advantage of never expecting a four-homer game — a four-homer game is not something Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth had done, so why would Gennett expect to accomplish it?

Yet, he did. So, too, did Suárez, whose fourth home run Saturday night tied the score against the Atlanta Braves. Suárez’s fourth homer was against Raisel Iglesias, who was also with the Reds when Gennett hit his four home runs.

Gennett was with the Reds from 2017 to 2019, with Suárez a teammate the entire time. The pair, along with Joey Votto, represented the Reds in the 2018 All-Star Game in Washington. Like so many others who have played with Suárez, Gennett said he was one of the best teammates he’d ever had. Suárez is known for not only preaching his “good vibes only” mantra but also living it.

Suárez was always there for teammates with a smile and a hug. Gennett’s dad reminded him Sunday morning that it was Suárez who helped him celebrate his four-homer game by lifting him in the dugout during his curtain call.

Scooter Gennett gets a lift from Eugenio Suárez in the dugout after hitting his fourth home run in a game. (John Minchillo / Associated Press)

“Everyone that knows him, everyone that has been around him is just smiling,” Gennett said. “Everyone’s happy for him. It’s amazing.”

Gennett last played in the big leagues in 2019. He lives in Florida and continues to help run Show Bats, the baseball bat company he founded the same year he hit four homers.

“I texted (Suárez) that if he was using a Show Bat, he’d have hit five,” Gennett joked.

Three catchers?

With just three games behind the plate in his rehab stint with the Triple-A Louisville Bats, Tyler Stephenson told Reds officials he wanted to get a few more games before returning from the injured list.

If all goes well, Stephenson could return this week. But when he does, Austin Wynns is unlikely to go anywhere.

Wynns made the team out of spring training when Stephenson started the season on the IL with a left oblique strain. Wynns, 34, has started 10 of the team’s 28 games at catcher behind Jose Trevino.

Signed to a minor-league deal this offseason, Wynns has enjoyed the best offensive stretch of his big-league career, hitting .433/.485/.767 with three homers in 33 plate appearances. As valuable as he has been at the plate, he’s been more valuable behind it. Wynns and Trevino have been a big part of the team’s success on the mound and have worked well with the team’s pitchers and together.

Because Wynns is out of options, the Reds can’t send him to the minors without putting him on waivers — and a backup catcher who is good with pitchers and has shown he can hit some in the big leagues won’t clear waivers.

The Reds learned firsthand in 2022 just how difficult it is to find backup catchers and how quickly injuries can change a catching situation. That year, the team used seven catchers because of injuries.

When Stephenson returns, he’ll likely get plenty of time as a designated hitter, in part because of the physical toll of catching on the body, especially coming back from a lat injury. That means the Reds will still need Wynns to work into the rotation along with Trevino and Stephenson.

Stephenson homered and threw out a runner in his start Sunday. He’s 3-for-17 at the plate in his rehab assignment with one walk and seven strikeouts.

The new guys

The three position players the Reds acquired this offseason — Gavin Lux, Austin Hays and Trevino — are off to a hot start. They have combined to hit .344, led by Hays, who has five homers in the 12 games since coming off the IL.

The week that was

After losing the first two games in Miami to the Marlins, the Reds won on getaway day and then swept the lowly Colorado Rockies to improve to 15-13. The Reds completed their three-city trip 6-3 and in second place in the NL Central.

The week ahead

The Reds return from Colorado with a four-game series against St. Louis. The Cardinals enter the series 12-16 and in fourth place in the NL Central. The Cardinals are 2-11 on the road this season (and 10-5 at home). The Washington Nationals then come to Great American Ball Park for a three-game series starting Friday.

Injury updates

• LHP Wade Miley (elbow surgery) left Sunday’s rehab start with High-A Dayton after just 10 pitches. Miley suffered a lower-body injury and will be examined Monday.

• RHP Ian Gibaut (right shoulder impingement) went on the IL on Saturday.

• LHP Sam Moll (left shoulder impingement) suffered the loss in his second rehab appearance Saturday for Triple-A Louisville. Moll allowed a run on two hits with a walk and two strikeouts against the Iowa Cubs. He threw a scoreless inning with a walk and a strikeout against the Cubs earlier in the week.

Minor league report

• Triple A Louisville (14-12): OF Rece Hinds is hitting .264/.327/.440 with four homers in 26 games. As much as Hinds is known for his power, his speed might be overlooked. Not only has he played center field for the Bats, but he has also picked up 12 steals. Hinds had two steals in his time in the big leagues last year and 20 in 99 games with the Bats. He also stole 20 bases in 2023.

• Double A Chattanooga (10-10): RHP Chase Burns made his Double-A debut Saturday. He went four innings, giving up one run on three hits and a walk with five strikeouts. He threw 73 pitches, 47 for strikes. Burns has 25 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings this season with just six walks. Not to be outdone, RHP José Acuña allowed just two hits in five scoreless innings with six strikeouts and a hit batter in a victory Sunday. Acuña is 3-1 with a 2.25 ERA in five starts. He has 30 strikeouts and 14 walks in 24 innings.

• High A Dayton (8-13): LHP Adam Serwinowski threw another gem Saturday, allowing a run on two hits with one walk and seven strikeouts over five innings. Serwinowski has 20 strikeouts in 17 innings over four starts.

• Class A Daytona (10-11): The Tortugas stole seven bases in Sunday’s victory over the St. Lucie Mets, the second-best total in team history. CF Kyle Henley, a 14th-round pick in 2023, had three steals and now has 11 on the season. Henley, who is hitting .254, is tied for second in steals in the Florida State League. Last year, he stole 36 bases in 39 tries over 57 games.

(Photo of Scooter Gennett and Eugenio Suárez from 2017: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)

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