Reds at half: 'We feel like we're a playoff team'

CINCINNATI -- How the Reds look at their chances for the rest of the 2019 season could almost be summed up from the contents of their big 8-6 victory over the first-place Cubs on Sunday at Great American Ball Park.

Starting pitching from Anthony DeSclafani was superb. The bullpen may have bent, but it didn’t break. The lineup took an early lead for DeSclafani on Eugenio Suárez's booming 457-foot three-run homer to the Pilot House boat above the center-field batter’s eye in the first inning and was able to add on key runs late.

• Box score

"It says a lot,” Reds manager David Bell said. “I'm really happy with the way the game went today. It could have gone either way. I think it shows a lot about our team and how they play as a team and the toughness that was shown there -- not only by the staff, but those big at-bats. It showed a lot of toughness. That's what it took today."

Sitting fifth in the National League Central standings, the Reds reached the 81-game halfway point with a 38-43 record. By taking two of three from the Cubs (45-39), they are 5 1/2 games out of first place. Next up are four games vs. the Brewers, who moved into a tie at the top of the division with a win over the Pirates. Cincinnati split a four-game series in Milwaukee last weekend.

All of the other last-place teams in the Major Leagues are way, way back by double-digit games.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re in fifth,” said Reds rookie center fielder Nick Senzel, who hit an important two-out, two-run single in the eighth inning to put the game away. “It’s pretty tight in our division. Some teams haven’t been playing as well as of late. This is a good time to cover some ground in the standings.”

With a 3.69 ERA, Cincinnati’s pitching staff is ranked second in the NL and third in the Majors. The club has a plus-39 run differential -- joining the Cubs as the only two teams in the division with a positive number. The Reds are the only sub-.500 team with a positive run differential.

The team could have a better record had it not been for 16 one-run losses. That’s one area to fix as the offense ranks 14 out of 15 NL teams with a .236 average.

“We all feel like we can win,” said DeSclafani, who pitched six scoreless innings with 73 pitches for the victory. “We’re a last-place team, but we’re in this thing. This division is so tight and we’re keeping it so close. Most of these games that we lost were by one run. I don’t think that’s a reason to be discouraged that we’re in last. These little bit of games haven’t gone our way early in the year, and that’s why are where we’re at. We feel like we’re a playoff team. We just have to fight back and creep up these standings slowly.”

To put in perspective how far the Reds have come in one season, they were 34-47 after 81 games in 2018 -- even after having their best month of that year as a club in June. They had a minus-43 run differential and sat 13 1/2 games out of first place on their way to finishing 67-95 and 28 1/2 games back.

Last season’s pitching staff owned the second-worst ERA overall at 4.63.

“We’ve still got 3 1/2 months to go,” said lefty reliever Amir Garrett, who has a 1.75 ERA in a team-leading 41 appearances. “We can run off 12 straight and people can go, ‘Oh, look at the Reds.’ There’s no doubt in our minds, and our coaches’ minds, that we can be as good as anybody. Look at what we’re doing.”

Besides winning three series over the Cubs this season, the Reds took two of three from the American League West-leading Astros from June 17-19 during a six-game winning streak.

“For us, to be at Game 81, and be in the thick of a situation where we know if we do play our best baseball moving forward in the second half, we're going to be right there,” Bell said. “That's all you can ask for as a team. Yeah, we're not where we want to be right now, we're continuing every day to find ways to get better. We're going to take that approach no matter where we are.”