How Cincinnati Reds might find slump buster in defending NL-champion Arizona Diamondbacks

Few things hit as hard last year for some of these Cincinnati Reds as watching the Arizona Diamondbacks advance to the World Series after eliminating the Reds from contention with one game left in the season.

Seven months later, they’re searching desperately for anything to hit that hard as they see the Diamondbacks for the first time this year, starting Tuesday at Great American Ball Park.

Anything to hit at all.

“For some of us that were here last year, it felt that it could have been us instead of them,” said second baseman Jonathan India, one of the rare productive Reds in the lineup the last two weeks.

Some returning players this spring said that helped drive them during their winter work and into this season.

But even the sight of Corbin Carroll’s NL champs can’t obscure the reality of their worst collective hitting slump since last year’s 7-15 start as they lug a five-game losing streak and MLB’s worst team batting average into Tuesday’s series opener.

“It’s just another good team, another good opportunity for us to size ourselves up and see where we’re at,” left fielder Spencer Steer said. “We just need to string some good games together here. It’s a long season, but we want to turn this thing around sooner rather than later.”

The Reds have fallen under .500 for the first time since the middle of last June’s 12-game winning streak — the offensive energy crackling during that streak a long-distant memory.

“Absolutely it puts pressure (on you),” right fielder Jake Fraley said of a slump that includes just single runs in each of the past ninth innings during an otherwise scoreless 31-inning stretch. “That’s the nature of the game. You have pressure because you care”

Said India: “It’s still early in the year. We just need to go play our brand of baseball and enjoy it.”

The Reds might have three things worth considering to maybe ease some of that pressure as they open this series:

• Their starting pitching has performed well even during the offensive slump, including a collective 2.58 ERA over the past three series.

• They’re getting help on the roster this week in the form of Opening Day starter Frankie Montas returning from a bruised forearm to start Tuesday and possibly centerfielder and lineup catalyst TJ Friedl back from a wrist injury this week (a decision was pending Monday).

• And the Diamondbacks haven’t been exactly lighting the baseball world on fire themselves the last two weeks, losing seven of 10 with one or no runs scored in six of the losses — albeit, their own roster getting a boost Tuesday with closer Paul Sewald (oblique) and centerfielder Alek Thomas (hamstring) expected back from the IL.

“The pitching’s been incredible. That’s a positive for us,” India said. “They’re still going strong for us, and that’s what we need. We need pitching, defense and hitting to win these games.

“The hitting side of our team is going to come around. I know it will,” he said, adding that hitting around the league has been down (lowest league average so far in more than 50 years). It’s going to click.”

And if it does this week, enough to win their first series since sweeping the Angels April 19-21, then maybe that other little motivator comes into play against the playoff-minded NL opponent: the importance of taking the season series, like the Reds did against the DBacks last year.

Since the playoff field expanded in 2022, ties for playoff berths are no longer played off on the field. Tiebreaker formulas are used. And the first one is head-to-head results.

The Reds have one season series in the bank so far, having beaten the Phillies four of seven games.

“We talked about that with the Phillies last week,” catcher Luke Maile said. “You never know how these things are going to stack up at the end. You obviously want to win a series no matter who it’s against, but the way the playoffs have shaken out — what can happen if you just get in — it’s definitely important to hold some of those tiebreakers.”

Steer said that “huge” factor is second to the bigger motivation this week.

“Just for us as a team,” he said, “team morale, to get this thing turned around and get going.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Will defending NL-champ Diamondbacks be Cincinnati Reds slump busters?