The Reds entered play on Thursday night 7.5 games back in the NL Central and 4.0 back for the second wild card spot with 54 games to play. The one glaring sign for optimism when looking at the Reds remaining schedule was they had 13 games left against the Pirates. That represented 24% of their final schedule. The team the Reds are chasing in the NL Central, the Brewers, have already played the Pirates 10 more times and only have 3 remaining contests.
Reds fans were quickly given an injection of hope in the first of the 13 contests.