As the Cincinnati Reds mercifully open their season-ending three-game series against the Pirates tonight at 6:40 Eastern time at Great American Ball Park, pretty much everyone is glad that this forgettable season is coming to an end.
It’s the fourth straight season with 90-plus losses, a team record. There are some positive signs buried in the avalanche of disappointments, but after year four of the “rebuild,” there is no confidence that this team is closer to turning things around than when the rebuild began in 2015.
In the game previews of this three-game season-ending series, we’ll focus on what we know and what we have learned about the Reds in this fright show of a season.