The 1995 Cincinnati Reds: Davey Johnson’s NL Central Champs
The Cincinnati Reds came into 1995 with the status of a winning franchise. They had gone wire-to-wire to win the World Series in 1990 and contended again in 1992. A brief slippage in ’93 led to the hiring of Davey Johnson as manager and immediate results followed. The Reds were leading the pack in the newly formed NL Central in 1994 when an August strike cut the season short. That momentum rolled into 1995, as Cincinnati ran away with the division and made a little noise in October.
LARKIN LEADS THE WAY
Barry Larkin was already a franchise icon, heading for the Hall of Fame at shortstop. 1995 was his career year. He had a stat line of .394 on-base percentage/.492 slugging percentage, stole 51 bases, and scored 98 runs. Combined with his usual impeccable defense and leadership, it got Barry the 1995 NL MVP award.
Reggie Sanders had a big year in rightfield, with a .397/549 stat line. A combination of power and speed, Sanders hit 28 homers, stole 36 bases, drove in 99 runs, and scored 91. On the other side of the outfield in left, Ron Gant’s numbers read .386/.554 and 28 home runs.
Larkin, Sanders, and Gant were the stars, but there were steady performers working in support. First baseman Hal Morris slugged .451. Bret Boone at second base and Jeff Branson at third were steady contributors. A catching platoon of Benito Santiago and Ed Taubensee was productive for both. And the Reds finished second in the National League for runs scored.
SCHOUREK, SMILEY & SUMMER HELP
Cincinnati’s rotation was top-heavy, built around Pete Schourek and John Smiley. Schourek was brilliant in 1995, winning 18 games with a 3.22 ERA and finishing second in the NL Cy Young voting. Smiley added 12 wins with an ERA of 3.46. These ERA numbers are steady in any context, but particularly in 1995 when offensive production was beginning to explode across the league.
Even so, the Reds needed depth. In late July, the front office made a couple of key moves. A six-player deal with the San Francisco Giants sacrificed athleticism–including Deion Sanders–but the return package included starting pitchers in Dave Burba and Mark Portugal. David Wells was signed as a free agent. All three pitchers finished with ERAs in the 3s over the rest of the season.
Jeff Brantley anchored Johnson’s bullpen, saving 28 games with a 2.82 ERA. Xavier Hernandez and Hector Carrasco weren’t dominant in setup, but with ERAs in the 4s, they were good enough.
Collectively, it was all good enough for the Reds to finish fourth in the National League for staff ERA.
FINDING THEIR FOOTING
The season got off to a rough start for Major League Baseball as a whole—the strike lingered into spring training and a shortened 144-game schedule didn’t begin until late April. Cincinnati followed suit, taking a little time to find their footing. The Reds dropped their first two games to the Chicago Cubs and opened the season 1-7.
Winning seven of nine games, including a series win at the heavyweight Atlanta Braves helped right the ship. After getting another series win over a playoff-bound team, the Colorado Rockies, Cincy was back to .500. They went on to sweep the Houston Astros—a National League team until 2013 and the Reds’ primary challenger in the NL Central a year ago.
By Memorial Day, Cincinnati had their footing, with an 18-11 record. They were one game behind Chicago, with Houston five games off the pace.
A STATEMENT IN HOUSTON
After winning six of nine out of the holiday weekend, the Reds went on the road to play four against the Astros. They quickly fell behind 3-0 in the Thursday opener. But they chipped to within 3-2 by the seventh inning. Then a rally keyed by four singles and two sacrifices rang up three runs, and Cincinnati ultimately closed out a 6-3 win.
There was more late inning action on Friday night in the old Houston Astrodome. Schourek pitched well, but the Reds were still down 2-1 in the seventh. Branson’s RBI single tied it. Gant homered in the eighth for the lead. Backup outfielder Thomas Howard provided insurance in the ninth with a two-run triple. Cincy won 5-2.
Smiley took the ball on Saturday night. Both offenses moved early, and the Reds led 3-2 after the fourth. Both pitchers settled in, and that was where the game ended.
In Sunday afternoon’s finale backup infielder Mark Lewis had a four-hit game and it was 2-2 going into extra innings. In the 10th, Gant delivered again, with a go-ahead home run. Brantley pitched the final two frames to get the win.
Cincinnati had another sweep of Houston. The Reds went on to play steady baseball for the rest of the early part of summer, going 15-11 into the All-Star break. They were 43-25, five games ahead of the Astros and up 6 ½ on the Cubs.
BLOWING IT OPEN
The Reds dealt with Chicago quickly. The swept three games in Wrigley out of the break. When the Cubbies came to old Riverfront Stadium a week later, Cincinnati swept them again. Chicago was effectively finished as a threat in the division.
But there was still Houston. After losing five of seven in a sequence against the NL West, including the playoff-bound Los Angeles Dodgers, the Reds saw their lead over the Astros chopped down to 3 ½ games by the end of July. They responded by winning 10 of 16 to open August, a period that coincided with some slippage by the Astros. The margin was back out to seven games when Houston visited Cincinnati on August 18.
The July moves to get starting pitching paid off in spades over this weekend. Wells started Friday night’s opener and gave Johnson six good innings. Gant had two hits, including a home run and three RBIs. The Reds won 8-3.
On Saturday night, the top of the order—Larkin, Morris, and Gant—combined for seven hits. Burba tossed a complete-game two-hitter and Cincy coasted to an 8-0 win.
Just winning the first two games meant the Reds had done what they needed to do in this series, but they still put their foot down on Sunday afternoon. Portugal worked seven strong innings. Larkin delivered three hits and homered. Gant homered and drove in five runs. Centerfielder Darren Lewis added three more hits. An 11-4 rout completed the sweep.
THE FIRST NL CENTRAL CROWN
Cincinnati was soaring, now ten games clear in the NL Central. While saying the race was “over” is probably a little much, given that this summer saw the Seattle Mariners wipe out a larger August deficit in the NL West. But we can say that the NL Central never again resembled a race.
It was September 22, a Friday night in Philadelphia, that had the Reds’ magic number down to one. Smiley pitched well, but Cincy still trailed 2-1 in the ninth. They loaded the bases with one out. Boone lined a double to center, scoring two runs. Brantley sealed the deal in the ninth. When he got Gary Varsho to fly out to Gant in left, the Reds were the first official NL Central champs.
Their final record was 85-59—nine games clear of Houston, whom they ultimately took 12 of 13 games from. Cincinnati’s record was the second-best in the National League and the fourth-best in all of baseball.
SWEEPING LOS ANGELES
Prior to the formation of the NL Central in 1994, the Reds resided in the NL West. Over the quarter-century from 1969 to 1993, they developed a healthy rivalry with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Perhaps it was fitting that Cincy’s first playoff opponent in their Central Division era was against Los Angeles.
The Division Series was a wipeout. The Reds rolled to a three-game sweep. The combined final score was 22-7 and only one of the games was close. It woke up echoes of the early to-mid 1970s, when Cincinnati consistently came out on top against Los Angeles at the biggest moments.
READ THE GAME-BY-GAME NARRATIVE OF THE 1995 NLDS
ATLANTA’S PITCHING MACHINE
That set up a battle with the Braves, the NL’s best team, in the National League Championship Series, with recent pennants in 1991 and 1992 and consistently among the game’s elite throughout the 1990s and beyond.
Atlanta was renowned for its pitching, with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz anchoring the staff. And that pitching was very much on display in this series. Cincinnati scored just five runs for the entire series and lost in four straight.
DAVEY DEPARTS
In the offseason, Johnson was lured away by the Baltimore Orioles. The consequences for the Reds were immediate, as they fell out of contention for the next three seasons. They never produced sustained contention until Dusty Baker arrived in 2010 and produced a string of playoff trips. 1995 was an excellent year for baseball in Cincinnati and the beginning of a new era in the NL Central. But, unbeknownst at the time, it was also an ending.