It’s fair to call the Cincinnati Reds the surprise team of the National League a month into the season. After entering the year without an abundance of household names, the Reds are tied for second in the majors with 18 wins.

Cincinnati will search for its 10th win in 12 tries on Sunday afternoon in the series finale against the visiting Detroit Tigers.

Despite a major-league-worst .213 batting average, the Reds have scored nine runs apiece in back-to-back wins over the Tigers and are averaging 7.3 runs across their last six outings. At .303, Sal Stewart is the only Cincinnati player hitting .300 or better.

Instead of a flashy centerpiece, the Reds have tried to break down the opposing pitching staff using 1-9 in the batting order.

“When you get this group of guys with the character we have and the way we play the game, good things will happen,” Reds second baseman Matt McLain said. “We play the game hard every single day.”

Stewart and TJ Friedl each had three hits and a homer in the Reds’ 9-2 series-clinching win on Saturday.

On the mound for the upstart club, Rhett Lowder (3-1, 3.10 ERA) will look to continue his impressive start to the year. After missing all of last season with multiple injuries, Lowder leads the Reds with three wins. The 24-year-old right-hander has won consecutive starts, and he allowed just one run across six innings in a 6-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday.

“He gave us six innings — that was really impressive,” Cincinnati manager Terry Francona said. “He just started to throw the ball more where he wanted to.”

Lowder, selected seventh overall pick in the 2023 draft out of Wake Forest, is slated to make just the 12th start of his career and first against the Tigers.

Detroit entered the interleague set winners in 10 of its previous 13 but has seen its pitching staff falter in a pair of games at Great American Ball Park. After falling on Nathaniel Lowe’s walk-off homer to lose 9-8 on Friday, the Tigers got just two innings out of starting pitcher Jack Flaherty in Game 2.

Manager A.J. Hinch and company will seek to fare much better in the early innings on Sunday in hopes of salvaging the series.

“(Cincinnati) put the ball in play twice in the first inning and scored four runs,” Hinch said. “That’s pretty much the tone that was set. It was rough to recover from.”

Keider Montero (1-2, 3.68 ERA) will make his fifth start of the year for Detroit. Montero, 25, will appear on the road for the first time this season. Last time out, he yielded three earned runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings Tuesday in a 12-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Montero has faced the Reds once, throwing five innings of two-run ball in an 11-5 win on June 13, 2025.

At the plate, Spencer Torkelson has homered in four straight games, becoming the first Detroit player to accomplish the feat since Ian Kinsler in May 2016. Torkelson can match the franchise record of five shared by multiple Tigers, most recently Marcus Thames in June 2008.

–Field Level Media