The Cincinnati Reds are back to .500, but staying above that threshold and contending in a meaningful way will have to involve some difficult series in the near future. The Reds ascended to the .500 mark again with a three-game sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks,

The Reds didn’t sweep the Arizona Diamondbacks this weekend because players were consistently on the top step of the dugout. They won the series because of the strong return from Christian Encarnacion-Strand, some clutch hits from Matt McLain and very good work from the bullpen.