CINCINNATI — It’s been 30 years since the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds, two of the oldest teams in Major League Baseball, faced off regularly as members of the same division.
While realignment after the 1993 season made geographical sense by taking both out of the National League West, sending Atlanta to the East and Cincinnati to the Central, it also put on the back burner a rivalry that had its moments over the decades.
The current clubs are doing their part to turn the heat up a notch again.
They’ll head into Sunday for the sixth and final Atlanta-Cincinnati meeting of the regular season having played five games that were all decided by a run, the latest a 7-6 win for the Braves on Saturday afternoon that ended the Reds’ bid for the club’s first 13-game winning streak in a century.
Down three runs entering the bottom of the ninth at Great American Ball Park, the Reds got one-out solo homers from Jake Fraley and Will Benson off Raisel Iglesias, but the Atlanta closer struck out Matt McLain and Jonathan India to end a slugfest in which each team hit four home runs.