Looking Back | The 1990 Cincinnati Reds

The 1990 Cincinnati Reds shocked the baseball world back in 1990 by upsetting the Oakland As who were the defending champions from 1989. The Reds were definitely not expected to go to the World Series in 1990.

The Reds were a big surprise not the Big Red Machine of the 1970s featuring players like Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Johnny Bench or Ken Griffey Sr. These Reds had players like Chris Sabo, Mariano Duncan, Paul O'Neil, Eric Davis and Barry Larkin.

The strength of the team was the bullpen featuring pitchers like Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton and Randy Myers known as the Nasty Boys. The team finished with a 91-71 record. In 1989 the Reds finished 75-87 so it displayed the shocking turnaround. The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in 6 games in the NLCS then advanced to the World Series to face the defending champion Oakland As and won in a sweep: 4-0. Pitcher Jose Rijo was the MVP of the World Series in the 1990 World Series.

It was one of the most shocking upsets in World Series history because the Oakland As were loaded with Rickey Henderson, Jose Conseco, Mark McGwire, Dave Stewart and company. The amazing thing about the Cincinnati Reds of 1990 was that this was not a great team just a team that came out of nowhere to shock the baseball world. The same script would repeat itself when in 1991, the Minnesota Twins won the World Series going from worst to first alongside the Atlanta Braves who were dealing with the same result. Both teams were in last place in 1990.

The other standout about the 1990 Cincinnati Reds was that no player had 90 RBIS. Also no player had 200 hits including no player had scored 100 runs. There is more amazing stats to this team because no player hit 30 home runs or far as pitching is concerned no pitcher won or recorded more than 15 wins including no pitcher recorded 200 strikeouts. Despite these stats the Cincinnati Reds of 1990 had a postseason record of 8-2.