Detroit Tigers at Cincinnati Reds: Final Score & Recap

The Cincinnati Reds handled the Detroit Tigers convincingly at Great American Ball Park on April 25, 2026, winning 9-2 behind a decisive early offensive burst that effectively ended the contest before it began. The DiamondIQ model entered the game with a 70% home win probability for Cincinnati, and that figure climbed steadily toward its final reading of 100% as the Reds piled up runs in the opening frames against Tigers starter Jack Flaherty.

The game turned in the first two innings, when Cincinnati scored six of its nine runs against Flaherty. Sal Stewart delivered the opening blow with a home run in the bottom of the first, a swing that shifted win probability by 5.5 percentage points. The Reds then added two more in the second, highlighted by Elly De La Cruz's home run off Flaherty, the single biggest win-probability swing of the game at plus 7.5 points. A Nathaniel Lowe groundout in that same inning added another 4.8 points of win probability to Cincinnati's ledger, reflecting how thoroughly Detroit's defense had broken down in sequence. The Tigers managed only a brief interruption, with Spencer Torkelson hitting a solo home run off Brady Singer in the fourth worth 4.5 points, but Detroit never threatened to close the gap.

Among individual performers, De La Cruz finished as the game's top batter by WPA at plus 8.2%, pairing that with a 2.5 RE24 mark. Stewart was close behind at plus 7.1% WPA and led all position players with a 3.0 RE24. Detroit outfielder Kerry Carpenter generated a curious plus 7.0% WPA entry on a first-inning flyout, reflecting how the DiamondIQ model recalibrated probabilities against the run environment at that moment, though his minus 0.4 RE24 told the more intuitive story. On the mound, Connor Phillips led Cincinnati's pitching staff with plus 3.7% WPA, followed by Brady Singer at plus 3.1% and Burch Smith at plus 2.5%, as the model leaned toward the Reds' rotation holding Detroit's lineup to just two runs on ten hits.