Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

“Embarrassing”: Orioles Crushed by Reds, Brandon Hyde Doesn’t Hold Back

24-2!!!!!

Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

Easter Sunday! The Reds went looking with their baskets. Do you know what they came back with? Runs, runs, and more runs scoring the second-most by the team since 1900 in a 24-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards.

“Unfortunately, it’s embarrassing,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said after the game. “It’s not what you want to do on Easter Sunday in front of your home crowd. You want to compete.”

Brandon Hyde wanted “it to be over as fast as possible.”

It didn’t end quickly. Not even close.

A Red Basket Full of Runs

The Reds began hunting in the third inning and never looked back. Elly De La Cruz broke a 1–1 tie with a solo homer, and then the floodgates opened. The next four Reds reached base, Charlie Morton committed a throwing error, and Austin Wynns and TJ Friedl added more pain with an RBI single and a triple, respectively.

Morton didn’t survive the inning. His final line: 2 1/3 innings, seven runs, seven hits, and four walks, and he wasn’t alone in getting shelled.

Make it TWENTY runs for the @Reds 😳 pic.twitter.com/Mshweg3uJr
— MLB (@MLB) April 20, 2025

Cody Poteet, Cionel Pérez, Jorge Mateo, and Gary Sánchez all took turns pitching. None escaped clean. Even the position players weren’t spared: Mateo gave up five runs, Sánchez gave up four. The scoreboard looked more like a football game than a baseball one.

Record After Record

The Reds didn’t just win. They rewrote history books along the way:

24 runs: Second-most by the Reds in the modern era, behind only the 26 scored in 1911.
25 hits: Most by the team in a single game since 1999.
38 baserunners: A modern franchise record, including 11 walks.
15 hits with runners in scoring position: A new high since the stat began tracking in 1975.
78 total baserunners over the series: Most in a three-game set by the Reds since 1900.

Austin Wynns and Noelvi Marte are the first pair of Reds teammates since 1920 with 6+ RBI in the same game‼️ pic.twitter.com/AJWA6ik17t
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 20, 2025

Every Reds starter had a hit. Off the bench, even Blake Dunn joined the party. But it was Austin Wynns and Noelvi Marte who truly filled their Easter baskets: Wynns went 6-for-7 with six RBI, while Marte racked up seven RBI on a 5-for-7 day that included a grand slam. The duo became the first Reds teammates since 1920 to each record 6+ RBI in the same game.

Elly De La Cruz Does It All

Elly De La Cruz didn’t just go yard. In the second inning, with Baltimore threatening and a runner on second, he sprinted behind the second base bag and fully extended to rob Jackson Holliday of a hit, and the Orioles of a potential lead.

CINCINNATI REDS SHORTSTOP, ELLY DE LA CRUZ pic.twitter.com/mHebrYLNIL
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 20, 2025

“I see the ball, and I dove for it,” De La Cruz said. “It was hard, but it was important.”

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Catcher Austin Wynns summed it up best: “He’s a freak. He’s superhuman.”

An Ugly Easter in Baltimore

By the time the Reds were done, Baltimore fans had seen enough. Their team’s ERA ballooned to 6.11 for the rotation, worst in baseball. The full staff ERA? An equally painful 5.43, also MLB’s worst.

FINAL: Reds 24, Orioles 2
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 20, 2025

It was the most runs allowed by the Orioles since they gave up 30 to the Rangers in 2007, though, mercifully, they avoided matching the all-time low point of 36 runs allowed by the Louisville Colonels… back in 1897. Still, it was hard to find a silver lining on a day that turned so sour, so fast.

ALSO READ: Is Yoshinobu Yamamoto Already an Early Cy Young Favorite?

“We wanted to give the fans something better than that,” Hyde said.

Instead, the Reds stole Easter. And the Orioles were left staring at an empty basket.

Brandon Hyde

Orioles

Reds

Mohsin Baldiwala

mlb

Mohsin Baldiwala is a Master’s student in Journalism and freelance content producer who got hooked on baseball through Seinfeld’s hapless George Costanza. The same reason why he’s a Yankees fan. He writes about sports because he believes it can offer a brief escape from the world’s chaos. Even if that means enduring the heartbreak of the 2024 World Series.