Sal Stewart was supposed to get Saturday off. Terry Francona had planned to rest him before the Cleveland Guardians altered their rotation, and Gavin Williams got an extra day. Instead, Stewart stayed in the lineup against left-hander Joey Cantillo, then stayed there again Sunday when Williams took the ball for Cleveland.
That mattered because Stewart had spent most of May trying to find the version of himself that made him the talk of baseball in March and April. He opened the 2026 season with a.281/.373/.570 line, nine home runs, 29 RBI and a 154 wRC+ over the first month, then saw his production fall to.175/.268/.254 with a 43 wRC+ after the calendar flipped. The Reds, who hit.238/.313/.399 in May and went 4-14, needed something from the middle of the order whether the rest from Francona ever came or not.
Stewart did not do much Saturday in the box score, finishing 0-for-2 with two walks. One of those walks came with the bases loaded and drove in a run. It was not the loudest answer to a slump, but it kept him involved in the game and showed why Francona kept his name in the lineup even after originally lining up a day off.
On Sunday, Francona went back to Stewart at third base against Williams, and Stewart came through with a 2-for-3 day and another walk. The two-game stretch did not erase what happened in May, but it was the kind of weekend the Reds had been waiting for: a reminder that even while the offense has sagged, Stewart can still get on base, work counts and put the ball in play when the team needs it most.
The broader picture is hard to miss. Stewart won NL Rookie of the Month honors for March and April, then ran into the same offensive slowdown that has hit Cincinnati as a team. The challenge now is not whether he can flash for a weekend. It is whether the Reds can get the version of Stewart they saw in the season’s first month back soon enough to help pull them out of a May that has already left them behind.
