That’s more like the Nick Martinez that the Cincinnati Reds and their fans want to see.
The Reds opened a four-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals with a 3-1 win on April 28 at Great American Ball Park before a crowd of 15,147. Martinez allowed just one run in the first inning, and it was due in part to left fielder Gavin Lux losing track of the ball in the sun.
Lux lost the flight of the ball in the setting sun and had a Nolan Arenado fly ball pass over him, hitting halfway up the wall. Martinez said he thought the ball would carry over the fence, and it’s not certain Lux could have made the play, although he criticized himself after for not doing so.
In any event, the Arenado hit allowed Lars Nootbaar, who led off the game with a double, to score with two outs in the top of the first.
From that point on, Martinez (1-3) scattered three hits and two walks over five innings (three strikeouts). Martinez was relieved by Graham Ashcraft (one inning, three strikeouts), Tony Santillan (one inning, one strikeout), and Emilio Pagán (one inning, eighth save).
The win saw the Reds improve to 16-13, and a season-best three games over the .500 mark. The Cardinals, whose starter Andre Pallante (2-2) picked up the loss, fell to 12-17. Cincinnati also won its fifth game in a row, which was tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for the longest winning streak in baseball.
“(The win) feels great,” Martinez said. “Haven’t been able to shut the door on my outings this year and today was a great game for that.”
Offensively, the Reds pulled even with St. Louis in the third inning on catcher Jose Trevino’s 409-foot solo home run to left-center field. Trevino was 1-for-3 in the game.
An inning later, Noelvi Marte’s gapper to the left-center field wall gave him a triple and allowed Lux to cross home plate for a 2-1 Reds lead.
Marte was 1-for-2 with two walks as his effective spell at the plate continued for another day.
Cincinnati tacked on in the bottom of the sixth inning. Austin Hays, who reached on a walk, motored all the way around from first base on a double by Lux, who was 3-for-4, extended his personal hitting streak to 12 games, and ended his night with a .352 batting average on the season.
Elly De La Cruz also stretched his hitting streak to 12 games when he slapped a double down the left field line in the first inning. According to Elias, Lux and De La Cruz are the first pair of Reds teammates with simultaneous hitting streaks of at least 12 games since Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto had streaks of 16 and 13 games on July 29, 2016, respectively.
The three runs was all the scoring the Reds bullpen retired all nine of the batters they faced. Including Martinez’s sixth inning, which featured a one-out walk followed by a double play, the Cardinals were held to one base runner and no hits over the last four innings.
In Martinez’s final inning of work, a Marte-to-McLain-to-Spencer Steer double play ended the frame. The play was one of several examples of effective Reds fielding on the night.
Cincinnati turned three double-plays in the contest, and Trevino popped up from behind home plate to get a force out at third base during a Cardinals rally in the top of the fifth inning. That rally − runners on first and second with no outs − was cut down by the Reds, and Francona said Trevino’s play “changes the whole game.”
McLain also flared a broken-bat single in the game, ending a career-worst 0-for-21 stretch at the plate.
“McLain’s had a rough stretch swinging the bat. He really played a good second base tonight,” Francona said.
Jake Fraley’s injury status
Minutes before first pitch on Monday, Jake Fraley was scratched from the starting lineup in favor of Blake Dunn. The cause for this was later announced as a right quadricep contusion, and Francona explained after the game that the injury originated in Denver.
Fraley hit a ball off of his quad Sunday at Coors Field. The impacted area swelled up, Francona said, and the team decided not to risk further injury after Fraley ran at around 80% strength on Monday at Great American Ball Park.