The Big Pod Machine: Reflecting on Bristol and Hunter Greene’s pitching
Reds Beat Reporter Gordon Wittenmyer and Sports Reporter Pat Brennan discuss the current state of the Cincinnati Reds.
PITTSBURGH, PA. − The Cincinnati Reds just won’t go away in 2025. Whatever the stretch run in the 2025 MLB season brings, you can be sure Cincinnati will be making noise all the way to the end.
The job of taking a series split against the Pittsburgh Pirates wasn’t completed on Aug. 9, but the Reds certainly took a step in the right direction with just enough hitting and more effective pitching to avoid dropping a third consecutive game to the Pirates, and a fourth straight loss overall.
Just as they did on Aug. 8, the Reds on Aug. 9 took a 2-1 lead into the latter stages of their game against the Pirates. After letting the win slip away a night earlier, the Reds closed out the narrow-margin, 2-1 victory Aug. 9 at PNC Park.
For the second night in a row, Reds reliever Tony Santillan came on in the eighth inning to protect a 2-1 score. On Aug. 9, he did, bouncing back from the previous night’s two-run eighth that saw the Pirates steal a win.
Santillan made T.J. Friedl’s seventh-inning sacrifice fly to score Noelvi Marte stand up as the Reds moved to 61-57 and kept pace in the National League wild card race. Marte led off the inning with a double.
Reds starter Nick Martinez (10-9) came up big again for his club as he delivered seven innings of one-run baseball, allowing just four hits and a walk. He struck out four.
Cincinnati’s offense had been sparse all series against the Pirates. The Reds were 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position through three games in the four-game set, and went 0-for-8 on Aug. 9.
Pittsburgh took a 1-0 lead in the third inning on Tommy Pham’s sacrifice fly, but the Reds responded in the top half of the fourth on a play involving Pham.
Marte (3-for-4, RBI, run scored) laced a hit down the line into left field, where Pham took a route to the ball like it was going to kick off the side wall facing back toward the infield. Instead, the ball slid past the wall and all the way to the base of the foul pole. That allowed Spencer Steer to score from first.
Charged with protecting a two-run lead for the second night in a row, Santillan walked Pham and had to face Pittsburgh’s Bryan Reynolds in the eighth, but forced Reynolds into a groundout.
In the ninth inning, Reds’ closer Emilio Pagán walked the leadoff hitter but shut the door on the Pirates and earned in 25th save in 28 opportunities.
The Reds on Aug. 10 will go for a split of the four-game series with Pittsburgh at PNC Park.