The Big Pod Machine: Wade Miley vs. Hunter Greene
Reds Beat Reporter Gordon Wittenmyer and Sports Reporter Pat Brennan discuss the current state of the Cincinnati Reds.
CLEVELAND – If they loved Terry Francona in Cleveland on Monday, they might have started to hate him on Tuesday.
By the time left-hander Andrew Abbott got done slamming the door on the Guardians lineup, Francona’s new team had a fifth straight victory over Francona’s old team, this time by a 1-0 score on Tuesday night, behind Abbott’s first career complete game.
Abbott, who’s pitching like an All-Star this season, gave up just a one-out double to Gabriel Arias in the second and two-out single to Johnathan Rodriguez in the fifth, until a dramatic ninth inning, in the Reds’ first complete game since Hunter Greene’s rain-shortened, seven-inning gem in 2022.
It was the Reds’ first nine-inning complete game since Wade Miley’s no-hitter in 2021.
“Lefty,” said Abbott (6-1), who lowered his season ERA to 1.87.
The Reds’ sixth 1-0 decision of the season (2-4 in those games) got especially high pressured for Abbott in the ninth after he walked the leadoff man, then went 3-0 on David Fry with Cleveland star Jose Ramirez on deck.
He worked the count back to full, then got Fry on a double play.
“Giant exhale,” said Abbott, who was pitching in the ninth inning for the first time in 57 career starts.
Ramirez followed with a single before Carlos Santana drove a long fly to the gap that left fielder Will Benson gloved near the wall for the final out.
“He’s been incredible,” said right fielder Jake Fraley, who made one of the Reds’ best catches of the year in the seventh on a full-extension dive to rob Ramirez of a leadoff extra-base hit. “He’s been spot-on with location, all his pitches, keeping us in ballgames, winning us ballgames – it’s been impressive.”
Francona, who improved to 5-0 against the Guardians in his first stop after 11 years in Cleveland and a year-long “retirement,” said Fraley’s catch saved a certain triple “because he left his feet, and it’s Jose running.
“That play was one of the best plays you’ll ever see,” the manager said.
Fraley called his catch the second best of his career, to the extra-inning home run-robbery he pulled off in Detroit as a rookie for Seattle.
“I didn’t think he had a chance of catching it,” said Spencer Steer, who drove in the game’s only run with a single in the fifth. “Just feels like he came out of nowhere and made a heck of a play.”
Center fielder TJ Friedl, who made a game-saving home run robbery on the final play of last week’s win over the Brewers, added another web gem in the fourth to rob Fry of extra bases with a wall-banging catch.
The pitching-and-defense look for the Reds on this night amounted to a role reversal with the typically crisp, often spectacular Guardians.
On the other hand, Abbott has been pitching a lot like this in seven of his last eight starts, beginning in May.
He has a 1.32 ERA since the start of May. The Reds are 8-3 in his starts this season.
“Seems like every time he goes out there, he gives us a chance to win,” Steer said. “I think the whole pitching staff as a whole has done a great job this year. I know the offense has been a little inconsistent. But they’ve kept us in every ballgame. Especially when Abbott’s out there, I feel we have a good chance.”
Cincinnati Reds Andrew Abbott Cleveland Guardians Terry Francona Ohio Cup
Cincinnati Reds LHP Andrew Abbott pitched the Reds’ first complete-game shutout since 2022 and first 9-inning CG shutout since 2021.
Until the ninth, the only other runner he allowed besides the two hits reached on a one-out throwing error by shortstop Elly De La Cruz in the eighth. But Abbott stranded the runner at second with a fly to left and strikeout to end the inning.
“It kind of had that feel of a no-hitter or a perfect game,” Fraley said, “that feeling that every pitch matters. You’ve got to stay locked in above and beyond.”
With 90 pitches expended through eight innings, Abbott had barely broken a sweat, and Francona let his hottest pitcher eat.
“I just came in after the eighth and he’s like, ‘How do you feel,’ ” Abbott said. “I said, ‘I’m good. I’ll go back out.’ “
“He felt good. It wasn’t terribly hot or anything like that. He was efficient,” Francona said. “I’m not dying to take guys out. I like when they wanna keep pitching.”
But Abbott came within what might have been a fourth ball to Fry of being pulled for closer Emilio Pagán, who was warming in the bullpen.
“We were getting there,” Francona said. “I thought he deserved to win his own game. Saying that, if you walk the first couple guys, that’s a hard way to leave a guy in there. But I thought the double play gave him a second wind.
“And he kind of reeled it in.”
The Reds’ fifth straight victory clinched a second straight series win and put them in position to sweep the season series from Cleveland for the first time ever, just ahead of a three-game weekend date in Detroit with MLB’s top team.
It’s the Reds’ third five-game winning streak this season.
Benson, who has played like the year’s Most Outstanding Player for this year’s Guardians-Reds Ohio Cup series scored the only run of the game after a leadoff double ahead of Steer’s single.
He’s 9-for-19 (.474) with four home runs, a walk and seven RBIs in the five games against the Guardians, the club that drafted him in the first round in 2016 and traded him to the Reds in February 2023.