The Cincinnati Reds sent the burgeoning young ace of the Milwaukee Brewers to an early shower in the Bottom of the 2nd inning in Friday night’s series opener, eschewing his elite 101 mph heat and sending batter after batter to the plate hunting singles.
They surged to an 8-1 lead in front of a rockin’ crowd at Great American Ball Park, doing so in their black City Connect uniforms and having a whale of a time in the process. The Apple TV+ broadcast was miserable, per usual, so we missed out on knowing what John, Chris, and Barry would have said about it, but my best guess is they’d have been pretty damn giddy about the entire affair.
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The Reds were 6 games over .500 and a half-game out of the final Wild Card spot in the National League playoff chase, and were closing that game out away from moving to a season-best 7 games over. The New York Mets were poised to collapse (again) at the hands of the Seattle Mariners on Friday, while Cincinnati’s onslaught was primed to end Milwaukee’s brilliant 12-game win streak in its tracks.
It was 8-1 when I decided it was time to grab some dinner. I ordered my usual from the excellent ramen joint about a 5 minute bike ride down the road, and cruised over immediately to pick it up. Before I had the chance to slurp the first face-melting bite, the game was tied 8-8 and every last breath of air had been sucked out of GABP, out of my living room, out of your living room.
Milwaukee silenced the upstart Reds in vintage fashion on the back of Christian Yelich, the guy who has perhaps tormented this franchise more than any other over the last decade. He homered twice, Milwaukee’s bullpen cleaned up where Jacob Misiorowski could not, and the final 23 Reds who came to the plate were retired in a row.
All that on a day where Chase Burns, Cincinnati’s own Misiorowski, was placed on the 15-day IL with a flexor strain in that billion dollar right arm of his.
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I know Terry Francona is the kind of manager who’ll be able to wake up this morning with little lingering memory of Friday’s debacle. The New York Yankees thudded the Boston Red Sox 19-8 to go up 3-0 in the 2004 American League Championship Series, after all. The hope around these parts now, though, is that this Reds group can find a way to flush Friday down the toilet and emerge ready to mash again unscathed on Saturday.
It’s quite the test for this club that’s trying to carve out its own identity as something other than missed the playoffs for the umpteenth season out of umpteen. The beauty of baseball, though, is that we only need wait less than 24 hours to find out.
Reds/Brewers picks right back up tonight at 6:40 PM ET with Zack Littell on the bump, and we’ll see for ourselves how resilient this club really is.