And they lost, 6-5, on a two-out single by third-string catcher Yohel Pozo against Reds rookie pitcher Chase Petty, the last man standing in the Reds bullpen.<\/p>\n
Petty was making only his fourth MLB appearance. He hit Nolan Arenado with a pitch, then got two pop-ups before Pozo singled.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Very tough situation for him,\u201d Reds manager Tito Francona said to media at the game. \u201cTo his credit, he hit Arenado, but then he got the two pop-ups and you\u2019re thinking, \u2018We got a chance here. In my opinion, it was an unfair spot for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a painful, painful setback for the Reds because they took a 5-2 lead into the eighth inning and relief pitcher Tony Santillan retired the first two Cardinals.<\/p>\n
Then he gave up four straight hits and it was 5-4 with runners on third and first. Emilio Pagan came on to strike out Willson Contreras.<\/p>\n
So all the Reds needed was three outs in the ninth to secure a hard-fought win. It didn\u2019t happen. St. Louis veteran Nolan Arenado led the ninth with a game-tying home run and the game sped into extra innings.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, Scott Barlow escaped a bases-loaded with no outs in the 10th, but the Reds had a runner on third with no outs in the 11th and couldn\u2019t score.<\/p>\n
Pozo, who was living in his car with his wife and small child, when the Cardinals signed him, entered the game in the top of the 11th after catcher Pedro Pages was pinch-run for in the 10th.<\/p>\n
So the Cardinals extended their winning streak to five games and the Reds fell for the third straight time.<\/p>\n
For a brief period, it looked as if Elly De La Cruz had won the game for the Reds.<\/p>\n
He got sick in the near 100-degree heat and then nearly made the Cardinals sick.<\/p>\n
After falling to his knees and vomiting at his shortstop position in the fourth inning, De La Cruz unknotted a tie in the seventh inning that nearly landed in the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n
The 435-foot home run lifted the Reds to a 2-2 lead, <\/p>\n
De La Cruz\u2019s sickness occurred in the third inning when he hit a ball into the right center gap and legged it into a triple.<\/p>\n
And when the throw to third eluded third baseman Nolan Arenado, De La Cruz scrambled to his feet and fled homeward.<\/p>\n
But pitcher Sonny Gray backed up the play and threw De La Cruz out at home.<\/p>\n
But the 360-foot trip around the bases in the furnace-like heat took it out of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI watched him and he drank a bunch of water,\u201d said Francona. \u201cA bunch. Then he went right out and got rid of it,\u201d he said to reporters. <\/p>\n
The Cardinals led 2-1 when the seventh inning began. Relief pitcher Steve Matz walked pinch-hitter Connor Joe on a full count. Matt McLain bounced a ground rule double down the left field line, his third hit on a day that extended his hitting streak to nine games.<\/p>\n
With runners on third and second, Gavin Lux grounded to shortstop, scoring Joe to tie it, 2-2.<\/p>\n
The Cardinals preferred to face the switch-hitting De La Cruz from the right side so manager Oliver Marmol permitted the left-handed Matz to stay in the game.<\/p>\n
Matz offered an 83 miles an hour change-up on the first pitch and De La Cruz unloaded 17th home run to give the Reds a 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n
It was a Bullpen Day for the Reds and left-hander Brent Suter started and gave up a two-run home run to Alec Burleson in the first inning.<\/p>\n
The Reds faced former teammate Sonny Gray, 7-2 overall and 5-1 in home games. And the Cardinals were 8-1 in the nine home games he started.<\/p>\n
He struggled for five innings trying to find his command, but the Reds could only scrape one run off him.<\/p>\n
They had three hits in the third inning but scored just once. McLain led the inning with a single and took third on TJ Friedl\u2019s single.<\/p>\n
But Gavin Lux hit into a double play that scored McLain to cut the St. Louis lead to 2-1. That\u2019s when De La Cruz made his fateful tour on the basepaths that ended the inning.<\/p>\n
The Reds added what looked as if to be a big, big run in the eighth on Spencer Steer\u2019s leadoff triple and Will Benson\u2019s sacrifice fly to make it 5-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started to unravel and we got to Tony (Santillan) and Emilio (Pagan) and thought we would be OK,\u201d said Francona. \u201cThat\u2019s the way this game is sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
It started falling apart for the Reds in the eighth. Santillan retired the first two Cardinals then gave up four straight hits and two runs to slice Cincinnati\u2019s lead to 5-4.<\/p>\n
And they had the potential tying run on third and go-ahead run on first. Francona brought in closer Emilio Pagan to face Willson Contreras and Pagan struck him out.<\/p>\n
Then came Arenado\u2019s home run and Pozo\u2019s walk-off hit as the Reds fell to 1-and-6 in extra inning games and 8-11 in one-run games. And it was their 13th blown lead, the most devastating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And they lost, 6-5, on a two-out single by third-string catcher Yohel Pozo against Reds rookie pitcher Chase…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[537,5,21602,160,2044,6095,4,1082,3892,21603,185,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-122112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bengals-football","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-mens-sports","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-pro-sports","17":"tag-professional-football","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-st-louis","20":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","21":"tag-stlouis","22":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114725471318222267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}