It was a wild one in Goodyear Ballpark on Thursday afternoon as ESPN broadcast a ridiculous 14-13 victory by the Cincinnati Reds over the Los Angeles Dodgers that featured a combined 10 (!) homers between the two clubs.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for the Reds, they came out victorious in this game that ultimately means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it sure was entertaining in the process.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati\u2019s offense got off to a rockin\u2019 start against LA lefty Cole Irvin. Elly De La Cruz ripped a 438 foot blast off Irvin in the Bottom of the 1st to get the Reds on the board (from the right side of the plate!), and Will Benson followed later that inning with a 2-run blast of his own (off a lefty!).<\/p>\n
Elly\u2019s homer came off the bat at 114.5 mph. Not bad for his less-productive side of the plate.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati\u2019s offense was potent throughout, with Nate Lowe (3-run tater), Matt McLain (4th tater of the spring already), and eventually Rece Hinds (a 3-run walk-off in the Bottom of the 9th) all eventually adding to the tally.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s Hinds\u2019 laser down the LF line to flip a 13-11 defecit to the final 14-13 margin.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati also managed to walk more times (6) than they struck out on the day (5), and I\u2019ll wager that each and every time the Reds hit as many homers as they have Ks will end up being a very, very good day for them going forward.<\/p>\n
The pitching today\u2026woof!<\/p>\n
Shoutout to Julian Aguiar, at least, who fanned 4 against nary a walk while allowing just a lone earned run (on a solo dinger) in 2.0 IP to get the late win. Hagen Danner, to his credit, also pitched a scoreless, perfect frame.<\/p>\n
Everyone else, though got rocked through and through, and that includes projected closer Emilio Pag\u00e1n. Pag\u00e1n was tagged for 4 ER on 4 H in his lone frame, and that included an ugly trio of homers allowed. Meanwhile, top projected setup man Tony Santillan wasn\u2019t much better as he allowed 3 ER on a hit and 3 walks while also yielding a homer before being pulled having recorded just a pair of outs.<\/p>\n
The miserable spring for Connor Phillips continued too, unfortunately, as he once again had serious issues finding the zone. He was tagged for 3 ER on 2 H and 2 BB in his IP while recording nary a K, and his spring ERA now sits at 14.73.<\/p>\n
Adding insult to injury was the way the pitching staff got knocked around. Old friends Santiago Espinal and Nick Senzel combined for 3 homers and 7 ribbies off Reds pitching on the day, though at least the arms kept Matt McLain\u2019s brother Sean from socking one into the stands.<\/p>\n
The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game<\/p>\n
That goes to Sean\u2019s big brother Matt, who went 3 for 3 with a homer, 3 runs scored, and a pair of ribbies to push his Cactus League OPS up to a ridiculous 2.112 so far.<\/p>\n
Hat tip to Elly (2 for 3, 2 R, 2 RBI, HR) and Lowe (2 for 3, R, 3 RBI, HR) for equally excellent play.<\/p>\n
Andrew Abbott will take the mound on Friday on the road in Scottsdale as the Reds take on the San Francisco Giants. First pitch is set for the usual 3:05 PM ET, though this one sadly won\u2019t be televised. You will be able to listen in through 700 WLW\u2019s feed, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a wild one in Goodyear Ballpark on Thursday afternoon as ESPN broadcast a ridiculous 14-13 victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,79083,4259,4,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-608865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-reds","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds-scores","12":"tag-cincinnatireds","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-reds"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116179800199510433","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608865","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=608865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}