What a baseball team absolutely does not want to do is spot pitcher Paul Skenes a three-run lead before he even walks to the mound.<\/p>\n
It is a certain recipe for a proverbial baseball death.<\/p>\n
That was the unfortunate scenario for Andrew Abbott and the Cincinnati Reds Wednesday afternoon in Great American Ball Park.<\/p>\n
Abbott gave up a three-run home run in the first inning to Oneil Cruz to provide Skenes with a three-run lead. Then Skenes, the National League Cy Young winner, took it from there as the Pittsburgh Pirates buried the Reds, 8-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe left a hanging breaking ball to a guy who really feels good about himself right now,\u201d said Reds managaer Tito Francona told reporters after the game, referring to Cruz\u2019s home run.<\/p>\n
Skenes pitched three scoreless and hitless innings to start the game and stretch his scoreless streak against the Reds to 31 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Skenes on the mound, you hate to give them anything early because you know you are going to have to fight for everything you can get,\u201d said Francona.<\/p>\n
The Reds finally scored a run against him in the fourth on a single by Elly De La Cruz and a double by designated hitter Nathaniel Lowe to cut the lead to 3-1.<\/p>\n
Skenes left after five innings with a line of one run, three hits, two walks and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n
The multi-talented righthander is 5-0 in six starts against the Reds and has given up two earned runs in 34 innings for a 0.52 earned run average.<\/p>\n
Abbott retired the first two Pirates in the first on weak ground balls, but Bryan Reynolds singled, Marcell Ozuna walked and Cruz unloaded a 407-foot blast into the right field sun deck.<\/p>\n
It was his third home run of the series, won by the Pirates two games to one, and his ninth homer in 19 games in GABP.<\/p>\n
Abbott righted himself after that and retired 14 of the next 15 hitters and the one that reached base got there on a walk and was quickly erased on a double play.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the first, he got into a rhythm like he can, which is good,\u201d said Francona. \u201cHe had seven-pitch and six-pitch innings, a lot more like Abbott.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once again he retired the first two hitters in the sixth when it was 3-1. But Cruz singled and Nick Yorke walked, ending Abbott\u2019s day.<\/p>\n
Carson Phillips replaced Abbott and took a walk on the wild side. Eight of his first nine pitches were balls, a walk to Jared Triolo and a 3-and-1 walk to Spencer Horwitz that forced in a run to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
The Reds scrambled back into the game in the sixth against Pittsburgh relief pitcher Mason Montgomery. Sal Stewart walked and Francona sent up Eugenio Suarez to pinch-hit.<\/p>\n
Nathaniel Lowe started the game as the DH, but with lefthander Montgomery on the mound, Suarez was sent up to pinch-hit. And he crushed a two-run home run into the upper deck in left field and the Reds were within, 4-3.<\/p>\n
It was Suarez\u2019s second pinch-hit home run of his career and the other was way back in 2017 in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
The Reds then had three innings to overcome the one-run deficit, but three Pittsburgh relief pitchers retired nine straight.<\/p>\n
It was still 4-3 in the ninth when Francona sent closer Emilio Pagan to pitch in a non-closing situation. Too often when a closer pitches in a non-closing situation the adrenaline is not there.<\/p>\n
That was the case with Pagan. He gave up four runs in the top of the ninth that included a two-run home run by Reynolds. Those were the most runs he has ever given up while wearing a Reds uniform.<\/p>\n
He began the inning by giving up a single to Spencer Horwitz. Number nine hitter Henry Davis, a lightweight with the bat, tried to bunt and Pagan hit him.<\/p>\n
Then he threw a wild pitch to Nick Gonzales, moving the runners to second and third and forcing the infield to play in. Gonzales rolled a two-run single between short and third. And Reynolds homered.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019know, the wild pitch was huge for us,\u201d Francona told reporters. \u201cIf we\u2019re playing back, that\u2019s probably a double play ball. But we can\u2019t play back in that situation and it just got away.\u201d<\/p>\n
That made it 8-3, the same score by which the Reds lost the second game of the series Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
After the Reds won the opener, 2-0, Cruz and Reynolds, both career-long Reds\u2019 assassins, took over in games two and three.<\/p>\n
For Reds pitchers, facing those two is like standing under a dangling chandelier. They come, they see and they hit.<\/p>\n
Cruz was 5 for 9 with three homers, six RBI and five runs scored. Reynolds was 3 for 9 with two homers, three RBI and three runs scored.<\/p>\n
The Reds (3-3) are off Thursday before hitting the road for a three-game series against the Texas Rangers that begins Friday night in Arlington, Tex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What a baseball team absolutely does not want to do is spot pitcher Paul Skenes a three-run lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,50,4,10,776,64,4297,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-658407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cincinnati-reds","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-pirates","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","14":"tag-pittsburghpirates","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116334266442229274","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658407","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=658407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}