Reds break scoreless streak, still looking to end losing streak

Sports

add

MILWAUKEE — For four days, two hours and 35 minutes, the Cincinnati Reds did not score a single run. That’s 5,915 minutes, 354,900 seconds over parts of four games, 35 full innings and 128 plate appearances without a run.

That scoreless stretch ended Friday night at precisely 9:15 p.m. in Milwaukee when TJ Friedl scored on Christian Encarnacion-Strand’s sacrifice fly to deep center in the eighth inning of the team’s 3-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. The Reds broke two streaks Friday — the scoreless inning streak and a streak of 1-0 losses that had reached three on Thursday. The team did not break its losing streak of four, though, coming up short in the ninth when pinch-hitter Matt McLain’s go-ahead home run bid fell just short of the wall in dead center.

“We’re all kind of going through it together right now,” said Friedl, who led off the eighth inning with a single. “Just to get a run across the board and then carry that momentum with us and that’ll be a move in the right direction.”

Any positive direction is good after a day like Friday, where manager Terry Francona, along with several other staff members and players, were so ill that they were sent back to the team’s hotel. Adding injury to insult, McLain wasn’t sick, but his left hamstring that had been tight for a couple of days was even tighter Friday, leading to him being a late scratch. 

It didn’t get much better as Brewers spot-starter Tyler Anderson not only held the Reds scoreless in his 5 2/3 innings, but also hitless before the Reds broke through against reliever Abner Uribe with two hits with two out in the seventh.

There’s a cliche that hitting is contagious, but for this Reds team, that’s one illness not going through the clubhouse.

“I think everyone knew it, but I don’t think anyone pressed, we just kind of got baseballed there for a little bit,” said Gavin Lux, whose single off of Uribe with two outs in the seventh inning was the Reds’ first hit of the game. “(Encarnacion-Strand) had three balls over 100 (mph exit velocity) — no luck. Matt had a ball 108 — no luck. It’s just part of it man. Hopefully tomorrow we get 10 broken-bat hits and the unluckiness goes to their side.”

The Reds actually seemed to get a bit of luck when Jeimer Candelario followed Encarnacion-Strand’s sac fly with a hard-hit liner on the first-base side that may have hit off the bag at first and into right for a double.

The Reds got another chance in the ninth inning when Santiago Espinal hit a bloop single to center. McLain was called on to pinch hit and drove Trevor Megill’s fastball 399 feet to center field, where Garrett Mitchell caught it with his momentum taking him into the padded wall, just to the right of the 400 feet sign on the wall straight-away center.

McLain said he thought he’d given the team the lead with his third home run of the season.

“The other ones on Opening Day, I really didn’t (think were going out),” McLain said of two long fly outs against the Giants last week. “I really didn’t. But that one, I did. But…”

Those ellipses say it all.

The 35-inning scoreless streak is tied for the fourth-longest streak of futility in team history. The last time the Reds went that long without scoring a run was in 1946 when the team went 37 innings without scoring. The franchise record is 45 innings, set in 1931. The Reds had lost the last three games 1-0, becoming only the sixth team in Major League history to do that, and were in danger of becoming the first to lose four such games before Brice Turang’s two-run home run in the fifth inning gave Milwaukee a 3-0 lead.

As much as the Reds would like there to be an explanation for the last four days, there’s not, especially coming off their March 31 game, where the team scored 14 runs and racked up 14 hits. In the four games since then, the Reds have scored just the pair of runs and notched 14 total hits.

At the same time, Reds pitchers have only allowed six runs and 17 hits over those four games. 

Reds starter Nick Martinez had the team’s shortest outing of the year Friday, lasting just 4 2/3, but needing 92 pitches to do it. 

In the four-game losing streak, Reds pitchers have 1.32 ERA, but not much to show for it.

“When the pitchers are doing what they’ve been doing, you want to support them and get them run support,” Friedl said. “They’ve been doing a phenomenal job. It’s like we got that one run across and now we’re just going to carry that momentum into tomorrow.”

A loss in either of the final two games of the series would mark the Reds’ 11th straight series loss to the Brewers. Cincinnati is just 14-39 against the Brewers in their last 53 meetings and 7-21 since the start of the 2023 season.

But those are streaks that will end at some point, even if you never know when.

(Photo: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

Why Melania Trump’s White House comeback is under fire

Agency_LATINWEB

Next

trending_flat

Vini Jr perde pênalti e fica devendo 50 euros a goleiro do Valencia, com quem apostou

O Globo