For Reds, hitting is contagious. Losing skid ends behind TJ Friedl’s 4-hit game

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MILWAUKEE — TJ Friedl had four hits and his first home run of the season for the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday, but as he watched Emilio Pagán pitch the ninth inning, he didn’t remember any of that.

All Friedl could think of was his mistake in the fourth inning when he took off from first on Santiago Espinal’s fly ball to right with one out as if there were two. Friedl took off with the pitch, circled second going hard at third base when Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick threw the ball to first to complete the inning-ending double play.

As part of a team that had struggled to score runs of late, going 35 innings without a run, Friedl wasn’t OK with costing his team another chance at a run, even though the Reds led 7-0 at that point.

“It’s inexcusable,” Friedl said after the Reds’ 11-7 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers to break a four-game losing skid.

Friedl was asked if maybe the visit by Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook after his single made him lose track. He refused to accept that, instead embracing the literal meaning of inexcusable.

“There’s no excuse for it — simple as that,” Friedl said. “There’s no excuse for that happening. Ever. Those things happen, and there’s no excuse for it. It’s not the (mound visit), it’s not what’s going on in the game. It’s inexcusable.”

Manager Terry Francona, who has used the terms “little things” and “playing the right way” since taking the Reds’ job in October, addressed it during the game. Friedl, who has started in center field for each of the team’s first seven games of the season before serving as the designated hitter Saturday, knew what he did. He also knew what it could mean — especially when the Brewers pulled within two runs in the fifth inning and then chipped away with a pair of runs following a three-run seventh. Only when catcher Jose Trevino squeezed Pagán’s 94 mph fastball as Milwaukee’s Oliver Dunn swung through it could he exhale.

He wasn’t alone.

Even though the Reds managed 14 hits, one day after being no-hit through 6 2/3 innings, when a team is on a four-game skid — including three 1-0 losses — nothing feels guaranteed. And, for Friedl, who is an everyday starter in part because he is such a smart base runner, a mistake like that loomed large. So when Francona approached him about the mistake, he knew he just had to own it.

Luckily, the Reds held on and he didn’t have to own the loss.

It’s not to say that Friedl would’ve felt any better in any other game about such a mental mistake, but the error flies in the face of what the Reds coaching staff, with a new manager and an mix of old and new coaches, has tried to drill into each man on the roster.

This Reds team does a lot of the same things any big-league team does before games, but there are just added details. The pregame schedule, posted every day in the clubhouse, details when players need to do everything from go to hitters’ meetings, when relievers need to stretch and when the team will do defensive drills and take batting practice. For batting practice, though, most days there will be a second part on the schedule for base running. One day last week, it was as specific as “Base run reads (@ 2B w/ 1 out). Another day, it was base run reads at third base.

When Francona and the rest of the Reds’ leadership talk about “little things,” it’s these kinds of things. There have been mistakes — like Jacob Hurtubise running into a double play that he didn’t have to against the San Francisco Giants in the opening series — but the focus is not on being perfect, but not making the same mistake twice.

It’s that kind of thing that will stick with players, that will stick with Friedl.

Nobody had to tell him he messed up. He knew it immediately. He knew it when it was addressed during the game, and he knew it after the game. He’ll also know it the next time he’s on base with one out and a ball is hit to the outfield.

The Reds weren’t perfect Saturday, but in baseball, perfection is always the goal, even if it’s not a realistic one. Starter Brady Singer, close to perfect in his previous start, walked Milwaukee’s leadoff man Brice Turang with one out in the fifth and a 7-1 lead. He then gave up four straight hits, including a single to Frelick with the bases loaded that went under the glove of Reds right fielder Jake Fraley to the wall, allowing three runs to score and the Reds’ lead to shrink to 7-5.

That’ll do, @ellylacocoa18. pic.twitter.com/OuKnShIx45

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 6, 2025

Two innings later, Friedl — who singled and was caught stealing in the first, homered in the second and singled in the fourth before his gaffe — laid down a perfect bunt for a base hit with a runner on, and then scored on Elly De La Cruz’s single, giving the Reds a four-run cushion.

One of the game’s best bunters, Friedl had tried to bunt twice before this season without reaching either time. Just as he had during the spring, Francona reminded Friedl to concentrate on placing the ball where he wanted it off the bat instead of trying to catch the infield by surprise.

“I feel like I’ve been really rushing it, trying to be too sneaky,” Friedl said. “We talked about this in spring training, I was trying to be too sneaky and showing (the bunt) late and all this stuff. It was the last game of spring, and I pushed a bunt off of a lefty, but to the third-base line. But I showed it early, I gave myself time to see it down.”

After unsuccessful bunts, Friedl said he was trying to “overexaggerate” his bunt, showing it early, putting it down, and then running. It’s exactly what he did, putting the ball on the grass down the first-base line in such a perfect spot that pitcher Connor Thomas didn’t even make a throw to first.

It’s all of these things that add up — the pluses and minuses — that form a baseball season. The math doesn’t always seem fair — three days in a row this week, the Reds had the same number of hits as their opponent and fell 1-0. Saturday, there were mental errors on the bases, the error in the outfield and a two-out walk by reliever Scott Barlow, followed by a two-run bloop double for the Brewers in the seventh inning. On the other side of the coin, Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit two balls at 100 mph or better off the bat that looked like they could leave the usually hitter-friendly American Family Field, but were caught. Saturday, he led off the fourth with a home run that bounced off the massive scoreboard in center field, one that Francona said was about as far as he can imagine being hit.

“That’s just part of the game, I guess,” Encarnacion-Strand said. “Sometimes they go out, sometimes they don’t. Luckily, that one went out.”

Jose Trevino celebrates with Blake Dunn after hitting a 2-run homer against the Brewers. (Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

It was a cathartic day once the final out was recorded. The Reds had scored 14 runs on 14 hits in Singer’s last outing, Monday against the Texas Rangers, and in the four losses following, they managed a total of 14 hits and just two runs.

For three days, Reds players noted it was just part of baseball, that hitting is contagious and hits could be just as fleeting as the bout of food poisoning that made its way through the clubhouse Thursday in Milwaukee. Finally, on Saturday, that came true. Eight of the nine players in the Reds’ lineup recorded hits, and the one who didn’t, Jeimer Candelario, had a sacrifice fly on a ball he hit 103.8 mph off the bat.

“When you’re on deck and watching guys get out and not getting on base, you can put a lot of pressure on yourself to be the one to get things going,” said center fielder Blake Dunn, who was a late add to the lineup for Matt McLain with a tight left hamstring, and responded with his first home run of the season and the first by a Reds outfielder this season. “When you have a day like today when everyone’s hitting and you take that mental aspect out of it and stressing and worrying and you’re just playing baseball.”

(Top photo: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

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