It was Bark in the Park Night and Miami pitcher Janson Junk pitched like a junkyard dog in holding the Reds to one hit and one unearned run.
And the Reds maintained their one-hit approach until the ninth inning when they scraped together a pair of harmless hits against relief pitcher Lake Bachar.
So after Wheeler one-hit the Reds Sunday in Philadelphia, Junk held them to one hit over six innings Monday.
The Reds have scored three runs over their last 31 innings, lost three games in a row, slipped back to one game over .500 (46-45) and are 8 1/2 games behind the division-leading Chicago Cubs.
The Marlins love wearing their road gray uniforms. They’ve won 10 straight road games and are 21-21 away from home.
And they’ve won 11 of their last 14 with some aggressive play with a roster full of no-names.
The Reds actually led, 1-0, through four innings as they scored an unearned run in the second inning without a hit.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Junk had faced 84 batters without issuing a walk, but he walked Austin Hays to open the second and he took second on a passed by and took third on a wild pitch.
Junk then walked Gavin Lux and the Reds had runners on third and first with no outs. They got one run — a sacrifice fly by Tyler Stephenson.
From there through the eighth the Reds had one more base runner, a leadoff single by Spencer Steer in the fifth. He was erased when Will Benson hit into a double play.
Reds manager Tito Francona sounded as if he was describing Wheeler when he talked about Junk.
“He can really spin it,” he told reporters after the game. “He really located his fastball and kinda gave us fits.”
More than kinda.
Meanwhile, the Marlins polluted the bases for four innings against Reds starter Brady Singer without scoring.
They had four hits, a walk and a hit batsman and stranded them all.
That ended in the fifth. Xavier Edwards opened with a double and Agustin Ramirez, 2 for 24, doubled him home with two outs. Liam Hicks followed with a run-scoring single and a 2-0 Marlins lead.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Things turned downright ugly in the sixth when the Reds made two errors on one play that led to two more runs.
Eric Wagaman opened the inning with a single off relief pitcher Lyon Richardson. Connor Norby grounded to third baseman Noelvi Marte and he threw Norby out, but an aggressive Wagaman, off on the pitch, sprinted from first to third.
Derek Hill grounded to Marte and his throw home sailed over catcher Tyler Stephenson’s head as Wagaman scored.
Pitcher Richardson retrieved the errant peg and threw the ball into center field, enabling Hill to reach third. He scored on Javier Sanoja’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-1.
“I went back and looked at that play,” said Francona. “The runner from third (Wagaman) did a good job of getting in the throwing lane. It looked like Marte got under it and it sailed.
“Richardson did a good job of backing up that play but he didn’t have time to move his feet and kinda rushed his throw.”
To put an exclamation point on it, Ramirez, obviously emerging from his 2 for 24 min-slump, annihilated a Brent Suter change-up 420 feet into the left field upper deck.
For his part, Singer (7-7) put enough runners on base to be a traffic cop — five innings, two runs, seven hits, one walk, three strikeouts during his 96-pitch night.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
But it was only 2-1 when he left.
“Yeah, a lot of traffic. I just had to battle,” Singer told reporters. “I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I just couldn’t finish at bats. I got to two strikes where I wanted to be, but just couldn’t put away guys.”
Francona saw the same things.
“After the first inning, he had some 20 and 23-pitch innings, deep pitch counts. It seems like there was a runner in scoring position about every inning,” he said.
There were. The Marlins had runners on base in every inning until their first 1-2-3 inning surfaced in the eighth. They had 13 runners on base for the night.
“Then they finally cashed in (the fifth),” Francona added. “We had a really good chance early but only got one.”
For three straight games, one has been the Reds loneliest number.
NEXT GAME
Who: Miami at Cincinnati
When: 7:10 p.m., Tuesday, July 8
TV: FanDuel Sports
Radio: 1410-AM, 700-AM
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