On Thursday’s Happy Hour game that started at 5:10 in Great American Ball Park, the Reds turned it into a happy day with a 6-0 shutout.
While the Reds’ bats finally erupted, Nick Lodolo and four relief pitchers made certain Miami’s bats stayed silent, holding the Marlins to four hits.
When the Marlins won the first two games, they had won 11 straight road games and averaged nearly eight runs a game, but the Reds put a cap on them in the last two with 7-1 and 6-0 wins.
“I thought it was really, really important,” said Reds manager Tito Francona told reporters after the game about winning two straight after the four-game losing streak.
“We worked so hard to get where we were (four games over .500) and then we fell back. Now we gotta push,” he added. “We gotta really push.”
The Reds have three games left this weekend before the All-Star break against baseball’s worst team, by far, the 21-72 Colorado Rockies.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Lodolo pitched six innings and stopped the Marlins on no runs, three hits, no walks and three strikeouts. He went to 3-and-2 counts on five batters in the first three innings, but didn’t walk any.
Graham Ashcraft, Tony Santillan and Scott Barlow each walked the first batter in the seventh, eighth and ninth, but worked out of the minor problem each time to complete Cincinnati’s fifth shutout. Sam Moll retired the final batter.
It looked as if Lodolo might come out early when he split a nail on his pitching index finger and he kept looking at it and fooling with it, but he continued.
“Naw, it’s good. Just a little maintenance,” Lodolo told reporters after his 12th quality start. “It happened after the first inning, but I was good to go. It’s not the first time it has happened.”
Miami starter Cal Quantrill struck out the first two, then the Reds manufactured a run with the Elly Effect. Elly De La Cruz lined a 2-and-2 single, stole second and scored on a single by Austin Hays.
Then the Reds played long ball, a home run in the second by Spencer Steer to make it 2-0.
Quantrill kept it at 2-0 and retired 11 straight after Steer’s home run. But he had not pitched in the sixth inning all year and when he did Thursday the Reds made him pay.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The first five Reds reached base with a smallball attack that led to four runs. Noelvi Marte started it with an opposite field single, TJ Friedl singled and Matt McLain walked to fill the bases.
De La Cruz singled home a run, Friedl scored on an error and Hays rolled a two-run single through the left side for the 6-0 lead. Hays drove in three of the Reds’ six runs.
“That has been the story of the season so far,” said Hays. “We had a couple of runs where we weren’t getting our wins when we cooled off a little bit.
“But we’ve been able to level those out and get back to playing winning baseball each time,” he added. “That’s what good teams do. You go through those cold stretches and you try to keep those small and you get hot at the right time and good things can happen.”
De La Cruz lately has turned into a singles and doubles symphony, hitting the ball up the middle and the other way. He singled twice and scored twice on the singles by Hays.
“Yeah, I can’t stress enough how nice it is hitting behind him,” said Hays, batting clean-up right behind De La Cruz. “When I pull the ball down the line and he’s at first, he finds a way to score every time.
“His speed creates so many opportunities for RBIs,” Hays added. “I don’t hit a ton of home runs, so I need that out there, I need his speed and it is amazing to hit behind him and see him do his thing on the bases.”
The Reds scored four in the sixth inning via four singles, a walk and an error and the methodology pleased Francona.
“When you get some hits when you have baserunners, it is easier for any team to look crisp,” he said. “I do think it fits our style. We run the bases aggressively. When they made a mistake (throwing error), our guys were in a position to move up.
“That’s so important,” he added. “Their effort has been really good.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Said Hayes of the four-run all singles inning, “That’s big. We have our home run stretches, but our offense isn’t built on that to hit a couple of three-run homers every night. We grind out at bats, we draw a lot of walks, we’re a patient team, so when we get guys on base, that’s where we do most of our damage.”
During the four-game losing streak, the Reds were 2 for 17 with runners in scoring position and neither hit scored a run. In the two wins, they were 7 for 16 with runners in scoring position.
As the Reds like to say, all of them, “We just keep the line moving.” And Lodolo and the bullpen made certain not much moved on the basepaths when the Marlins batted.
NEXT GAME
Who: Colorado at Cincinnati
When: 7:10 p.m.
TV: FanDuel Sports
Radio: 1410-AM, 700-AM
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