And he did it just when the Reds needed it most, just as he always does.
After losing the first two games of the series, with the threat of being swept for the first time this season, Abbott issued his personal gag order on the St. Louis Cardinals, pitching the Reds to a 4-1 victory, stopping a three-game losing streak.
Abbott, a mad scientist on the mound, seldom hits more than 93 miles per hour on the radar gun, but hitters seldom make solid contact.
On Sunday, he went seven innings and held the Cardinals to one run and three hits during a 100-pitch outing. It lowered his earned run average to 1.79, lowest of all MLB starting pitchers, and raised his record to 7-1. And the Reds are 10-3 in games he starts.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
His catcher, Jose Trevino, helped with the bat. With the score 1-1, Trevino doubled with one out in the fifth inning, his career-best 17th double, and scored on the next pitch, a double by Jake Fraley.
Abbott guarded that 1-1 tie as if guarding the Hope diamond by retiring the last 18 Cardinals.
Trevino wanted to talk more about Abbott than his career-best double.
“Whenever you need Rocket (Abbott) he seems always to deliver, man,” Trevino told reporters in St. Louis after Sunday’s game. “That’s All-Star-type stuff right there. Starter. Starting pitcher of the All-Star-type stuff.
“He hits his spots and never makes the same mistake twice,” Trevino added. “If he does, he doubles down and tells himself, ‘I can be better than that.’ Just what an ace does, just what an All-Star starting pitcher does.”
With the heat, it was expected that Abbott would be done after pitching a 1-2-3 sixth.
But as he walked off the mound and headed toward the dugout, he gave manager Tito Francona the thumbs up and said, “I’m good.”
Francona told reporters, “He got through the sixth and I looked at him because you can kind of gauge their mannerisms. He came off the field and I said, ‘OK, he’s got the seventh.”
And it went like most of his other innings — 1-2-3 on harmless and weak fly balls to right, center and left.
Talking about Abbott’s relatively low velocity — he only struck out three — Francona said, “He is a little old-fashioned. He just adds and subtracts (pitch speeds). Left-handers can pitch a long time and be really successful with touch and feel and add a little bit of ride on the fastball.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
“You see it. He gets some awkward swings and he’s not throwing 100,” Francona added.
After Matt McLain put together a nine-game hitting streak during his reclamation project, Francona moved him from ninth in the batting order to second, where he began the season. And it paid handsomely.
McLain homered in the first inning off St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas, extending his hitting streak to 10 games with that ninth homer.
“Good for him and it ends up being good for us,” said Francona. Since mid-May, McLain has raised his batting average from .156 to .209.
The 1-0 lead stood only until St. Louis batted in the second, Abbott’s only troublesome inning. And McLain’s error didn’t help.
Nolan Arenado led the second with a single and McLain misplayed a hard grounder by Thomas Saggese. Yohel Pozo singled home Arenado to tie it 1-1. And the Cardinals had runners on second and first with no outs.
Abbott then did what All-Star pitchers do, what ace pitchers do. He struck out Jordan Walker, retired former Reds outfielder Jose Barrero on a pop foul to the catcher and Brendan Donovan lined to shortstop to end it.
No other Cardinal reached base against Abbott, who said, “I wasn’t thinking about stopping things, I was just thinking about pitching good and helping our team win. I was hot in the clubhouse, then I went out on the field and it was like an oven.”
But he threw ice water at the Cardinals and said , “I retired 18 in a row? I didn’t know that.”
St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas was 6-8 with a 5.53 ERA for 20 career starts against the Reds, but he held them to 1-1 until the three-run fifth, his last inning.
The Reds have now gone 17 straight series without being swept, the only MLB team not to be swept. But the degree of difficulty heightens.
The Reds return home to play a three-game series against the New York Yankees, then play three at home against the San Diego Padres before three games on road against the Boston Red Sox and three against the Philadelphia Phillies.
And Tuesday, the Reds are calling up pitcher Chase Burns to face the Bronx Bombers. Chase was the Reds No. 1 draft pick (No. 2 overall) just last year.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
He started the year at Class A Dayton and made the fast track climb to The Show. In his last start at Triple-A Louisville, ironically, he faced the Yankees Triple-A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders and pitched seven shutout innings.
But the RailRiders don’t have Aaron Judge.
Of the Reds bouncing back after their horrendous 6-5 11-inning loss after leading, 5-2, in the eighth, Trevino told reporters, “That shows a little about our team. We could have easily packed it in.
“It’s hot (100-plus degrees on the field), that’s a really good team, we’re competing inside our division (National League Central), but we didn’t pack it in. We came out and gave it everything we had.”
NEXT GAME
Who: New York Yankees at Cincinnati
When: 7:10 p.m.
TV: FanDuel Sports
Radio: 1410-AM, 700-AM
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