With another excruciating loss Saturday night, 4-2, to the St. Louis Cardinals, their losing streak stretched to a season’s worst five games.
Little more than a week ago they were a season’s best seven games over .500 and a half-game behind the New York Mets in the wild card chase.
But with eight losses in their last nine games, they’ve tumbled back to .500 (68-68) and five games behind the Mets.
Worse yet, the Cardinals are a mere half-game behind the Reds and could pass them by completing a three-game sweep Sunday.
The ninth inning was a microcosm of what has transpired recently.
Down 4-2, Spencer Steer and Ke’Bryan Hayes opened the inning with singles, the potential tying runs on base with no outs.
Rookie catcher Will Banfield was asked to put down a sacrifice bunt. He put it down, but put it down too hard and directly to pitcher Kyle Leahy and he threw to third to force Steer.
Matt McLain grounded to third for a force on Hayes for the second out and TJ Friedl grounded to the pitcher to end it.
Two more runners stranded, three more left in scoring position.
Banfield, who made his major league debut earlier this week, took over catching duties in the eighth after Will Benson pinch-hit for catcher Jose Trevino.
Asked why he had Banfield bunting, Reds manager Tito Francona said, “I think that was the right thing for us to do with who’s hitting (Banfield) and who’s coming up (Matt McLain and TJ Friedl).”
The Reds were 1 for 8 and stranded eight and the numbers are gruesome during the five-game losing streak — 4 for 37 with runners in scoring position and 43 left on base.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
They’ve scored 11 runs during the five losses and have scored two or fewer runs 46 times this season.
They took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but that only meant a 35th loss when they had a lead in a game.
For once, they made no errors and, incredibly, after striking out 19 times earlier in the week against the Dodgers, they didn’t strike out once Saturday.
The Reds stayed with it all the way, trailing by just 2-1 after six innings
Connor Phillips pitched the seventh and gave up just one hit, but it was a 431-foot cloud-scraping home run by Willson Contreras. It came on a dangling sweeper pitch and Contreras swept it into the stratosphere.
Matt McLain matched it in the bottom of the seventh with a home run, pulling the Reds back to within one, 3-2.
Zach ‘Big Sugar’ Maxwell pitched the eighth and struck out the side. Unfortunately for the Reds, he faced four hitters and the fourth, Pedro Pages, hit a 395-foot home run off a dangling 88 miles an hour slider for the 4-2 margin.
Both Phillips and Maxwell thrive on 100 miles an hour fastballs, but both got beat on secondary pitches.
“I thought Phillips and Maxwell had two really good innings, but unfortunately they both hung a breaking ball,” Francona told reporters after the game. “And it cost us two runs.”
Two very big runs.
Reds starter Andrew Abbott pitched five up-and-down innings and gave up two runs, three hits, four walks and hit a batter.
Instead of being a stopper, he is 0-4 over his last eight starts and the Reds have lost five of his last six starts.
He loaded the bases with one out in the first inning, but escaped on a bizarre play — a double play on an infield fly rule.
Then he struck out the side in second, but in the third he walked two, hit a batter to fill the bases and number nine hitter, left-handed Nathan Church, drove a two-run single to left center.
Abbott needed 37 pitches to cover the third inning and had 86 by the end of the fourth and was lifted after five.
St. Louis starter Michael McGreevy, the Cardinals’ No. 1 draft pick in 2021, had the Reds digging up divots all afternoon — 12 ground ball outs.
He gave up one run and five hits over six innings and pushed his record to 6-2. And the Cardinals have won 11 of his 15 starts.
“He took the sting out of us. . .however you want to say it,” said Francona. “He got us to hit the ball on the ground. It’s tough sledding right now. We gotta fight through it.”
It is really tough sledding for the Reds right now because there is no snow on the ground and there are only 26 games remaining.
Catcher Jose Trevino tried to spin a positive soliloquy during a post-game session with the media.
“We’re in close games and we haven’t been playing our best baseball,” he said. “That can switch tomorrow. We have the ability to switch tomorrow. That’s the part we’re all looking forward to.
“I feel like we’re really close because we’re in all these games and we haven’t been playing our best baseball,” he added.
One might say that right now they are playing their worst baseball.
NEXT GAME
Who: St. Louis at Cincinnati
When: 12:10 p.m.
TV: FanDuel Sports
Radio: 1410-AM, 700-AM
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