McCoy: Reds swept by Athletics, fall 2½ games back of Mets in NL wild card race

The Athletics completed a bone-crushing three-game sweep of the Reds Sunday afternoon in Sacramento, 7-4, with another home run barrage.

They hit four homers that accounted for six of their seven runs and for the three games they cleared the cozy Sutter Health Park fences 10 times.

Offensively, it was a tried-and-untrue three games for the Reds. They were 1 for 21 with runners in scoring position and stranded 23 runners.

The A’s were an offensive menace. The 10 homers accounted for 16 of the 21 runs they scored in sweeping the Reds, 3-0, 11-5 and 7-4.

And the Reds’ mission to make the post-season took an uppercut under their chins.

The New York Mets ended their eight-game losing streak when Pete Alonso hit a three-run home run in the 10th inning for a 5-2 walk-off win over Texas.

That meant the Reds fell to 2 ½ games behind the Mets and even more costly was that the Arizona Diamondbacks won and vaulted over the Reds, who now have three teams to pass to claim the final wild card spot — New York, San Francisco and Arizona.

There is another trap door dead ahead. The Reds now play three games in St. Louis and the Cardinals are only 1 1/2 games behind the Reds, who fell below .500 (74-75) with only 13 games remaining.

Reds manager Tito Francona, always the philosopher, is not ready to cede until, as he says it, “Until they tell us to go home.”

But home is right around the corner.

During his post-game media meeting, he revealed what he told his downtrodden team, losers in nine of their last 15.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

“When it is the hardest to believe, that’s when you’ve gotta dig deep and believe in each other,” he told reporters. “I told ‘em, ‘You don’t gotta play perfect, we just gotta pick each other up and play baseball the way we know how.’

“I still believe, I do, that we can go home on our terms. We’ve just gotta play. It won’t be easy, but it’s not supposed to be. Fortunately we still have a chance.”

Just a sliver.

And about the game, he was just as pointed.

“We sure had trouble keeping the ball in the ball park,” he said. “We came out of the chute really good (3-0 lead). Then in the fourth we get a leadoff triple and don’t get the run in.

“And they came back and got two and kinda changed the complexion of the game,” he added. “We just couldn’t keep them in the ball park.”

The Reds used the home run Sunday to jump to a 3-0 lead against A’s 22-year-old rookie Luis Morales.

Noelvi Marte, the game’s second batter, hit a one-armed home run over the left field fence. Morales walked Gavin Lux to open the second and Will Benson hit his third home run on the trip to make it 3-0.

And the Reds frittered an opportunity for much more in the fourth. Gavin Lux broke an 0 for 21 slide with a leadoff triple.

But he tried to score on Benson’s grounder to short and was thrown out. The Reds, though, then loaded the bases but left them loaded when TJ Friedl lined to center.

Nick Lodolo retired nine of the first six A’s through three innings, giving up a leadoff single to Brett Harris in the third.

Then the A’s unsheathed their big bats, showing that they were not impressed with Lodolo’s fastball.

Rookie Jacob Wilson opened the fourth by launching Lodolo’s first pitch, a 93 miles an hour fastball, 379 feet over the left field wall. Lodolo retired the next two, then Colby Thomas reversed Lodolo’s 94 miles an hour 0-and-2 fastball 381 feet over the left field wall.

But the Reds still led, 3-2. . .but not for long.

Lodolo retired the first two in the fifth, but hit Wilson with a pitch when he had two strikes. Rookie Nick Kurtz then unloaded on another Lodolo 94 miles an hour fastball the opposite way to left, a mere 379-footer for a 4-3 lead.

A mere 379-footer? On Saturday he put one into the stratosphere, a 493-foot grand slam, the longest grand slam ever hit since StatCast began measuring home runs in 2015.

The A’s scored a conventional run, no homer, in the sixth on a double by Brett Harris to make it 5-3, then returned to the long ball in the seventh against Zack Maxwell.

With two outs he walked Kurtz and Brent Rooker crushed a two-run 412-footer over the center field wall on a 92 miles an hour cutter that pushed the A’s to a 7-3 advantage.

“Well, actually, I know the numbers say Lodolo gave up some home runs (three), but I actually thought he threw the ball pretty well,” said Francona. “He followed the glove, mixed his pitches and followed the plan. Sometimes. . .that kid, their three-hole hitter (Kurtz), hits the ball to left field like that (for an opposite field home run), that’s good hitting.”

Once again, after jumping to an early lead, the Reds could do nothing against one of MLB’s weakest bullpens. In the final four innings against the A’s relief corps, they had one run on three hits.

The one run was the longest home run of the day, a 417-footer hit by Reds rookie Sal Stewart leading off the eighth. Stewart was batting clean-up.

But that homer was nothing more than cosmetic.

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