The most electric man in baseball had all his skills on full display!
The Cincinnati Reds held an 8-0 lead in Monday evening’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers, news that should make you smile until you find out the final score was 10-8.
Yes, the Reds held on to beat the Beers in the serie opener. Yes, things were – for a time – all clicking for them. Yes, things went sideways in a hurry, and they were eventually rescued by their budding superstar shortstop and a trio of scoreless frames from the back of their bullpen.
Graham Ashcraft got the start for the Reds, and his outing was a microcosm of who we’ve come to see over the last few seasons. When he was on, he was on, and he breezed through the first 4 IP of the game touching 100 mph with his heater and striking out 5 with nary a run scored. Like he’s been on his hot streaks in the past, he looked the part of the best arm on the entire Cincinnati staff right up until he didn’t, at which point things went more sideways than anyone else the Reds can offer up allows.
As the Top of the 7th rolled around, the Reds lead had been trimmed to just 9-6, with Ashcraft having exited the previous inning after his own throwing error on an infield dribbler allowed the 6th Milwaukee run to score. On came Justin Wilson, and he served up a 2-run tater to former NL MVP Christian Yelich to make it a 9-8 game and suk almost every bit of life out of the park. Fortunately for the Reds, Lucas Sims came on and struck out the side in impressive fashion, restoring some oomph to the sparse crowd and, more importantly, to the dugout.
Enter Elly De La Cruz, who had already lit fireworks on the night with his first dinger of the season, a 450 foot blast off the top of the batter’s eye in CF that seemed to open his own personal statistical floodgates. The Bottom of the 7th saw him smoke a laser to CF off lefty Bryce Hudson, one that scooted past the poor diving effort from Milwaukee CF Sal Frelick and rolled all the way to the wall.
Elly, as you know, is the fastest man in the game, and he rounded the bags in under 15 seconds to make it an inside-the-park homer and put the game on ice for good.
That’s your Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game, and it sure as hell won’t be the last time we say that this year.
Reds 10, Beers 8
Tony Graphanino
[Link to FanGraphs WPA chart & box score]
Other Notes
- Elly finished with 4 runs scored on the game as part of his 3-hit night. That gives him 11 on the young season, which was the total that was tied for 3rd in all of baseball entering play today (with Mookie Betts first with 16, albeit with 3 more games played than Elly entering Monday’s games).
- Will Benson socked a homer…off a lefty!
- Jonathan India took a liner off the right shin in batting practice earlier in the day and was scratched after initially being in the leadoff spot. Jim Day later reported during the game that while the shin hurt, it was actually the wrist on which he was hit by a pitch yesterday that bothered India enough to be a late scratch. He’s likely to be back in the lineup tomorrow, though.
- Frankie Montas and Joe Ross will be the starters tomorrow when these two run it back in the 2nd game of this 4-game series. First pitch Tuesday is slated for the usual 6:40 PM ET.
- Tunes.