After 35 straight scoreless innings, the longest scoreless spell for a Reds team since 1946, they scored two runs.
Not enough.
They still lost, 3-2, to the Milwaukee Brewers, their fourth straight defeat and fourth straight one-run loss.
Several players and members of the traveling party became ill during the day, including manager Terry Francona, who spent the night in the team hotel watching festivities unfold on television.
Bench coach Freddie Benavides was the stand-in manager.
For seven innings, it was more of the same...no runs and no hits.
The Brewers are missing three of their projected five starting pitchers due to injuries, so relief pitcher Tyler Alexander was a stand-in.
And what a stand-in he was. He pitched 5 2/3 innings of hitless, runless innings.
Reds starter Nick Martinez struggled with command all night and held the Brewers to one run and two hits through four innings.
But he was running on empty in the fifth and gave up a double to No. 8 hitter Garrett Mitchell and a 418-foot two-run home run to leadoff hitter Brice Turang and it was 3-0.
When Jackson Chourio followed Turang’s homer with a single, Martinez was finished at 92 pitches.
“They made him work,” said Benavides. “He was behind in counts a little bit. But he battled, made some pitches, kept us in the game. He made a mistake, a cutter I think it was, and Turang hit it out of the ball park.”
Martinez concurred.
“Mostly I was battling myself out there tonight,” said Martinez. “I couldn’t get into a rhythm and I was falling behind guys. I was gassed, ran out of gas in the fifth inning.”
But the Reds’ bullpen picked him up — Graham Ashcraft, Taylor Rogers, Brent Suter and Tony Santillan held the Brewers to no runs and no hits over the final 3 1/3 innings.
That gave the Reds a chance, even though they didn’t have a hit until Gavin Lux singled with two outs in the seventh, but their scoreless streak stretched to 35 innings.
The Reds had an opportunity in the second when with one out Alexander walked Jeimer Candelario and hit Blake Dunn with a pitch.
But both Lux and Santiago Espinal popped to the second baseman.
When the eighth began, the Reds were 0 for 17 with runners in scoring position, when they were able to get a runner in scoring position.
TJ Friedl opened the eighth with a single and Spencer Steer reached on third baseman Oliver Dunn’s error.
Elly De La Cruz fouled out deep into the right field corner and the runners moved up to third and second. De La Cruz has stranded 12 runners without an RBI during the four-game losing streak.
For the Reds, getting runs was like getting that first olive out of the bottle. It isn’t easy, but after the first one rolls out, some more follow.
With two outs, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 0 for 17, hit a sacrifice fly and the runless misery ended.
Candelario followed with a double, scoring Steer and the Reds were within one, 3-2, with the potential tying run on second. But Jake Fraley grounded to first.
Things got exciting in the ninth against Milwaukee closer Trevor Megill.
Espinal singled with one out. Matt McLain was out of the lineup with tightness in his left hamstring, but Benavides sent him up to pinch-hit.
McLain nearly left the premises, but his hard-driven ball was caught against the center field wall. Friedl flied out to left and that was it.
“He is day-to-day, just to make sure he’s right,” said Benavides of McLain. “He is a very important player to our club so he was just able to pinch-hit today.
“There is a good chance he’ll be back in there tomorrow,” Benavides added.
That the Reds couldn’t solve Alexander’s soft stuff and fastballs that barely touched 90 miles an hour was frustrating.
“He mixed it up,” said Benavides. “He threw different things and our guys were between pitches, looking for certain things and he got ground balls and popups.”
Of the mounting one-run losses, both Martinez and Benavides offered the same message Francona has espoused during the runs and hits drought.
“It was tough today, a lot of adversity,” said Benavides. “We had guys going down and it’s tough dealing with some illnesses and different things that happened.
“It’s part of the game and things we talk about over the course of 162 games,” he added. “There is a lot of energy in (the clubhouse). Guys are pushing, they’re trying, trying their butts off.”
Said Martinez, “We’re losing by one run, but we just gotta keep going, right? It’s part of the game.”
Something the current team can think about — the 1975 Reds went 29 straight scoreless innings...on its way to 108 wins and a World Series championship.
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