Cincinnati looked well on their way to being swept before score four runs in the final two innings to jump ahead of the Phillies on Sunday. The Reds moved back to .500 with a 6-4 win over Philadelphia to wrap up the series against the defending National League champions.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati Reds (4-4) | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Philadelphia Phillies (3-6) | 4 | 7 | 0 |
| W: Herget (1-0) L: Dominguez (0-1) SV: Gibaut (1) | |||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
Philadelphia grabbed an early lead when Nick Castellanos doubled in Kyle Schwarber in the 1st inning. They would add to their lead in the 2nd when Edmundo Sosa singled in Bryson Stott.
The Reds fought their way back in the top of the 4th inning when TJ Friedl led off with a walk and then scored on a single from Tyler Stephenson. Wil Myers followed up with a double to put two men in scoring position. Jason Vosler tied things up with a ground out that plated Stephenson.
The Phillies didn’t take kindly to the Reds tying the game up and got back to work in the bottom of the inning. Bryson Stott singled and then came around when Alec Bohm crushed a go-ahead 2-run homer.
The Reds bullpen took over from there. Fernando Cruz and newcomer Kevin Herget each tossed 2.0 shutout innings of baseball. Cincinnati grabbed a run in the top of the 8th inning when Jason Vosler doubled and Wil Myers scored from 1st base to make it a 4-3 game. The Reds went right back to work in the top of the 9th. Back-to-back 1-out walks by Stuart Fairchild and Jonathan India were followed by an infield hit by TJ Friedl that loaded the bases. Jake Fraley was down 1-2 to Seranthony Dominguez but fought off a 99 MPH fastball and blooped a double down the right field line. It paid off having Friedl at first base as he raced around the bags with his plus speed and all three runners scored to put Cincinnati ahead 6-4.
Holding a lead, the Reds sent Ian Gibaut out for the bottom of the 9th. He made quick work of the heart of the Phillies lineup, picking up two strikeouts and a ground out on 10 pitches to pick up his first save of the year and help Cincinnati avoid the sweep in Philadelphia.
Key Moment of the Game
Jake Fraley’s 3-run double in the top of the 9th inning that gave the Reds the lead.
Notes Worth Noting
Tyler Stephenson extended his hitting streak to eight games, extending his career best hit streak.
Luke Weaver threw 4.0 hitless innings with two walks and four strikeouts in a start for Triple-A Louisville while on a rehab appearance on Sunday. Lucas Sims followed him on the mound with a shutout inning that included a strikeout.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati Reds vs Atlanta Braves
Monday April 10th, 7:20pm ET
Graham Ashcraft (1-0, 1.29 ERA) vs TBA
Watched the game the whole bullpen looked good today and Overton gave us what I thought he would. Not much good, though a few innings he did do a nice job. Hoping he moves to the bullpen at some point or back to the minors.
Really love how the hitters stuck in there and just kept battling. Oh and hey great news we now are better than last year! If this team plays around .500 for the year I will consider it a success.
Chattanooga gets one hit in a doubleheader and the split
Good for them. Simple regression to the mean gets some games like this, especially after last season, but they also have more MLB talent that last year. Keep it up!
I’d like to see the Reds use an opener and Overton as a bulk reliever
Some of these guys need to start hitting. Need to give the top four some help. Vosler and Steer have helped here and there but they need more. Hopefully this is the beginning of something good for the bullpen.
Both of those players have some of the highest OPSs on the team, what in the world do you want to see them do differently?
Four wins already!….and it’s only April! 🙂
Quote of the Day!
1. Great win. Team is showing how resilient they are and not giving up. That’s a reflection on the leadership. India, Stephenson, Fraley, Friedl and others showing what they are made of. Bell must be doing something right.
2. Bullpen was great today. It seems like there are some pieces there that can do the job this year.
3. Lots of professional at bats today. Taking walks and extending at bats will pay off for sure.
4. Cannot understand why Newman is playing over Barrero unless he is injured.
5. I hope someone comes out of the woodwork and starts hitting so Bell can lengthen the lineup. Once you get past the 5 or 6 spot the hits are hard to come by. Hopefully JDV can arrive like a Phoenix from the ashes.
A pleasant surprise so far. Legitimately should have taken 2 of 3 against the defending NL champs. Not bad.
Newman is a vet and Krall signed him for 2.7 mil and he was signed to play.Barrero is 25 years old with less then 320 at bats in the majors and should play barring injuries every day at short stop but he hasn’t so far.Bell will see that he doesn’t.
He traded for Newman not a free agent signing. The point remains he shouldn’t be playing over Barrero
Maybe it’s that Barrero is now 25 and getting up there in age. He may have just needed a day off. After all it was the eighth game of the season.
I don’t agree with you guys on Barrero. He has had plenty of full time activity playing everyday. He didn’t do the job. He is still out there with semi regular playing time. Bell is probably more gracious than I would be. I thought we went through this Barrero stuff last year when he hit 150 playing every day for 2+ months. Just tell me, when do you pull the cord on this dude. In June when he is hitting 180? Why not send him to Louisville and let him prove he can hit minor league pitching over 2 months? Just seems so ridiculous to me to keep losing games in hoping this guy will hit. We are all tooting for him but enough is enough isn’t it?Rob
Your whining would sound a lot better if Barrero was actually outplaying Newman. He’s not. Any spot on a ML team should never be given, they should be earned.
Barrero was coming off a bad injury last year. He has hit into a lot of bad luck early this year. He needs to play for the good of the rebuild.
And the sub-Mendoza Newman had ‘earned’ his spot at SS?
Barrero was having trouble with his hamstring recently. I’ve had hamstring issues and they don’t always disappear quickly.
Tough loss yesterday.
Great win today. tough schedule ahead- braves/Phil’s/rays.
See what Ashcraft has tomorrow.
If Newman starts 2/3 in Atlanta…I may Clete the year.
Honestly I may clete as well. I’m here to watch the young guys as well and sort out for next year. Newman has no use in the Reds future and nobody is desperate enough for a light hitting Shortstop except the Reds.
A lot of teams can use a light-hitting SS as long as he can play good defense. Barrero is lost at the plate, that has to change or he needs to be learning 3B and 2B so he can carve out a career on an MLB bench.
But David Bell is a great manager, and he will say that Newman is getting some key hits and he really likes having Barrero come off the bench to pinch hit or run with his speed. In seriousness though I can’t even bare to watch a David Bell interview the guy is almost as bad a speaker as Krall is.
I will say this Barrero has not been a decent opportunity to see if this new hitting stance helps him out or not.
If you cant bare watching him talk why do you? I dont.
My mood is much better this evening after the Reds salvage a win in the last game of a 3-game series with the Phillies! Very encouraged by the performance of the Reds bullpen this afternoon! Nice clutch hitting in a come-from-behind win! Now let’s get a win against the Braves with Ashcraft on the mound!
What a great decision to come right back with Gibault today!
Gibault is better when he starts an inning clean
I’m no fan of Bell by a long shot, but putting Gibaut back in after yesterday’s debacle was a good move.
At least from a confidence-building perspective.
Building some esprit de corps in the BP has to help.
They rallied as a group after some rugged recent performances.
Bell didn’t micro manage and the BP didn’t give him the chance to under-manage.
Hopefully we see more of both.
More offense, though, would make the pitching look even better.
What would you have said had he got shellacked?
He’d have blamed Bell of course.
Of course….if he got ‘shellacked’.
What manager would leave a pitcher in for the 9th inning if he was pitching poorly to be hammered yet again?
Unless, of course, if 2020ball was running the team.
Just checked the MLB standings! My least favorite team, the Dirty Birds of St, Louis are in last place in the NL Central Division with a record of 3-6!
This Reds team just having 2 additional solid reliable relievers and 1 decent SP beside the HG-NL-GA trio could be a big stone in the way of many teams… Let’s see if Sims, Santillán and Weaver could become that pitchers needed.
The offense is acceptable so far and still waiting for Myers and Benson can start to hit well
Another dependable RBI bat would help immeasurably, too.
Vosler has been a mostly pleasant surprise.
Some signs that Myers is waking up.
If this team could start scoring 5-6 runs a game, they’ll win a lot.
5-6 runs a game you bet ! if they can score more than 3 consistently, they will win a lot of ball games, I fine tuned that stat.
Wonder what Votto will bring to the team once he is back.
Strkeouts and bad defense.
Getting a healthy Santillan and Sims back will really open up scenarios for Bell. We wouldn’t have lost yesterday if he had confidence in anyone but Diaz being able to close games. If we are hovering in the .500 range now, and can do so until those 2 return, I think we’ll be in good shape. I know it’s still dreaming that, they will both be back soon, healthy, and pitching to their capabilities, but it’s a fun dream.
———Day 1—— Day 2——Day3———
———-7th———-7th———-7th———-
——-Young—-SanMartin—-Cruz———
———-8th———8th————8th———
———Sims-——Diaz——-Santillan——
———-9th———9th————9th———
———Diaz——Santillan——Sims———
Position players should start to feel the pressure soon as JV, and NS rejoin the team. McLain, CES, and EDLC will be applying even more pressure in the next couple of months. It might be a fun year after all.
Sims threw one inning. I wish as they prepare relievers they would extend them more than one inning, especially in ST or on rehab. They should all be able to easily pitch two. If they could all pitch two they could probably get by with 12 instead of 13 pitchers and have more bench flexibility.
Nice work outta the pen.
Lots of excitement at the end and our persistence paid off. Fraley is just playing like a thoroughbred stud right now. And TJ appears to have figured things out. A whole lot to like on a day like this.
Onward to Atlanta.
Gibaut looked very good in the ninth. Loved how this team fought back and the pen held up for the win. It was a tough one on the road so a nice victory to avoid the sweep.
I don’t think I would trade Jake Fraley straight up for Jesse Winker right now.
For one, Fraley can play defense. But, two, he’s coming alive as a pretty good major league hitter. Winker is strictly a platoon LF/DH. His numbers may improve in the Brewha’s small stadium, but I’d say another boost for none other than Nick Krall and the scouting department.
This win felt important. Not because it matters all that much in the overall outlook of the season, but it showed me that this Reds team is not the same as last year’s team (I was honestly starting to get nervous after three straight games with bullpen meltdowns). It’s progress. There is no way the Reds would have won a game like this in April 2022.
Also, who would have guessed that after two turns through the rotation, the Reds would be 0-2 in Hunter Green’s starts and 2-0 in Conner Overton’s starts. Baseball.
How bad did we need this one today ? Yeah, after yesterday’s meltdown… but you could feel it coming. We needed that run we should have scored in the 8th, and it hurt. Today it was our turn to take it to them in the 9th… It’s going to be an up and down year for sure.
Cruz, Pittsburghs great young player, broke his ankle today and likely out for the year. That will be a major blow to that ball club and I think will pretty much relegate them to last place in the NL Central.
Terrible. That team had some excitement and energy and I was anticipating a competitive year from them. Cruz was a huge part of this.
That stinks for Cruz for sure. I wonder what they’d give to get Newman back?
The Reds are loaded with young infielders. Why not a deal for Newman to upgrade the Reds bullpen to provide more support for the Big Three or Four.
I think we can all agree, Stephenson is great. I think we can all agree he’s dangerous when he swings that bat, but I swear this man strikes out looking at least once a game. He needs to cut that out.
Hitting a baseball is very, very hard. Looking for the right pitch is not much easier.
A lot of the times it’s not even a borderline pitch. A lot of the time it catches a ton of the plate. Just frustrating, gotta at least try to swing at close pitches with 2 strikes.
He is probably pitch guessing and guessed wrong on the caught looking K’s. But consider he is probably also guessing on many of the pitches he tattoos.
The traditional axiom has been guess all you want till 2 strikes then look fastball but be prepared to pull up and spoil a breaking ball.
7 strikeouts on the year. 5 of which looking. That’s not normal. But hey, maybe it’s a good thing. Probably got a lot of advice from Joey.
Casali and Maile both have 6 and 5 ABs combined. Really dont understand why the Reds insisted on this three catcher system and I hope one of them is cut when Votto’s ready. Benson and Barrero look on the chopping block too, Barrero is less likely because we’d need to call up a SS if they do option him.
*combined = respectively
I’m not sold on this 3-catcher business either. Really wish we had another decent bat on the bench. Who knows maybe like you said it will end when Votto is back.
Last thoughts – I’d like to see Fairchild play more over Benson and replace Myers in the lineup some nights.
Fairchild and Barrero are players that seem to be caught in a major league syndrome where they’re not given enough steady playing time to actually see what they can do to become regular players. With team positions limited, how to solve that is a conundrum that is difficult to resolve.
Anyone getting worried that father time might have finally caught up with Joey,
His current line in AAA is a paltry .143/.226/.286 with 3 walks and 17 strikeouts in 31 plate appearances with Louisville on his rehab assignment. I am beginning to wonder if things don’t improve in the next couple of weeks, that we may not see him again in a Reds Uniform. That would be sad for baseball fans around the country.
Votto’s rehab stint has been brutal; and, for anyone wondering, no, the K’s were not mostly bunched in his first couple or several games. He has struck out at least twice a game in all 7 games he has appeared in and has struck 3 times in 3 of the games.
Another eye raising for me thing about JVs 2023 to date is that his rehab K rate (55% over 31PAs) is markedly worse than his spring training K rate (23% over 26PAs) where per BBRef the composite level of pitching he faced was also AAA.
baseball is such a funny game. going into the 9th inning we are thinking here we go again. another 3-22 start, the world is coming to an end, long depressing summer in Cincinnati again. Now after the 9th inning heroics, we are all elated again!
i think this could be an interesting year where we actually lose more games than last year just because of the tougher schedule and not having Farmer, Mahle and Castillo, but be a lot more entertaining to watch. this team is playing with a lot more moxie than last year for sure so far.
i was out of town for the opening homestand but am excited for them to come back. i will try to get down to gabp at least a few times to watch these comeback kids fight.
Anyone who claims that Newman has “earned” the right to play over Barrero is using the same short-sighted reasoning that Bell is using.
It’s not a question of who has “earned” the right to play, it’s just the simple matter of we know who Newman is: a mediocre journeyman who is not going to be part of the next great Reds team. We have not seen enough of Barrero yet to know what he can do at the MLB level. His minors stats indicate he could be a great player if ever given consistent, non-injured playing time. Barrero has not even had 300 ABs in MLB yet, and some people (probably Bell included) think he’s a bust.
Why do you care if Newman has “earned” the right to play? He’s not a great player, he’s not going to make this team a winner, and he’s not going to be here in a year or two. Whereas Barrero could be a great player, and will be here for the next 5 years at least. Bell, and some of the posters on here, need to start thinking about the future, not just the game tomorrow.
None of the journeymen currently on this team are good enough to lead the Reds to the promised land, but the young players they are blocking might be. We need to let those young players play every day and see what they can do.
Barrero needs to be the starting SS all day, every day, no questions asked, and he needs to be allowed to get at least 400 ABs this year, no matter what his stats are. He needs a string of consistent starts to get his timing down and his confidence up, and he needs to see more MLB pitchers to see if he can adjust to them. The Reds need to find out what they have in Barrero, to see if he can be the SS of the future. Honestly, this question should have been resolved when Barrero first came up, but of course Bell decided to bench the red-hot Barrero in order to let the mediocre Farmer keep getting ABs, and it looks like Bell intends to do the same with Newman.
It’s pure, short-sighted mismanagement. How will we ever find out if our kids can play in the MLB if they are never given a chance? What’s the point of having a great farm system if you never let those players play?
And the real kicker is, how can you claim any player has “earned” the right to play over another player after just 8 games? Holy small sample size, Batman!
This.
What makes no sense about this opinion is Barrero IS playing and we ARE finding out who he is. Its time for him to show hes not a bench bat, and until he does i have no problem with someone else getting playing time.