Reds 6, Astros 5
W: Ondrusek
L: F. Rodriguez
Jordan Lyles returned to the bigs Sunday, at least for one game. This was a fairly important one to the Astros, since it represented not only a chance to even the road trip, to take a series from Cincinnati at home for the first time in years, and also to see just how well young Lyles would perform against a tough hitting club.
Lyles pitched six strong innings. He had good command and worked the corners and down in the zone well except for the fourth inning, when he gave up a double to Cozart and a bomb to Votto on two mistake pitches. Other than that he was terrific, even dropping down a suicide squeeze to score CJ in the third.
Offensively, the team had some bright spots. Altuve had three hits, Lowrie and CJ two each, with homers for Lowrie and Downs. They only worked one walk off of Latos, but they got ten hits off of him and never looked bad at the plate.
The wheels fell off of this one in the seventh. Lopez came in and gave up two quick hits, then Carpenter was brought in and he got two outs before Mills decided to throw the book out the window. Sure, there’s not much in the way of lefthanded relivers on this squad and yes, it would’ve meant putting the tying run on second and the lead run on if Votto was walked, but Votto had been spoiling pitches the entire series and hitting what he wanted to. Carpenter came in with a slider, in and down and Votto slapped it into right to tie the game. Walking Votto would’ve preserved the righty-righty matchup against Phillips, who was 0 for 4 today and looked overmatched.
In the eighth, FeRod’s first pitch was grooved right down the middle of the plate for the go-ahead run by Bruce. No lengthy parables tonight, no weird storytime that dares you to connect the dots for some Greater Truth. Questionable decisions by Mills and a mistake pitch by FeRod are what this one boils down to, and if Mills doesn’t get his head right he’ll never take this team to the next level. I don’t know what the hell is going on in that dugout, but we’ve seen this sort of tactical strangeness too many times and on a team with zero margin for error, it’s even more costly.
Giggle along with us in the GameZone. Tomorrow it’s the hated steM, and Surfer Bud looks to find the cool breeze.