The offense wasn’t a problem for either squad in Goodyear, Arizona on Monday afternoon. The Chicago Cubs scored four runs in the top of the 1st inning, but from that point on it was a Cincinnati Reds home run derby as they hit six of them and outscored Chicago 17-5 moving forward as they picked up the win.
The Highlights
The 1st inning of this game was fueled by bad defense. Will Benson misplayed two balls into doubles and Noelvi Marte misplayed one into a double. Brady Singer, making his spring debut this year, paid the price as he was charged with four earned runs on four hits and a walk while having to throw 24 pitches in the inning.
Chicago had their own mishap in the bottom of the inning. Matt McLain walked and then scored when Sal Stewart doubled down the left field line. Four pitches later Spencer Steer hit a ball to the warning track in left, but Dylan Carlson lost it in the sun and couldn’t make the play as he turned what should have been the final out of the inning into an RBI double as Stewart came in to score and make it a 4-2 deficit.
Both Will Benson and Noelvi Marte did a little bit of making up for their miscues in the 1st. Benson fielded a 2-out single and came up throwing to the plate and easily threw out the runner trying to score to end the top of the 2nd inning. Marte then led off the bottom of the frame with a 420-foot home run off of the batters eye to make it 4-3. Ke’Bryan Hayes would walk later in the inning and TJ Friedl followed up with a single. Matt McLain then clobbered a 412-foot home run of his own to put Cincinnati in the lead.
That lead didn’t last all that long, though. Nick Sando took over for Brady Singer in the top of the 3rd and he gave up three hits in the inning that led to two runs scoring and tying the game up. But this game was an absolute slugfest and that continued in the bottom of the inning. The Reds rallied big time with back-to-back 1-out singles and a walk that loaded the bases up for Ke’Bryan Hayes, who unloaded them on a double to center. After a walk of TJ Friedl, Matt McLain followed up with a 421-foot home run into right-center to cap off a 6-run inning that made it 12-6.
After a few half-innings of no scoring, Cincinnati broke that streak in the bottom of the 5th inning. A single and a walk would set up Sal Stewart for a 2-out opportunity to put at least a run on the board with a runner in scoring position for him. He did better than that as he worked a 9-pitch at-bat that ended with a 410-foot home run just to the left of the batters eye in center that made it a 15-6 ballgame.
Brandon Williamson tossed 2.0 shutout innings in the 4th and 5th, and then Tejay Antone came through with one of his own in the top of the 6th. The Reds kept their offense going, though. Rece Hinds entered the game in the top of the frame and then came up to lead off the bottom of the inning. The first pitch he saw he crushed at 115 MPH, but it went foul. After taking a strike he got to the third pitch of the at-bat and almost matched the first one, but this one stayed fair as Hinds took a change up and hit it 114 MPH and 400+ feet up onto the berm beyond the bullpen in left-center to extend the lead to 16-6.
After Sam Moll tossed a perfect top of the 7th, Garrett Hampson added yet another home run for the team in the bottom of the 7th with a solo home run the other way that pushed the lead to 17-6.
Cincinnati’s scoreless inning streak ended in the top of the 8th. Yunior Marte struck out the first two hitters of the inning but then walked the third batter, gave up a single, and then saw Kade Snell clobber a ball off of the batters eye for a 3-run home run that cut into the Reds lead and made it an 8-run game. Trevor Kuncl came out of the bullpen for the top of the 9th and closed the game out to put the team back over the .500 mark as they moved to 5-4.
You can see the box score for this game here.
News and Notes
Brady Singer’s line of 2IP, 7H, 5ER, 2BB, and one strikeout looks much worse than it was. The defense did him no favors and it just wasn’t reflected in the box score.
Cincinnati used seven pitchers in the game and they all recorded at least one strikeout. As a group they had 12 of them, but did walk five batters. Reds hitters walked eight times and struck out just four times. They had more home runs than strikeouts.
Matt McLain is seeing beach balls right now. He’s 8-14 with three home runs, three walks, and just one strikeout in 17 plate appearances. That’s good for a .571/.647/1.286 line.
Sal Stewart isn’t having a bad start, either. His home run on the day gave him two on the season to go along with a double, three walks, and two steals in his six games. He’s hitting .429/.529/.929 through his 17 plate appearances.
Rece Hinds picked up his first home run of the spring in this one. He’s now 5-10 with a double, triple, and a homer in his eight games. He’s walked twice and struck out four times in his 12 trips to the plate.
Tuesday will be an off day for the Reds. It’s only one of two off days for the big league club remaining before they leave Arizona. They will also be off on the 19th, but that’s the day the Reds will play their Spring Breakout game against the Giants where each club will put together a team of prospects to face off (MLB Network will carry this game). The Reds return to the field on Wednesday to face off against Team Cuba as they get ready to play in the World Baseball Classic.