Hunter Greene made his 2026 spring training debut and he did not have the best go of it in his first inning of work. The offense took care of things later on in the game, though, as they battled back from an early deficit to complete a come-from-behind win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday afternoon out in Arizona.
The Highlights
Cincinnati got things out to a nice start when Matt McLain hit a sinker 394 feet into the crowd in the top of the 1st inning to put the Reds up 1-0.
In the bottom of the inning things went about as poorly as they could for Hunter Greene. Making his first start of the spring, Greene’s inning went like this: Triple on a misplayed ball in center, a wild pitch that brought in a run, and then four straight singles. That resulted in three runs on five hits, 22 pitches, and no outs recorded. Another run would be charged to his record when reliever Julian Garcia entered the game and gave up two more hits.
Since it’s spring training, though, and nothing really matters, Hunter Greene was allowed to return to the mound to begin the 2nd inning for the Reds. He would walk the first batter of the inning but then get a force out on a grounder and then a double play ball to end the inning and his day.
Two innings later we saw Cincinnati’s offense put together a big rally against two Brewers relievers. Matt McLain started the inning with a single and then moved to third on a double by Elly De La Cruz. Spencer Steer drew a 1-out walk to load the bases for Blake Dunn and he promptly unloaded them with a double to tie the game up. Dunn would then come around to score later in the inning on an RBI single from Dane Myers that put the Reds up 5-4.
They didn’t remain in the lead for very long. Milwaukee got to Lyon Richardson in the bottom of the 5th. They would get the first two batters on base before a 2-out double by Blake Perkins brought in the game-tying run. Richardson would strand two runners to keep the game tied up at the end of five.
Cincinnati grabbed the lead back in the top of the 6th inning thanks to the new rules implemented this year. Sal Stewart singled to lead off the inning and Blake Dunn was hit by a pitch and then pinch run for. That led to Dane Myers coming to the plate with two men on and two outs. He would be called out on strikes, but he challenged the call and he was correct, giving him another chance and he took advantage of it as he doubled in two runs. He would then come in to score when Will Banfield followed with an RBI double of his own that made it 8-5.
A ground-rule double in the bottom of the 6th was followed up by back-to-back groundouts for the Brewers, but both of them moved Luis Lara up a base in the process and he would score to get one of those runs back for Milwaukee.
Michael Chavis got that run back for Cincinnati in the top of the 7th. He would hit a solo home run with two outs to extend the lead for the Reds to 9-6. The Brewers got a run back in the bottom of the 8th on a long home run by Andrew Fischer, but that’s all they could manage as Cincinnati kept the lead. Davis Daniel made sure it was their final run, too, as he worked a scoreless 9th inning to seal the win.
You can see the box score for this game here.
News and Notes
Elly De La Cruz had his first hit of the spring as a right-handed hitter when he doubled in the 4th inning. He’s now 1-3 against lefties this spring. He’s also 5-9 against righties. All of his hits are extra-base hits and he’s hitting .500/.500/1.250 in his four games played.
Matt McLain is 6-12 with a walk and a strikeout in his first 13 plate appearances of the spring.
Blake Dunn’s had a nice couple of days. He homered on Friday. In this game he doubled and drove in three runs while also throwing out a baserunner at the plate.
The Reds used nine pitchers in the game. Hunter Greene was the only one who didn’t record a strikeout. As a whole the pitching staff had 12 strikeouts and three walks, but also gave up 17 hits. None of the nine had a perfect inning in the game.
The Reds are on the road again on Sunday as they head over to Hohokam Stadium to take on the Athletics. Expected to pitch for Cincinnati in this game: Andrew Abbott, Emilio Pagan, Tony Santillan, Brock Burke, Graham Ashcraft, Connor Phillips, Tejay Antone, Zach Maxwell, and Luis Mey.