Dodgers crack 7 home runs in shelling
Manager Price says Reds didn’t have an answer for barrage.
Any baseball series CINCINNATI — that ends on a Monday automatically is, um, different.
For the four-game series between the Reds and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Monday finale was just where the weirdness started.
How about relief pitchers being brought in to face opposing pitchers, one in each half of the third inning?
Try first career home runs by consecutive batters — the Dodgers’ Andrew Toles and Rob Segedin — on consecutive pitches by Josh Smith in the fifth inning.
Then there were the four home runs by the Dodgers in that same inning, the first time they’ve hit that many in one inning since 2006.
If that’s not enough, how about the Reds pitching staff tying one
major league record and another franchise record — records with which no team wants to be involved?
Predictably, a position player — outfielder Tyler Holt — finished the game on the mound, the first for the Reds since Skip Schumaker on Aug. 21, 2014, against Atlanta.
“I couldn’t take my at bat seriously,” Holt said. “I was just trying to have a good time and not take it too seriously.”
He needed only five pitches — two knuckleballs and three “batting practice” fastballs — to retire three batters and keep the final score at 18-9.
Reds pitchers set season highs with 21 hits allowed, as well as runs allowed.
“It’s a loss,” manager Bryan Price said. “It was uglier and took a lot longer than 1-0 or 4-3. We just didn’t have an answer for their offense.
“We gave up seven home runs. They were swinging it and swinging it well. When they get off to a start like that, they’re hard to stop. We had a lot of hits and scored some runs. That’s what you take out of it. You move on. It’s one ballgame. You start fresh tomorrow.”
Perhaps Cincinnati’s best play of the day was the catch by assistant director of media relations and Hamilton native Jamie Ramsey with his fishing net of a ball fouled into the press box. He later misplayed another chance, drawing scattered boos from the fans.
Toles, added to the starting lineup in right field when Josh Reddick was scratched with a sore finger, had mixed results. First baseman Joey Votto finished a home run shy of the cycle thanks to a line drive a diving Toles misplayed into a triple. He also lost an Adam Duvall fly ball in clouds in the first inning, and Duvall ended up with a triple. Each hit drove in a run.
Chase Utley’s line drive single up the middle on Homer Bailey’s first pitch of the game was a definite harbinger. By Bailey’s fourth pitch, the Dodgers led 3-0 on Adrian Gonzalez’s threerun homer. His first of three home runs in the game gave him six home runs and 10 runs batted in over his career against Bailey.
Bailey was hit early, often and hard in his fifth start since coming off the disabled list following Tommy John surgery in May 2015. He lasted a season-low 2⅓ innings, setting season highs by allowing six runs and nine hits.
“It was like Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago,” Bailey said, referring to an eight-hit, five-run, three-inning performance on Aug. 13. “The ball just didn’t come out. It’s not pain, just a dullness, and you can’t finish pitches.”
Smith relieved Bailey and lasted two innings before giving up three home runs in the fifth. Jumbo Diaz came in and gave up a first-pitch home run to Gonzalez — the 24th time a Reds reliever allowed a homer to the first batter he faced. The major league record of 25 was set by the 2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
The Reds wasted little time tying that record. Blake Wood gave up Gonzalez’s third home run of the game immediately upon entering in the seventh, leaving the Dodgers with seven in the game — tying three different editions of the Reds for the most by one team in Greater American Ball Park history. The seven homers allowed by the Reds also tied the club single-game record.