Arroyo hit hard again
Right-hander gives up five runs, two HRs in six innings.
Bronson Arroyo sounded Thursday as if he knows his time with the Cincinnati Reds is limited at least if he keeps per— forming as he has in his first two starts of 2017.
“At this level, you’re getting paid to produce,” Arroyo said. “It’s got to get a little better a little quicker.” Arroyo allowed five runs on seven hits in
six innings in a 5-1 loss to the Brewers at Great American Ball Park. The Reds’ four-game winning streak ended. They fell to 7-3 and will need to win the last three games of this series to win their first four series of the season for the first time since 1987. Arroyo has been the losing pitcher in two
of the Reds’ three losses. His ERA stands at 9.90. That’s better than it was at the start of the day. It stood at 13.50 after he allowed six earned runs in four innings in a 10-4 loss Saturday to the Cardinals in St. Louis. He knows
he doesn’t have much time to turn it around. He said he may be at a dead-end street if he doesn’t pitch better soon.
“If I go out there honestly the next two times,” Arroyo said, “and still feel like things are not quite crisp and I’m giving up too many hard hit balls and too many runs and not being able to shut down those big innings, that’s a problem.”
Reds manager Bryan Price plans to give Arroyo more chances because he knows he’s still finding himself after pitching so little the past two-plus seasons because of injuries.
“He’s coming off two and a half years of baseball inactivity for the most part, as far as competition,” Price said. “I think he deserves to have some starts under his belt so we can really evaluate what he has left.”
The Brewers scored four runs against Arroyo in the third. Ryan Braun capped the rally with a two-out, tworun home run. Two innings later, Eric Thames hit a solo home run to give the Brewers a 5-1 lead.
Billy Hamilton got the Reds on the board in the first. He led off the game with a single, stole second, moved to third on a fly ball by Jose Peraza and scored on a sacrifice fly by Joey Votto.
Zack Cozart went 3 for 3, raising his average .481. The rest of the team had two hits.