Reds wallop Taillon, Pirates

The Reds already had scored a run in the second when Taillon’s throw to second on an attempted forceout was late. Hamilton followed that mistake with a three-run homer.

The Reds had promoted Jesse Winker earlier Tuesday to take the roster spot of Tony Cingrani, who will join Tony Watson in the Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen. Winker hit his first career home run in the fourth. Three more hits followed and Taillon was done.

“Clearly, they’re too comfortable and they’re seeing all my pitches pretty well,” he said. “I don’t know whether if it’s a lack deception or pitch sequencing or something in my mechanics. We’ll have to find out.”

Taillon said his arm felt good.

Half of those 14 losses against the trio of bad teams have come against the Reds, who now are 43-63. Cincinnati lost 14 of 17 after the AllStar break entering this week’s series. Their pitching staff has the worst ERA in baseball and the most home runs allowed; their rotation has thrown the fewest innings in the majors. (The Pirates scored only one run against this staff, in the first inning, which began with Homer Bailey hitting Starling Marte with two strikes).

“We would like to improve upon that moving forward because there’s a nice stretch of games in front of us against similar teams that are under .500,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.

After the Reds series, the Pirates face the Padres, Detroit Tigers and Toronto Blue Jays.

The Reds are a much different team now than when they previously faced the Pirates. Their three-game sweep at PNC Park in April put them a season-high five games over .500 — at 7-2. When they took three of four the following month, they evened their record at 14-14.

“We played a lot better baseball early in the year, too, and we were getting better and stronger starting pitching,” Reds manager Bryan Price said.

The Pirates went 6 for 46 with runners in scoring position in their first seven games against the Reds, and went 0 for 24 in such situations in the sweep in April.

“I don’t think there’s been as many big-scoring games as far as a lot of our victories this year, we’ve had to score a lot,” Price said. “I think the games against Pittsburgh, for whatever reason, resemble a little bitmore of the traditional, 3-2-, 4-3-,5-4-type feel to them.”