The frustration ended Friday night with two hits and reached a crescendo Saturday afternoon with four hits that included a two-run home run as the Reds stopped the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers, 8-4.
It was India’s first home run, and his four RBI doubled his season’s total in one game.
And the recipient of the outpouring of runs was Reds starting pitcher Hunter Greene, who could have said, “Thanks, but I only needed one run and the other seven were wasted.”
But they were appreciated — and later needed — because so far this season the Reds’ bats have been sounds of silence when he pitched.
Greene was on the high north side of magnificent, a seven-inning one-hitter, a double leading off the fifth by Josh H. Smith. And only one other runner found first base, a leadoff walk to Marcus Semien in the fourth. He struck out six.
Greene turned matters over to the bulllpen after seven innings and 98 well-placed mostly unhittable pitches and matters became extremely squirmy for the Reds in the ninth inning.
Brent Suter extended his scoreless innings streak to 14 1/3 inning with a 1-2-3 eighth.
But, yikes, what a ninth.
The Rangers, down 8-0, scored four runs off Suter and forced manager David Bell to bring in closer Alexis Diaz with two runners on. He retired the two hitters he faced to finally put an end to it.
Suter gave us six hits in the ninth, including back-to-back home runs to rookie Davis Wendzel and Corey Seager. It was Wendzel’s first MLB homer and Seager’s home run came on his 30th birthday.
The Rangers started former Red Michael Lorenzen, who was 2-0 with a 2.45 earned run average, a stand-in because the Rangers have $60 million worth of pitching on the injured list that includes Max Scherzer, Jacob de Grom and former Red Tyler Mahle. That $60 million just represents money owed those pitchers this season.
Lorenzen dug his own pit in the second inning when he opened the inning by hitting Christian Encarnacion-Strand with a pitch and walking Jake Fraley.
Encarnacion-Strand scored on Tyler Stephenson’s single, and Fraley scored on Nick Martini’s sacrifice fly to give Greene an early 2-0 lead.
India singled home Encarnacion-Strand in the fourth, then the Reds scored four in the seventh. India’s two-run homer chased Lorenzen and Rangers relief pitcher Jose Urena yielded a two-run home run to Will Benson to push Cincinnati’s lead to 7-0.
India’s fourth hit, a single in the ninth, scored pinch-hitter Luke Maile, who had singled, and that made it 8-0.
Greene retired the first nine Rangers in order, with only one fly ball reaching the outfield. His perfection ended via a four-pitch walk to Semien opening the fourth, but Semien never budged off first.
Greene set down the next three before Smith’s leadoff double in the fifth and he never left second. Greene retired the final nine Rangers he faced but needed 98 pitches to get through seven.
That’s when Suter arrived and the Rangers celebrated Greene’s departure with a mini-uprising in the ninth that Diaz had to put down for his fifth save.
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