The Brewers struck out 14 times. And won.
It Milwaukee 5, Cincinnati 4 on Saturday night in Great American Ball Park. The Reds are 11-26 in one-run games.
The deciding blow was a ninth-inning solo home run off Justin Wilson by rookie Jackson Chuorio, the 19th home run given up by Reds pitchers in the last six games.
And the Reds almost walked it off in the ninth inning. Almost.
The loaded the bases with two outs against the near-invincible Milwaukee closer Devin Williams.
First baseman Jake Bauers struck out four times, but saved the game. Ty France ripped one headed into right field for what looked as if was a game-winning walk-off hit. Bauers, though, made a diving backhanded stop, scrambled to his feet and beat France to the bag to end it.
And the Reds are now 0 for their last 36 against Williams.
The Reds had runner on base in eight of the nine innings but could score in only two as they lost for the seventh time in eight games and for the 12th time in 16 games.
In addition, they have lost 37 of the last 50 games against the Brew Crew.
To rub salt into their gaping wounds, they faced Frankie Montas, their Opening Day starter who was traded to the Brewers with his 4-and-8 record and 5.05 earned run average.
Montas pitched six innings and gave up all four Reds runs and seven hits. He did not get the win, but the Brewers have won five of his six starts.
Once again, the pitch-thin Reds used a Bullpen Day, starting relief pitcher Fernando Cruz. He pitched two scoreless innings and gave up a hit and a walk, but five of his six outs were strikeouts.
Buck Farmer replaced him the third and Milwaukee scored three times on a double by Jackson Chuorio a walk to William Contreras and a three-run home run to Reds nemesis Willy Adamas.
It was his third home in the first three games of the four-game set and his 18th career homer against the Reds. And it was his 12th three-run home run this season, one shy of the 13 Ken Griffey Jr. hit for Seattle in 1996.
The Reds had two-out runners on in the first and second with no damage. They had runners on third and first with no outs in the third.
Spencer Steer hit into a 5-4-3 double play, a ball on which Noelvi Marte should have scored. But he stood at third like the Statue of Liberty and didn’t budge. And he stayed there as Elly De La Cruz flied to left for the final out.
Montas issued a two-out walk in the fourth and nothing came of it.
Finally, after 18 straight scoreless innings, the Reds broke through in fifth with solid fundamental baseball.
Will Benson walked on a full count and Marte beat an infield single. Luke Maile dropped a perfect sacrifice bunt, moving the runners to third and second and both scored on Spencer Steer’s solid single to left, cutting Milwaukee’s lead to 3-2.
In the Milwaukee fourth, a stranger trudged to the mound for the Reds, a 35-year-old fellow named David Buchanan, called up from Louisville prior to the game.
Buchanan was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2010 and was 8-17 with a 5.01 earned run average in 35 games in 2014 and 2015.
And that was it. The Phillies let him go and he pitched eight total year in the minors, seven years in Japan and Korea and one year in independent ball.
So it was his first major league appearance since 2015 and he gave the Redsw 3 2/3 solid innings — one run, two hits.
The one run came when Adames did what Marte didn’t — score from third base on a ground ball. Adames singled to lead the inning, took third on a double by Blake Perkins and scored Garrett Mitchell’s grounder to short to push the Brewers ahead, 4-2.
The Reds tied it in the sixth on Amed Rosario’s two-run home run. And Marte nearly put the Reds ahead with a drive to the center field wall. But Perkins leaped high over the wall and brought it back, his fourth home run robbery of the year, the most in MLB this season.
Tony Santillan replace Buchanan and gave up a hit and a walk in 1 2/3 innings, recording all five outs on strikeouts.
But Chourio’s ninth-innning home run off Wilson and the Reds’ near-miss in the ninth againt Williams turned into just another frustrating evening for the Reds.
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