They lost on Opening Day, won the second game, then dropped the third game Sunday afternoon, 6-3.
Thirty-two straight ... hard to fathom.
For five innings, first base looked as if it was as unreachable as Jupiter as the starting pitchers were perfect.
Reds starter Nick Martinez retired the first 13 Giants, a streak that ended when Heliot Ramos launched a home run with one out in the fifth.
San Francisco starter and former Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray was even better. He retired the first 15 Reds before Gavin Lux singled leading off the sixth.
Then matters settled into more normal baseball, with a few abnormalities mixed in.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
As Martinez told the media after the game, “It was good ... until it wasn’t.”
The Reds committed a couple of errors, one by shortstop Elly De La Cruz in the eighth that led to a couple of important unearned runs.
And Jacob Hurtubise committed a base-running faux pas that stifled a possible rally in the eighth.
The Reds, down 6-3, had runners on first and second with one out. Hurtubise was on second.
Santiago Espinal grounded to Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman. Hurtubise bolted for third and ran right to Chapman, who tagged him out and threw to first for an inning-ending double play.
“We’ve got human beings, we’re not gonna scream at ‘em every time we make an error,” said manager Terry Francona. “When they make a base-running mistake, we address it, talk to ‘em, tell ‘em why, so we try not to do it again.”
The Reds only trailed 1-0 after the Ramos home run in the fifth. But No. 9 hitter Tyler Fitzgerald opened the sixth with a dribbler inside the third base bag that stopped in the outfield grass.
Fitzgerald legged it into a double. Martinez struck out the next two, but Jung Hoo-Lee doubled for a run and Chapman homered to make it 4-0.
“I made some good pitches, even in that last inning (the sixth),” said Martinez. “That double down the line was just a ground ball (by Fitzgerald). Lee made a nice adjustment and doubled the other way.
“Then I didn’t execute my pitch and Chapman capitalized. I was trying to execute a pitch up-and-in but I left it thigh-high, right where he likes it, and he crushed it.”
So Chapman was a villain to the Reds offensively and defensively.
“You look back at that inning (Chapman’s defensive play on Hurtubise) and that was a game-changer,” said Francona. “And he did it at the plate, too.”
Yes, 375 feet worth of hurt.
When the Reds finally found first base, they nearly came all the way back from the 4-0 deficit when they scored three in the bottom of the sixth.
Lux broke up the perfect game with a first-pitch single in the sixth. Then with one out, Ray was called for a time violation with Austin Wynns batting and Ray’s world disintegrated.
Ray’s next pitch landed 410 feet into the left field seats and it was 4-2. The next batter, Matt McLain, also homered and it was 4-3.
With the sparse crowd of 14,089 chanting down the time on the pitch clock, Ray walked Espinal on four pitches and his day was done.
Erik Miller replaced Ray and gave up a single to Elly De La Cruz, but Christian Encarnacion-Strand bounced into a 4-6-3 double play.
“It looked like when the pitch clock ran out on Ray, it kind of upset him,” said Francona. “To that point, he was dynamite. But we gave ourselves a chance and that’s what you want to do.”
There was another pivotal point in the eighth after De La Cruz’s throw in the dirt put Fitzgerald on first to open the inning.
Fitzgerald was sacrificed to second and broke for third on a steal attempt. Umpire Casey Blaser called him out. The Giants challenged and it was determined that third baseman Jeimer Candelario missed a swipe tag and the call was reversed. Fitzpatrick was safe.
“Yeah, it was hard to imagine that was clear and convincing, but ... ” said Francona.
Willy Adames hit a sacrifice fly. Lee beat out an infield squibber for a hit. Scott Barlow came to the mound and gave up a walk and a run-scoring single to Ramos and it was 6-3.
On a positive note, Ian Gibaut, who blew a save opportunity on Opening Day by giving up four runs in the ninth, followed Martinez and pitched a 1-2-3 seventh with a strikeout.
“That’s important,” said Francona. “It is easy for you guys (media) or the fans, but you can’t run from your guys when they have a bad outing. That’s not going to work very long.”
And he had high praise for Martinez.
“He matched Ray pitch-for-pitch,” he said. “Both were really good. He gave up the solo homer (to Ramos) and the second one (Chapman’s two-run homer) kind of hurt his line.
“That won’t be reflective of the way he pitched,” he added. “He was pretty dominant, that was pretty good pitching.”
Offensively, the Reds had only four hits, three coming in the sixth inning.
“We didn’t get a ton of hits but I thought we hit some ball really hard, “ Francona said. “McLain and Elly hit balls I thought were home runs. Lux has lined out about four times. Steer hit the ball hard. There were some good at bats. but not a ton to show for it.”
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