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Red Sox 8 Reds 2
Hunter Greene flashed dominance for six innings Thursday night, but Rafael Devers cranked an RBI double off Kevin Herget to break a 2-2 8th inning tie and open the floodgates to five more runs as the Red Sox beat the Reds 8-2 Thursday night at Fenway Park.
Greene carried a streak of nine consecutive hitless innings, dating back to his last start, into the 4th inning Thursday and allowed just one run.
The Reds bullpen allowed a go ahead run in the 7th inning that the Reds answered, but allowed six more in the 8th inning that the Reds could not answer.
Next up: A four games showdown vs the first place Brewers.
That one stings: Tough to lose on a night your starting pitcher is really good and their starting pitcher leaves after 3.2 innings due to injury. The Reds missed a chance at a sweep, a six game win streak and to pull within two games of the 1st place Brewers, who lost Thursday afternoon. I think back to leading 5-0 vs Rockies and blowing chance to win that series and losing 2-1 to the Cardinals in the final game of a four game series with a chance to win that series.
Hunter Greene: 6 IN, 2 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 8 K, 109 pitches/67 strikes. Sox hitters fouled off 30 pitches. ERA now at 3.92. He pitched 9 consecutive no-hit innings with 18 K from his 6 innings vs the Cubs in his last start through his first 3 innings tonight. His hitless streak ended in the 4th when Jose Barrero lost a Rafael Devers high fly ball into CF and it dropped untouched for a double. Devers came around to score on a weakly hit single by the next batter, Justin Turner. Greene seemed to wobble at little in that moment, but regrouped. Greene's last two starts 12 IN 2 H 1 R 5 BB 19 K. Per Joel Luckhaupt, this is the 8th time in 12 starts this season that Greene hasn't thrown a pitch with more than 1 run scored by the Reds.
Good company: Per ESPN Stats and Info, Greene is the 4th-fastest pitcher to reach 250 strikeouts as a starter since the mound was moved to its current distance in 1893. The only pitchers to do it faster? - Spencer Strider - Corbin Burnes - Kerry Wood.
History missed: Per Elias Sports, Greene was attempting to become the first Reds pitcher, since the mound was moved to its current distance in 1893, to record at least 10 strikeouts in three consecutive appearances. He came up short, with 8 Thursday night, after getting strikeouts on 7 of his first 9 outs.
Bullpen: Ian Gibaut 1.0 IN, 1 R......Kevin Herget 1.0 IN, 6 R.
Rough turn of events: They somehow failed to score after back-to-back doubles by Steer and Tyler Stephenson to begin the 4th inning. Steer stopped at 3rd on the Stephenson ball that was momentarily bobbled against the CF wall by Jarren Duran. Then, Steer was thrown out attempting to tag and score from 3rd on a fly ball to RF by Stuart Fairchild with nobody out. The Reds challenged that catcher Connor Wong was blocking the plate (I thought he was), but lost the challenge.
Chris Sale: The Sox starter exited after 59 pitches with an injury (left shoulder soreness) two outs into the 4th inning.
Matt McLain: His 8th inning single brought home the tying run and extended his hit streak to 10 games.
Leading man: Kevin Newman collected three more hits (1B, 2 2B) and an RBI. That's multi-hit games in 6 of his last 7 games. He entered the night hitting .360 over his previous 18 games.
Whiiiiiiiffff: Both starting pitchers struck out the side in the 1st inning and five batters through the first two innings.
How they scored
3rd inning: Newman RBI 2B scored Curt Casali, 1-0 Reds
8th inning: McLain RB 1B scored Newman, 2-2