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Brewers 3 Reds 0
Brewers left fielder Tyrone Taylor, who entered the game hitting .153, belted a 7th inning two-run homer to break a scoreless duel and send the Brewers over the Reds 3-0 Wednesday afternoon at American Family Field. The Reds bats were silenced and sawed off to the tune of 18 strikeouts and just six hits.
Leading 2-0 in the 8th, the Brewers added a big two-out insurance run vs Fernando Cruz.
The Brewers take the three game series, win the season series (10-3) and once again increase their lead in the NL Central to 1.5 games.
The good news? The Reds are done with the Brewers for the regular season. The Reds managed just 37 runs in the 13 regular season meetings.
Looking Lively: Ben Lively pitched well....6.2 IN, 8 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 3 K, 89 pitches/59 strikes. His ERA sits at 3.76......just 3.23 over his last six starts.
Fast Freddy: Freddy Peralta 6 IN, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 13 K....89 pitches. He tied a career high with 13 K. He struck out the first five Reds he faced, before Joey Votto lined a single in the 2nd inning. He became the 2nd Brewers pitcher with 10 K in 5 innings, joining Corbin Burness who also did it vs the Reds.
Swing and a miss: Elly De La Cruz struckout three more times. He entered with 58 in 183 PA (31.7%). His K rate was 26.8% at Louisville.
K count: All starters struck out at least once with the exception of Joey Votto..... McLain 4, .Elly 3, Benson 3, India 3, CES 2.
Flights and dinner reservations? The two starting pitchers combined to throw 18 pitches in the 1st inning. The game lasted 2 hours, 5 minutes.
Stranded I: 0-0 to star the 5th, India doubled to leadoff. Votto's groundout advanced him to 3rd. CES K. Stephenson K.
Stranded II: TJ Friedl doubled with two outs in the 6th, but Matt McLain struck out.
Cut down: Jake Fraley reach on an error to open the 7th, but was cut down attempting to steal 2nd base. Votto followed with a single.
Stabbed: Elly made a lounging stab of a Christian Yelich liner with two outs and a runner on 2nd to end the 5th inning.
That's more like it: Votto collected two hits. That's three hits in the last two games after snapping his 0 for 18. His first multi-hit game since July 8.
Back on track? Friedl reached twice, bunting for his 11th hit of the season and rocketing a double. Entering today, he had gotten on base just 27% of the time over his last 20 starts, scored just 7 runs and hadn't walked over his last 11 games.
That's it: It's July 26 and the Reds and Brewers are done with their season series. The Reds have 58 games remaining, the Brewers 59.
Interesting point: Reds radio analyst Chris Welsh wondered if most of the Reds hiked up their stirrups to better establish the low strike zone by the home plate umpire?
Bullpen: Alex Young 0.1 IN, Cruz 1.0
How the Reds scored:
They didn't