ST. LOUIS – The Cincinnati Reds started the first day of their road trip without a pitching coach. They started the second inning without their manager.
And they started to look like a team that couldn’t get out of its own way by the time they reached the sixth inning of a six-game road trip that will take them to San Diego next – and to the brink of getting buried in the division by midseason if the bats and bullpen keep looking like they did in a 10-3 loss to the Cardinals that was a lot uglier than the score.
“We made errors. We didn’t throw strikes. And we paid a big price for it,” said manager Terry Francona, who earned an ejection in the bottom of the first for arguing after an unsuccessful replay challenge.
The loss to the Cardinals in the opener of a weekend series in St. Louis, dropped the Reds to 2-11 in division play this season – before they’ve played a game against first-place Milwaukee.
The team that finished April in first place and in command of the National League Central has fallen like a rock since, with slumping lineup and one of the worst-performing, beat-up bullpens in the majors leading the race to the bottom.
“None of our pitchers (located) tonight. Stevo was like a goalie,” Francona said, referring to catcher Tyler Stephenson. “That’s a hard way to be successful.”
Errors by rookie shortstop Edwin Arroyo and rookie first baseman Sal Stewart in the bottom of the first cost the Reds two unearned runs and most of a 3-0 lead – and cost the manager for the rest of the game.
Stewart, who was ruled to have pulled his foot off the bag on what would have been an inning-ending groundout, immediately signaled to challenge the play and started jogging off the field.
When a lengthy review resulted in a “call stands” ruling, Francona emerged from the dugout in what appeared to be support of Stewart.
“Just the longer they waited, I was getting madder and madder,” Francona said. “It’s not something I set out to do.
“I still think he was out,” Francona added. “I’ve got a picture that shows him on the bag. The way Sal went after it gave the umpire a chance to call it. So it’s a little bit of both maybe.”
The Cards tied it on Alec Burleson’s leadoff homer in the third off Brady Singer, who lasted just one leadoff walk into the fifth inning.
Another unearned run facilitated by Brock Burke’s errant pickoff throw in the fifth put the Cardinals in front.
And then rookie Zach Maxwell and almost-rookie Luis Mey combined to surrender four hits, four walks and a hit batter in the Cardinals’ six-run sixth – Mey loading the bases with a two-out walk, then hitting a batter, giving up a run-scoring single off Eugenio Suárez’s glove at third, then issuing back-to-back run-scoring walks.
Not that sixth was especially decisive given the non-pitchers’ fielding and performance at the plate after the first.
Consider that the Reds went 2-for-3 with men in scoring position in their three-run first. They didn’t put a man in scoring position again until the seventh. Then left him there.
And it’s not like they’re exactly catching a juggernaut on a hot streak as they face their division rivals this weekend.
The Cards haven’t won a series in three weeks and had lost 10 of 15 entering the weekend.
But the Reds might as well have asked them to hold their beer – losing their sixth in eight games and 20th since the end of April.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Reds drop to 2-11 in division play with ugly loss to Cardinals
Reporting by Gordon Wittenmyer, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Gordon Wittenmyer, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
