Reds come through with huge comeback win over Cardinals

by — September 13, 2020 in Game Recap

The offense finally came alive for the Reds, leading them to a comeback victory to secure a series win over the Cardinals on Sunday.

It’s the first series win for the Reds since August 7-9 against the Brewers. The 10-5 win brings the Reds to 21-26, keeping their playoff hopes alive with a four-game series coming up against the Pirates to begin the week.

The Cardinals held a 5-3 after five innings, but the Reds scored in each of the final four innings to pull away and take the win. It was just the second time they’ve reached double-digit runs this year. The Reds also had a hit in every inning, the first time they’ve accomplished that in four years.

Eugenio Suarez led the charge with three hits, including an RBI double and a solo home run in the eighth inning. Shogo Akiyama and Jose Garcia also had two hits apiece.

Brian Goodwin got the scoring started when he hit his first home run in a Reds uniform with a solo shot off the foul pole in the second inning (103.3 mph, 352 feet), tying the game at one. After the Cardinals retook the lead, the Reds caught a rare break in the third inning when Cardinals left-fielder Austin Dean lost a fly ball in the sun, resulting in an RBI double with two outs by Suarez. Mike Moustakas was intentionally walked to load the bases, and Tyler Stephenson drew a walk to score another run, tying the game at three.

St. Louis scored two more runs in the fifth to reclaim a 5-3 lead, but Nick Castellanos came through with a big two-out single in the sixth inning to cut the deficit to 5-4. The Reds added three more runs in the seventh on only one hit to take the lead for good. Moustakas walked, Stephenson singled, and Aristides Aquino was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out. Freddy Galvis drew a walk to score a run, Stephenson scored on a wild pitch, and Garcia brought in another run with an RBI groundout.

Suarez tacked on another insurance run with a solo homer in the eighth (105.5 mph, 413 feet), and Aquino delivered the finishing blow in the ninth with a two-run shot to center field (110.4 mph, 421 feet), his first long ball of the season.

The offense picked up Tyler Mahle, who had his first poor start in several weeks. It was clear from the first inning that Mahle didn’t have his best stuff. The right-hander needed 77 pitches to get through only 2.2 innings after getting himself into jams in each of the first three innings. Mahle’s command was unusually poor, as he gave up four walks in addition to four hits. Three of the walks came in the first two innings, and two later came around to score. He ultimately allowed three runs during his short outing.

Mahle’s fastball command was unusually erratic, and he had trouble getting anything going with his slider, too.

David Bell pulled Mahle for Robert Stephenson with two outs and runners on first and second base in the third inning. Stephenson responded with a huge strikeout on three nasty sliders to end the inning. Stephenson worked around a walk to throw a scoreless fourth inning.

After Stephenson walked the leadoff batter in the fifth inning, Bell turned to Nate Jones. Jones got the first batter to ground into a fielder’s choice before giving up four straight singles, allowing two more Cardinals runs to score.

Behind two innings apiece from Archie Bradley and Raisel Iglesias, the Cincinnati bullpen blanked the Cardinals over the final four innings. Bradley was perfect in the sixth and seventh innings, striking out one and generating three groundouts. Iglesias was perfect aside from a walk in the ninth inning, striking out three.

Most Valuable Reds

  • Eugenio Suarez: .145 WPA (Win Probability Added)
  • Aristides Aquino: .135 WPA
  • Archie Bradley: .126 WPA

Play of the Game

  • Freddy Galvis: .167 WPA | Bases-loaded walk in 7th inning

Hardest-Hit Balls

  • Aristides Aquino: 110.4 mph | Home run in 9th inning
  • Eugenio Suarez: 108.7 mph | Single in 5th inning
  • Nick Castellanos: 107.9 mph | Groundout in 4th inning
  • Joey Votto: 107.4 mph | Single in 3rd inning
  • Eugenio Suarez: 105.5 mph | Home run in 8th inning
  • Brian Goodwin: 103.3 mph | Home run in 2nd inning

Highest Velocities By Pitcher

  • Raisel Iglesias: 98.8 mph
  • Nate Jones: 97.9 mph
  • Robert Stephenson: 95.8 mph
  • Tyler Mahle: 95.3 mph
  • Archie Bradley: 94.6 mph

Unluckiest Out of the Day

  • Nick Castellanos: 78% hit probability | Lineout in 8th inning

What’s Next?

A huge opportunity awaits the Reds to begin the week. They’re set for a four-game series against the woeful Pirates, with a doubleheader to start the week. Trevor Bauer will get the ball in game one, followed by Anthony DeSclafani in game two. Pittsburgh has yet to announce its starts, but Mitch Keller will start one of the two games on Monday.

[Photo Credit: https://twitter.com/Reds/status/1159624545768267776]

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Matt Wilkes

Matt Wilkes got hooked on Reds baseball after attending his first game in Cinergy Field at 6 years old, and he hasn’t looked back. As a kid, he was often found imitating his favorite players — Ken Griffey Jr., Adam Dunn, Sean Casey, and Austin Kearns — in the backyard. When he finally went inside, he was leading the Reds to 162-0 seasons in MVP Baseball 2005 or keeping stats for whatever game was on TV. He started writing about baseball in 2014 and has become fascinated by analytics and all the new data in the game. Matt is also a graduate of The Ohio State University and currently lives in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter at @_MattWilkes.

2 Responses

  1. pinson343 says:
    September 13, 2020 at 7:02 PM

    It was an exciting game to watch. The Reds definitely caught some early breaks.
    There was the lost fly ball in the sun. Also the game almost became a rout with Jones pitching, a base running blunder by the Cardinals cost them a run and Jones finally got the 3rd out on a hard line drive from Wong.

    Castellano was not chasing today. He took some close pitches before his RBI single and before hitting a drive into RCF where he was robbed of an extra base hit (see 78% hit probability above) by a Ryan Freel-esque all out diving catch by the speedy Harrison Bader (Bader is annoying, seems as pleased with himself as the big jock on campus). And I see Castellano’s ground out was hit even harder.

  2. pinson343 says:
    September 13, 2020 at 7:47 PM

    There were good ABs all the way through the lineup, first time I can recall seeing that for a while. Some favorite swings were Votto’s hard single on a 3-0 pitch; Garcia hitting a single off a 2 strike slider, a pitch that had eaten him up so many times. Everyone looked good except Galvis, but he did take 4 balls when he needed to.

    The Cardinal bullpen looks exhausted. Gant gave up a hit to the first batter he faced, and after he left with an injury the rest looked ragged. Their top two RHed relievers are now out.

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