RC+ Recap: Sonny Gray, bullpen shut down Cardinals, Reds win 2-1

Reds pitching held the St. Louis Cardinals to two hits, winning the first game of the series, 2-1.

Sonny Gray threw 97 pitches over 5 innings. He drew 14 swinging strikes (14.4%). The Cardinals managed to put only 6 balls in play. They got one hit, a single. Gray struck out 10 batters.

At one point, four of Gray’s strikeouts were on called third strikes. On several of those, he threw a pitch described by Chris Welsh and Statcast as a two-seam fastball that started outside, just off the plate. Three RH batters — Paul Goldschmidt, Paul DeJong and Yadi Molina — thinking the pitch was one of Gray’s famous 2-strike sliders, laid off of it. Then they watched the ball move back over the plate.

Gray has made three starts in a row without giving up a run, against the Braves, Cubs and now Cardinals. That’s 18 innings. We wrote in June the early returns on Gray were promising. Since then, Gray has been one of the top 15 pitchers in the major leagues. Tonight was more evidence the Reds made a wise decision to trade for Gray and sign him to an extension.

Robert Stephenson (6th) and Michael Lorenzen (7th) followed Gray with two immaculate innings of relief. Lorenzen came back for the 8th, walked the first batter, but retired the next two. Bell brought Raisel Iglesias in to face Goldschmidt and retired him on one pitch. Iglesias returned for the 9th and walked Marcel Ozuna. But then the Reds closer struck out DeJong, got Molina to ground out, gave up a run-scoring double (53 mph ground ball) to Wong, before getting Matt Wieters to fly out to end the game.

The win could knock the Cardinals out of 1st place in the NL Central if the Cubs win. #spoiler

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