Cincinnati Reds Fail to Sweep Kansas City Royals, Fall 3-2

The Cincinnati Reds missed their chance to sweep the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday. They had plenty of opportunities to put a crooked number on the scoreboard, but couldn’t conjure up enough consistent clutch at-bats.

The Reds were 2-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Those to hits were off the bat of Spencer Steer.

Spencer Steer was clutch on Wednesday. He drove in Elly De La Cruz, who led off the eighth inning with a double, on a single to left field. That cut the Royals lead to one and forced them to bring on their closer. 

He also delivered the Reds first run with a timely hit in the sixth inning. It was his second hard-hit single of the game. A slightly hobbled Austin Hays scored from second on the hit. Hays hit a foul ball off the inner portion of his left foot during his at-bat.

Royals starter, Noah Cameron, shut down the Reds hot bats. He scattered six hits across 6 1/3 innings with lots of weak contact. He struck out two and walked two. Cameron has now made four career starts and gotten outs in the seventh inning in every one of them.

Hunter Greene labored through five innings of bad luck. He allowed just two runs, but one of them was ridiculous. Maikel Garcia got a lucky single off Greene’s right calf. During the ensuing at-bat, Garcia scored from first on a ground ball that missed Matt McLain’s diving glove off the bat of Drew Waters. There was questionable effort on the part of Connor Joe in right field backing up McLain as he scooped the ball in shallow right field but threw the ball off line to home plate.

Several pitches that Greene threw looked to be in the strike zone but were called balls by home plate umpire Carlos Torres. Overall he threw 88 pitches in his five innings of work and had three strikeouts to one walk.

Tyler Stephenson is really dialing in at the plate. He delivered three hits, all of them singles. Stephenson’s first two hits were bloops while his third was a 104 MPH line drive that one-hopped to the left fielder.

News and Notes

• The hardest-hit ball by a Red was a line drive out by De La Cruz that was caught by Royals third baseman Nick Loftin.
• Santiago Espinal grounded into his sixth double play of the season to end a chance at a Reds rally in the seventh inning. I’d be surprised if he hits more home runs than double plays this year.
• Reds manager Terry Francona got tossed in the top of the ninth inning after Matt McLain was called out on strikes. Worth mentioning one more time that this was not a good night for home plate umpire Torres.
• Connor Joe, Matt McLain, and Garrett Hampson went 0-for-10 on the night. Hampson walked in the seventh. Will Benson pinch-hit for Joe in the eighth and popped out to make it 0-for-11 by Reds hitters in the bottom third of the lineup.