Five takeaways from the Reds' eighth straight series loss

Source: The New York Times
Author: C. Trent Rosecrans

CINCINNATI -- Last April the Cincinnati Reds were in the middle of a six-game losing streak when they returned home to face a Texas Rangers team that, with the benefit of hindsight, turned out to be pretty good. During a hitters meeting, catcher Luke Maile, then less than a month into his time with his hometown team, was one of the players to speak up, telling his teammates not to try to do too much. The Reds then swept the future champs, starting a five-game winning streak.

Speeches do not equal wins. Nor do huge shakeups or benchings or any other Disney rah-rah thing you see in movies. Players win games.

The Reds are not winning games. With Thursday's 6-4, 10-inning loss to the Padres, the Reds fell to 20-30 on the season and haven't won a series since sweeping the Angels at home more than a month ago. They split a four-game series with the Phillies immediately after sweeping Los Angeles and lost their next eight series.

"This is a results-oriented business, it's not the 'Try League,' you know? You have to get it done," Maile said. "And within that there's a lot of process stuff that we're sticking to and we will because we're adults and we're big leaguers and that's what we're paid to do. But that's not to say it's easy. It's incredibly difficult right now."

Don't look now, but it gets harder Friday when the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball's highest-paid team, come to Great American Ball Park for three games.

In Maile's Try League, the Reds may not lead the league, but they'd be in playoff contention.

As bad as things have gotten, the Reds have seemingly stuck together. The only tangible damage was done to a chair by manager David Bell in Tuesday's win.

"It's been tough on all of us," said Reds starter Frankie Montas said. "We've all been thinking about it and talking about it and one thing is for sure, we're all doing what we can, going out there and grinding and giving 100 percent. I strongly believe that things are going to start going the right way for us soon."

The question, then, is why does he feel that way?

"Because nobody's giving up," he said. "You go into the clubhouse and everyone's doing their part to get better, you know? We've had some tough luck, that's not a secret. ... When you have a team like that, things are going to go your way for sure."

It's one thing to say the Reds haven't given up, but their play has shown that. Even Thursday, Montas was in a hole early and the Reds tied the game before going to extra innings. The Reds have gone 4-16 in May, but six of those losses have been by one run and Thursday's was a two-run loss, but in extras.

This season the Reds are 1-11 in one-run games. Last year, they were 34-29 in one-run games.

The season isn't lost, the Reds still have just played three games in their division, but the margin for error keeps getting thinner.

In the second inning of Thursday's loss, Bally's Sports' John Sadak was incredulous about what looked like a missed call by home plate umpire Marvin Hudson when Hudson ruled Maile fouled off a 2-2 pitch that then got away from catcher Kyle Higashioka. By the time the ball rolled into the camera well, Hudson threw his hands in the air to signal the foul ball, Nick Martini was at home plate all the way from second, thinking he'd scored.

Hudson then ordered Martini back to second base and Jonathan India back to first.

After reviews seemed to indicate that Maile didn't foul the ball off, Sadak compared the Reds' woes to Charlie Brown getting the football pulled away from him time and time again.

It just seemed that everything was going against the Reds. The key word there is "seemed."

Maile said he was sure he fouled the ball off, noting that he heard two sounds, which he believed to be the ball bouncing off his bat and Higashioka's mitt.

"I barely got it," Maile said. "But absolutely."

Replays seemed to indicate otherwise, confirming the two sounds, with starter Matt Waldron's knuckleball hitting Hiashioka's mitt and then his chest protector.

The play turned out to benefit the Reds, even if it seemed like it was bad luck at the moment, in part because Martini went from home plate back to second.

If it had been called a swing-and-a-miss, Maile was out and the runners would only advance one base because the throw started from the mound, leaving the Reds with runners at second and third with one out.

Because of the foul tip call, Maile stayed alive and followed with a single, loading the bases with no outs. The Reds managed just one run out of that, but because of the way things have been going, the immediate reaction was that it had to be bad for the Reds.

Want a positive? Well, it's not that Frankie Montas gave up four runs in the first two innings, it's that he didn't give up any after that and went six innings.

"The day didn't start the way I wanted to start, but I'm the type of guy who every time I step on the mound, I'm trying to at least give us the best chance to win," Montas said. "I know if I hold it there, we'll get back in the game."

After Montas got to the dugout following his final inning, he searched out Maile and embraced his catcher.

"I respect him a lot and the way he was just keeping me in the game mentally, consistently telling me, 'Keep making pitches, keep making pitches,'" Montas said. "I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. When you have a catcher like that that you trust and he's consistently pushing and pushing and pushing you to be your best, what else can you ask for?"

Montas said the two think alike when working together and he's quickly built trust with Maile. The sentiments are reciprocated.

"That's how we are, we care about each other," Maile said. "He knows the work I put into it and I know how much preparation he puts into it and how much competitive spirit he has."

The Reds scored two runs to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth, taking Montas off the hook for the loss and putting the team back in a situation where it could win.

"There's a sense of accomplishment, even if the results don't say it," Maile said. "I know the fans don't care about that. People don't care about that. But we do this every day, we know what that means and that's what you saw."

Montas pretty much just shrugged off giving up three hits to Padres leadoff man Luis Arraez -- "Arraez is just Arraez."

Not only does Arraez have the best strikeout rate in baseball (just 5.9 percent), he swings and misses less than any other player in baseball (8.6 percent).

Since being traded to the Padres on May 4, Arraez is hitting .419 and he'd only struck out twice in 69 at-bats before Thursday's game. During Thursday's game, he went 4-for-5, extending his streak of games with multiple hits to eight.

With Arraez leading off the top of the seventh for the Padres after the Reds tied the game, Bell called for Cruz, who has been the team's best reliever to face Arraez, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jurickson Profar.

After a called strike and a ball, Arraez fouled off seven straight pitches before allowing laying off a splitter. The next pitch, the 11th of the at-bat, was yet another splitter -- this one bounced in front of the plate.

Arraez knew Cruz was going to throw a splitter and he still chased the ball in the dirt for his third strikeout as a Padre. Cruz threw 11 more pitches to strike out Tatis and Profar.

The Reds lost Hurtubise's debut and the game with his first hit, so postgame celebrations of individual achievements aren't celebrated by a team that lost.

In the second inning of the 2-0 victory, Hurtubise hit a fly ball to left fielder Profar, who threw the ball in time to catcher Luis Campusano to beat the tagging India. But as India slid into the plate, he made contact with Campusano and the ball skipped away from the Padres' catcher, giving the Reds the lead. It was initially called a sacrifice fly and RBI for Hurtubise.

Later in the game, the call was changed from a sacrifice fly to a flyout, with Campusano charged with an error, resulting in no RBI for Hurtubise.

Nobody in the clubhouse pays much attention to the changes, especially ones that don't affect them, so the Reds didn't waste an opportunity to celebrate.

Thursday, Hurtubise got his second first RBI in the second inning of that game against the Padres, this time on a straight base hit, scoring Martini.

Hours later, that first RBI became his second RBI, as Major League Baseball took the error away from Campusano, giving Hurtubise back an RBI, taking away an at-bat and therefore raising his average while adding an earned run to Padres starter Joe Musgrove.

Also on Thursday, Hurtubise recorded his first career stolen base ... for now.