The Cincinnati Reds will try to rebound from one of their most disappointing losses of the season when they host the Washington Nationals on Saturday in the second of a three-game series.
On Friday night, the Reds held a 3-0 lead with starter Graham Ashcraft cruising through five innings. But the Nationals scored six unanswered to walk away with a 6-3 win in 10 innings to send Cincinnati to its fourth straight loss.
The Nationals tied it in the eighth off Ashcraft on a two-out, two-run homer by Joey Meneses after Lane Thomas reached on a dribbler down the first-base line.
Thomas belted his second homer of the night in the 10th, a two-run blow off Cincinnati closer Alexis Diaz, who was pitching in his second inning of relief.
“For Alexis, obviously he’s been so good that those are tough to handle,” Reds manager David Bell said. “That’s what we asked him to do. Very, very difficult.”
Bell, desperate to give his overworked bullpen some relief, gambled that Diaz could give his team another scoreless inning. Instead, Thomas turned on a high Diaz fastball for the game-clinching homer.
“I don’t know how to measure it, put a number on it, or anything like that,” Bell said when asked to characterize the demoralizing loss. “I mean, we go out every day to win a game and that’s the goal. That’ll be the goal (Saturday), and a lot of things happened.
“Graham obviously put us into a really good position to win the ballgame, and that’s a positive. There’s no questions in the way he’s been pitching is really important to our team.”
Bell also announced after the game that outfielder Jake Fraley was unavailable in Friday’s game for undisclosed reasons.
Meanwhile, second baseman Jonathan India (left foot plantar fasciitis) is expected to return on Tuesday against the Miami Marlins. India fielded grounders in Chicago as he increased his baseball activities. He was scratched from the lineup on July 29 vs. the Dodgers with left heel pain.
The Nationals send right-hander Joan Adon (0-0, 5.40 ERA) to the mound on Saturday. He is making his first start of 2023 and the 16th of his career.
In 2022, Adon went 1-12 with a 7.10 ERA in 14 starts, including on June 2, 2022, when he allowed six hits and three runs over 5 1/3 innings in an 8-1 Cincinnati win. He walked four and struck out four in his only appearance against the Reds.
The Reds counter with lefty Andrew Abbott (6-2, 2.35). The rookie was the starter in Cincinnati’s last win, 6-5 over the host Chicago Cubs on Monday. He allowed five hits and four runs over 3 1/3 innings and was not around long enough to earn the win. He walked three and fanned five.
Before Friday’s game, Washington manager Dave Martinez explained the club’s decision to demote second baseman Luis Garcia to Triple-A. The 23-year-old was sent down following Wednesday’s win over Milwaukee to promote improvement in several areas of his game.
“I still strongly believe that Luis is a big part of our future. I really do,” Martinez said. “There’s some consistency stuff that we want him to work on. We want him to do it without having to worry about putting up numbers and that nature. He does a lot of things well. We think he can get better.”
The 23-year-old Garcia, already in his fourth big league season, was optioned after a prolonged slump over 27 games in which he hit .196 with a .227 on-base percentage, dropping his batting average from .280 to .259 and his on-base percentage from .314 to .293.
–Field Level Media
