Lodolo’s illness forced manager Tito Francona to splice together a bullpen game and told reporters before the game, “Lodolo is sick, a high temperature and chills and we sent him to the doctor.
“So we’re going to have a bullpen game. Scott Barlow will start and then we’ll try to piece it together from there.
“This could actually be a real good night when you find a way to win on a night like this, that can be good for you,” he added.
That was mere cockeyed optimism.
It didn’t work that way because not even nine runs and 15 hits were enough to beat the Toronto Blue Jays, who clubbed four home runs.
The early part of the Reds bullpen was more like a pigpen as Barlow and Brent Suter gave up 10 runs in the first four innings.
It was too much for the Reds to withstand and they lost, a painful loss because the New York Mets mauled the Detroit Tigers, 12-5, to push the Reds five games behind the Mets in the wild card chase.
And to make matters more dire, the San Francisco Giants have pulled into a tie with the Reds, both at 70-69 and five games behind the Mets.
The Reds put up quite a skirmish. They were down, 8-1, when they came to bat in the second and scored five to pull within 8-6.
The Blue Jays pushed ahead, 10-6, and the Reds clawed back to within 10-8. The Blue Jays made it 11-8 and the Reds crept back to 11-9 in the eighth, but that was it.
For Barlow, it was a Nightmare on Pete Rose Way. His third pitch of the game was hit into the great beyond by George Springer, his 62nd career game-leading home run.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
They could have stopped it right then.
Barlow retired the next hitter, then threw 10 straight balls to walk the next two and go 3-and-2 on the next batter. He issued a third straight walk on a full count to Daulton Varsho to fill the bases.
Alejandro Kirk cleared them with a three-run double over center fielder TJ Friedl’s head and it was 4-0 before the Reds picked up a bat.
“Yeah, that’s a big hole to dig out of,” said Francona. “We tried and I was proud of our guys because it wasn’t for a lack of trying. It was just too deep of a hole.
“Barlow just wasn’t commanding anything,” he added. “You could tell it was a struggle. It was ball one, ball two, ball three in a hurry. It wasn’t as if he was just missing, it was just hard for him to dial in.”
The Reds scored a run in the bottom of the first but left two runners stranded.
The Blue Jays scored four off Brent Suter in the second, highlighted by a three-run home run by Bo Bichette for an 8-1 lead.
That meant Bichette had reached base six straight times in the series with two homers, two doubles, a single and a walk with five RBI and four runs scored.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Fortunately for the Reds, they were facing much-troubled Jose Berrios. He has been so ineffective the Blue Jays skipped his last start.
And he was awful.
The Reds scored five runs in the second, four coming after a two-out throwing error by third baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa. It was his first game for Toronto after he was released by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
After the error, Berrios walked Elly De La Cruz and Austin Hays dropped a titanic three-run homer into the left field upper deck and it was 8-6.
“Once Hays hit that ball, I said, ‘OK, we’ve got a game,’” said Francona. “We got into their bullpen way before they wanted to (the third), but we knew we were up against it going into it.”
Toronto scored two more in the fourth off Suter on Springer’s second homer of the game and it was 10-6.
Once again the Reds scratched and clawed to score two runs in the fourth, a rally started by TJ Friedl’s bunt single. With two outs, Hays doubled home Friedl for his fourth RBI and Gavin Lux singled him home. That cut Toronto’s margin to 10-8.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
So after four innings, the two teams scored 18 runs on 17 hits.
Then matters settled down. The Blue Jays scored two runs over the final five innings, one on their fourth home run, this one by Daulton Varsho and the other on a wild pitch by Reds pitcher Reiver Sanmartin.
The Reds scored just one run over the final five innings, a one-out home run in the eighth by Friedl.
Former Reds pitcher Jeff Hoffman, now Toronto’s closer, had struggled mightily in three of his last five appearances, giving up home runs.
But he put the Reds down in the ninth, giving up a two-out infield single to Sal Stewart, but nothing more for his 30th save.
“When you look up in the second inning and see 8-1, it doesn’t look good,” said Francona. “But we made it a game. We didn’t win, but the only way you have a chance to win one of those is to do what we did.”
Both teams used six pitchers and when it was mentioned to Francona that it could benefit the Reds in Wednesday night’s series finale, he said, “I hope you’re right, but they got a pretty good guy starting.”
That would be Shane Bieber facing Cincinnati’s Zack Littell.
NEXT GAME
Who: Toronto at Cincinnati
When: 6:40 p.m.
TV: FanDuel Sports
Radio: 1410-AM, 700-AM
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