Cincinnati Reds bullpen blows another lead in loss to Guardians
A Cincinnati Reds bullpen that led the majors with a 2.23 ERA through its first 23 games has an MLB-worst 7.50 ERA in 23 games since.
CLEVELAND – If it truly is all about how you finish and not how you start, then the Cincinnati Reds are in trouble. Because the collection of pitchers they employ to finish games hasn't done the job more than two or three times in weeks, and there appears to be no remedy in sight for the league-high raft of walks allowed and subsequent leads blown and threatened. A near miss with disaster after an ugly group outing in the opener of the Ohio Cup series in Cleveland was followed Saturday by a quick blown lead in the sixth, and a two-out, two-run rocket by Angel Martinez one inning later for the winning runs in the Cleveland Guardians ' 7-4 win over the Reds.
Just like that, a Reds bullpen that led the majors with a 2. 23 ERA through its first 23 games had an MLB-worst 7. 50 ERA in its next 23.
Along with six more walks on this night to boost their MLB-leading bullpen total to 120 walks issued. And there were plenty of wrong-way numbers to go around for Luis Mey (two walks, a wild pitch, two runs allowed), Pierce Johnson (one out, one go-ahead homer allowed to spoil Sam Moll's strong effort) and Connor Phillips (two walks, an error on a ball hit back to the mound to allow an unearned run and a pitch-clock violation). Right-hander Chris Paddack gave the Reds five strong enough innings to hand a 4-2 lead to the bullpen in his Reds debut, just a few days after the Reds had signed the veteran who was released by the Marlins a week ago.
Paddack, who was 0-5 with a 7. 63 ERA with the Marlins, needed just 15 pitches to retire the first five he faced before allowing both runs with two outs in the second on a four-batter sequence that went single, hit batter, walk and two-run single (by No. 9 hitter Bryan Rocchio).