In this instance, when is enough not enough?
The Reds displayed Wednesday that in baseball what one believes is enough is not nearly enough.
The Reds felt they had enough when they trailed, 5-3, in the eighth inning and Jake Fraley drilled a dramatic grand slam home run to push the Reds ahead, 7-5.
That left it up to the team’s usually impeccable bullpen to close it off in the ninth.
Instead, the bullpen was a disaster area.
Anointed closer Emilio Pagan gave up back-to-back home runs to Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena to start the ninth that tied it, 7-7.
Then in the 10th, Graham Ashcraft was the victim of some shoddy play, some of it his own, and a blown call by plate umpire Alex MacKay.
The Mariners scored four unearned runs in the 10th with Ashcraft and Elly De La Cruz committing debilitating errors.
“We made a lot of mistakes but we played with a lot of heart and that’s good,” said manager Terry Francona, always one to see the sun shining behind the clouds.
“We made too many mistakes to win a game like that,” he added. “For today, four errors certainly didn’t help us. And there was plays that weren’t errors that didn’t get made.”
In the second inning, left fielder Blake Dunn dropped a pop foul that was ruled a no play and then third baseman Santiago Espinal and catcher Austin Wynns permitted a pop foul to plop between them. In the sixth inning, shortstop De La Cruz and second baseman Gavin Lux miscommunicated on a routine grounder up the middle that went for an infield single.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
But the glare emanated from Pagan and Ashcraft.
Raleigh’s leadoff home run in the ninth, his third of the series, was almost acceptable because the Reds still led, 7-6. But Arozarena’s was the killer.
Asked how he planned to attack Raleigh and Arozarena, Pagan said, “Get ‘em out. The Raleigh pitch (fastball) wasn’t a terrible pitch, just the wrong pitch.
“Hats off to him, he had a heck of a series and he’s on fire,” he added “We probably should have gone with a splitter because he’s been on fastballs the entire series. It wasn’t a terrible pitch, just a not good enough pitch.”
Pagan insisted he didn’t pitch that badly. After the two homers he retired the next three, the last two on strikeouts.
“That’s not what anybody wants to hear right now because we lost the game, I blew the game and that part stinks,” he said. “I faced five hitters, threw 13 pitches and had two strikeouts. Most of the time that line means we win the game.”
But after two of those pitches he needed a new baseball.
That took it to Ashcraft in the 10th. With ghost runner Dylan Moore on second, Miles Mastrobuoni bunted and Ashcraft fumbled it for an error, putting runners on third and first.
J.P. Crawford rolled an infield hit to shortstop that scored Moore for an 8-7 Mariners lead.
That lead would have been surmountable in the Reds 10th. A fielder’s choice and a walk filled the bases with two outs.
On a 2-and-2 count to Arozarena, Ashcraft threw a pitch right down Main Street. Strike three? No, umpire MacKay called it ball three.
Arozarena drilled the next pitch for a two-run double to make it 10-7 and De La Cruz fumbled another routine grounder for the 11th run.
De La Cruz has made six of the team’s 21 errors in the first 19 games.
“He just didn’t make some plays today,” said Francona of De La Cruz’s misplays. “We talk about trying to flush it, yeah, but you go back because you don’t want it happening again. You learn from it, then move on.”
The Reds trailed, 4-3, in the seventh and had the bases loaded with two outs. De La Cruz took a called third strike.
Tony Santillan gave up a run in the eighth to put the Reds down, 5-3...and along came Fraley to hit the grand slam for the 7-5 lead.
“That was so good to see, so good to see on a lot of levels,” said Francona. “That gives us a two-run lead going into the ninth, the timing was a good as it gets.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Fraley began the series, won two games to one by the Mariners, with six hits for the season. During the three games against Seattle he had five hits and the big bang.
“I was staying on a fastball and got it,” said Fraley after his first home run of the season and his second career grand slam. “It was amazing in that it gave our team the lead and getting it against a team I used to play for makes it a little bit more cool.”
Of the loss, Fraley said, “It’s a long season and if you let one game get too much of you, that’s when it spirals into multiple losses. We played our hearts out and just came up short.”
The Mariners had at least one runner on base in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth, but scored in only three.
For the game they were 3 for 18 with runners in scoring position and were 0 for 9 when Crawford’s double in the eighth gave Seattle the 5-3 lead.
It was the same for the Reds — at least one runner on bases in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. But they went 1-2-3 in the ninth and 1-2-3 in the 10th. They were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position.
The Reds finished the homestand 4-2 after sweeping three from the Pirates, but Pagan put it in perspective.
“We didn’t play a clean game, by any means,” he said. “But the guys did a good enough job to give me a chance to win the game and I didn’t come through.
“Yes, that’s true that we were 4-2 on the homestand, but nobody wants to hear that. We blew a game we should have won but if you’re a Reds fan you realize we should have won this game...4-2 is great, we should be 5-1.”
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