Luis Castillo dazzles as Reds shut out Phillies 4-0

The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game

Luis Castillo’s 2018 season has not gone how any of us planned. After a rookie campaign that turned a ton of heads, many had anointed the young righty as the Reds’ Ace-In-Waiting. As many standout rookies are wont to do, Castillo has struggled in his sophomore season in the Majors. He entered today’s contest against the Philadelphia Phillies sporting a 5.30 ERA and a K/9 of 8.4, a full 1.5 strikeouts below his 2017 average. On Sunday, he reminded us all of why we were so excited about him going into this season. He threw 7 shutout innings and allowed only 4 hits and 1 walk while striking out 9 batters. Have a trophy, Luis. Congrats on the great outing.

Honorable mentions are due to: Scooter Gennett, for going 2 for 4 and smacking a 2-run dinger; Curt Casali, for reaching base 3 times and smacking a RBI double; Phil Ervin, for going 1 for 2 with a double and 1 RBI; Joey Votto and Mason Williams, for each collecting 2 hits of their own; and David Hernandez, for collecting 3 strikeouts in his scoreless inning of work.

Key Plays

• The game was scoreless until the bottom of the 3rd, where the Reds opened things up and took the lead for good. Phil Ervin led off with a double to left field and then immediately scored on a double by Curt Casali to give the Reds a 1-0 lead. After a Luis Castillo sacrifice Riggleman and a Jose Peraza groundout, Scooter Gennett came up and smacked his 17th home run of the season to give the Reds a 3-0 lead.
• That score held until the bottom of the 6th, where the Reds were able to tack on another. Mason Williams led off with a single and then moved to third on a single by Adam Duvall. That brought up Phil Ervin who very nearly left the yard but was instead credited with a sacrifice fly to the track. Reds led, 4-0.
• After a couple of hard-luck hits given up by Wandy Peralta in the bottom of the 9th, Riggleman opted to bring in Raisel Iglesias to shut things down. After giving up a hit to load the bases, Iglesias struck out the next 2 batters to shut the door. Reds win, 4-0.

Tony Graphanino

Other Notes

• Phillies’ manager Gabe Kapler had some nice things to say about this Reds’ team after today’s game. It’s great to know that division leaders are going into series’ with the Reds expecting a fight and the Reds can still take 3 out of 4 from a team as good as Philadelphia is right now.
• This was only the second time this season that a Reds’ starter has thrown seven shutout innings. The last to do it was Sal Romano back on June 20 against Detroit, a game the Reds won 9-5.
• Baseball is fun.
• The Reds are off tomorrow before taking on the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday. Enjoy the off-day with (hopefully) lots of trade deadline rumors.
• Tunes.