Brewers beat Reds 5-1 as Sonny Gray exits early with injury

The Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game

Joey Votto walked twice in his return to the Cincinnati Reds lineup, Shogo Akiyama bonked a ribbie single, Nick Castellanos doubled, and that was more or less the gist of the ‘good’ news on the evening in an otherwise incredibly frustrating game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

It’s worth pointing out that Sonny Gray was quite good - just 2 H and nary a run or walk allowed against 5 K in his 3 IP - but an unfortunate injury cut that start short in frustrating fashion, too.

Onwards.

Key Plays

• The Reds got a run on the board in the Bottom of the 2nd, and it came courtesy of Shogo’s ribbie single up the middle off Beers starter Adrian Houser. That scored Tucker Barnhart, who had moved into scoring position after Kyle Farmer had doubled, though Farmer didn’t score on the liner and later got picked off 3B like a nincompoop (POOTBLAN) to tamp down the would-be rally. Reds led, 1-0.
• Sonny Gray pulled something during his warmup for the Top of the 4th, and exited immediately. That forced the Reds to scramble their bullpen, and it was Sean Doolittle who was tasked with stepping in. He immediately served up the game-tying solo dinger to Avisail Garcia, which made it a 1-1 game.
• A leadoff walk from Ryan Hendrix ended up haunting, donchakno. That was to Luis Urias in the Top of the 5th, and he later scored after another walk and a wild pitch and a productive out and who know a bullpen with zero investment could be so bad. Reds trailed, 2-1.
• Brad Brach was on the bump when the Beers snuck another run across the plate in the Top of the 7th, a run that left the Reds in a 3-1 hole.
• Ashton Goudeau was on for a second inning in a 2-run game against the division leaders in the Top of the 9th. He’d bounced from the venerable pitching staffs of the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies (again) and Baltimore Orioles, among others, since November of last year, yet was still tasked with pitching in such a big spot because the rest of the team’s pitching staff is just as underfunded and underperforming. A 2-run double later, and the Reds were down 5-1, which is unfortunately how it wrapped.

Tony Graphanino

Other Notes

• It sure looked as if Sonny tweaked either his groin or his calf in his right leg prior to exiting, though maybe he was simply trying to stretch out his back. I’m neither a doctor, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
• Reds pitching walked 8 guys tonight.
• Wednesday’s contest between these two will again be a 7:10 PM ET start, this time with hopes that the weather will be a little less maybe-rainy than it was tonight. That’s surely the only reason why the crowd was so small despite GABP capacity being back to being completely open once again. Surely it wasn’t the ownership of the Reds doing absolutely everything possible to save cash and tank the team all winter. Surely.
• Anyway, tomorrow’s pitching matchup will feature veteran lefty Chase Tyler Brett Anderson for Milwaukee opposite rookie Vlad Gutierrez for the Reds. Considering Sonny’s short outing tonight that taxed the bullpen paired with Michael Feliz hitting the IL today (when Joey Votto was activated), that’s going to be a big, big ask for the rookie tomorrow to get as deep into the game as possible.
• Tunes.