Luis Castillo rocked, Cincinnati Reds rolled by Cleveland in 9-3 loss

All good things must come to an end. Or, in this case, an -and.

The Cincinnati Reds showed up in Cleveland for their one-game pit-stop and performed like it was an originally scheduled day-off and they’d been called back into the office anyway. Can’t really blame them, either, though this is surely not the way I’m sure they wished to play this Cleveland club for the final time under their current name.

Luis Castillo was tagged for 8 ER and couldn’t get out of the 4th inning. Yes, he had some poor luck and some iffy defense and some soft-contact that bit him, but them’s the breaks when your club does this 162 times a season. Cleveland rolled out a lineup and cadre of pitchers we’d all barely heard of, yet the baseball gods still found humor in it all.

Cincinnati’s five-game win streak went kaput. The joy and luster of their dominant homestand against the woeful Twins and Pirates now feels a distant memory. Perhaps that’s a wonderful thing, anyway, since they’re off to face Atlanta and Philly, two of the hotter teams on the planet at the moment who smell Met blood in the NL East water. You never ‘hope’ for a get-right loss at any point in the season, let alone while doing everything imaginable to scratch and claw back up the standings, but perhaps this might be the kind of reset button the Reds need before a road trip that will quite literally make or break their entire season.

Joey Votto singled, doubled, and bonked in another run. Jonathan India doubled, walked, swiped a bag, and scored a pair of runs.

There was still ample evidence that something very good is cooking for these Reds this season.

Tonight was simply a bad batch.