After two wins in San Francisco, Reds fans had fanciful thoughts that they could sweep the National League Division Series. After Wednesday, when the Reds were handed a deflating 8-3 Game 4 loss by the Giants, it has boiled down to one thing for the players: Survival.
“We’ve got one game to turn it around,” Reds right fielder Jay Bruce said. “It’s win or go home, obviously. There’s no question. There’s no wondering. It’s pretty simple.”
It’s a feeling the Giants have had for three days already, and now the Reds’ sudden slide has put them in the same position. There will be a deciding Game 5 finale at Great American Ball Park on Thursday (1 p.m. ET on TBS), with the winner advancing to the NL Championship Series.
“It’s probably hard for them to believe that we were up 2-0 out there,” said Reds manager Dusty Baker, whose teams are 1-8 in games where they can close out a series. “So they reversed on us what we did to them out there, and we have a big game, the rubber match, tomorrow. If we win tomorrow, it doesn’t matter how many games you were up. They’re a quality team, and we knew it was going to be a fight when we got here.”
There were a few areas on Wednesday where the game went poorly for the Reds. But it started with the starting pitcher.
Added to the NLDS roster to replace the injured Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake did not step up with a savior-like spot start as Cincinnati had hoped. Leake gave up five runs and six hits, including two home runs, over 4 1/3 innings and left trailing by a 5-2 score.
As 44,375 fans looked on, they were rendered almost catatonic right at the start when Angel Pagan hit Leake’s second pitch of the game for a no-doubter of a home run to right field.
“I would have liked to do a little bit better, but unfortunately I didn’t,” Leake said. “They were putting good swings, but I think mainly it was me missing my spots and them taking advantage of it.”
For the second day in a row, the Reds’ fortunes were essentially cast by a failure to take better advantage of chances in the first inning.
In the bottom half, Giants starter Barry Zito was having trouble locating. Zito gave up Joey Votto’s two-out single and three straight walks, including one to Todd Frazier that forced home a run.
Zito escaped and struck out Dioner Navarro with an 0-2 curveball.
“We started a little run there,” Frazier said. “[Zito] wasn’t finding his pitches, but at the same time, he came up big in that last at-bat to Navarro.”
It was just the start of a long day for the Reds’ lineup, which went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10 men on base.
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