Reds 3 Giants 2
Matt McLain cracked his first homer since August of 2023 and Christian Encarnacion-Strand roped a homer to snap a 6th inning tie. Nick Lodolo worked around contact to toss six solid innings. The Reds defense turned three double plays. And the bullpen fired three shutdown innings behind Tony Santillan, Graham Ashcraft and Emilio Pagan.
Matt McLain: HR, 2B, 2 R. 1st HR since August 26, 2023.Made a nice diving stop of a grounder. Turned a sweet 6-4-3 DP. He’s just so much better in footwork at the bag and arm strength for double plays than India was.
Nick Lodolo: 6.0 IN, 5 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 1 K, HBP, HR, 86 pitches/56 strikes.
22 pitch 2nd inning, 57 thru 3 innings. Settled. Got 7 straight ground balls//11 total. His fewest strikeouts in 48 career starts. His previous low was two vs KC last August 17. His 11 groundball outs were one off his career high of 12, done twice.
CES: HR. Lookout. That dude might just have a monster year.
DP: Reds turned just 100 DP last season. 23 below league average. They turned three Saturday.
Bullpen:
7th: Santillan
8th: Ashcraft. 1st relief appearance in a regular season game since 2019 in college at UAB.
9th: Pagan, 1-2-3. Save. He had one save in 2024 and 2023.
Pitch to contact: After recording 17 strikeouts on Opening Day, Reds pitching recorded one strikeout. But induced 14 groundouts.
Elly De La Cruz: Battled from 0-2 count to 2-2, then lined RBI 1B off Justin Verlander.
Santiago Espinal: 2 H in start at 3B.
Jeimer Candelario: 1B, BB
How they scored:
3rd: McLain HR, Giants 2-1
5th: Elly RBI 1B, 2-2
6th: CES HR, 3-2 Reds