The Cincinnati Reds have yet to be swept in a series this season. They’ll look to keep that intact when they face the host St. Louis Cardinals in the finale of a three-game set on Sunday afternoon.
The Reds lost 6-5 in 11 innings on Saturday, a contest in which they held a 5-2 lead after the top of the eighth inning. But the Cardinals pulled within one on the bottom half of the frame and Nolan Arenado’s solo shot tied it in the ninth before Yohel Pozo delivered a game-winning RBI single.
“The hard part is we had to lead there at the end,” relief pitcher Emilio Pagan said. “But you know, we fought hard all game. We’re playing really good baseball and so, you know, (manager Terry Francona) has been kind of preaching it since spring training — this one’s done. We’ll focus on tomorrow. Show up ready to play.”
Cincinnati has lost three in a row and dropped to 10-15 against its National League Central rivals this season, losing seven of the eight series played against them.
“I thought we did some really good things,” Francona said. “We fought. On a day we used pretty much all our pitchers, it didn’t probably unravel like we thought it was going to. That’s the way the game is sometimes.”
After using eight pitchers in a bullpen day on Saturday, the Reds will be hoping for a quality start from projected starter Andrew Abbott (6-1, 1.84 ERA) in the finale.
The left-hander, who is 3-2 with a 4.31 ERA in 31 1/3 innings over six career starts against St. Louis, is coming off a no-decision in his last outing against the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday. He allowed five runs on eight hits in five innings.
It’s been up-and-down for the 26-year-old over his past four starts. He threw a complete game on June 10 against the Cleveland Guardians, with just three hits and one walk in a 1-0 win. However, he had given up five runs on seven hits in six innings in a 9-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on June 4. That was preceded by a solid outing on May 30 against the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs, holding them to one hit and one walk over seven innings in a 6-2 win.
Miles Mikolas (4-4, 4.35) is expected to get the nod for the Cardinals, who will be looking to extend their winning streak to six games. Mikolas is 6-8 with a 5.53 ERA in his career against Cincinnati (22 appearances, including 20 starts).
Arenado continues to swing a hot bat, going 19-for-56 (.339) with four home runs and 10 RBIs over his past 15 games. He’s been held without a hit just five times this month, and only once has it happened in consecutive games.
“He’s feeling it and it’s showing,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said. “The emotion that he showed coming across the plate there, that’s what he’s all about. It fires everybody up — you can tell the crowd got into it and our dugout got into it. That’s what he brings and he’s in a really good spot at the moment.”
–Field Level Media
