By Hal McCoy
As Meat Loaf sang it, “Now don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad.”
The Cincinnati Reds were sad, though, because they let a three-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers slip through the fingers of their second tier relief pitchers.
Rhett Lowder turned over a 3-2 lead after five innings Sunday afternoon in Great American Ball Park, but the Tigers scored four runs in the seventh inning and turned it into an 8-3 win.
The Tigers hit two home runs in the seventh, which was the nature of this series where 19 home runs and 33 extra base hits were sprayed here, there and everywhere around GABP.
Left-hander Sam Moll began the seventh with the 3-2 lead and Gleyber Torres grounded hard to third. The ball took a wicked hop off Ke’Bryan Hayes’ wrist for an error.
Pinch-hitter Hao-Yu Lee then drilled a two-run opposite-field home run into the right field seats, his first homer, and the 3-2 lead was a 4-3 deficit for the Reds.
Manager Tito Francona lifted Moll for Jose Franco and he quickly gave up a home run to Spencer Torkelson, his fifth home run in five games. Before then, he had zero home runs. The Tigers added two more runs after that for the 8-3 final.
“One. . .you’re going to give up runs sometimes,” said Francona about the bullpen. “The leadoff ground ball (by Torres) came up on Hayes. He (Torres) was hitting .105 against lefties
“They pinch-hit Lee and he was hitting .143 and he whacked one to right-center, so it certainly didn’t work out the way we drew it up.”
Sometimes that analytical stuff needs to be tossed into file 13.
Torkelson was homerless in Detroit’s first 24 games before going on his five-game home run streak.
“Sometimes you have to put a asterisk at where he is at,” said Francona. “You hear me sayu it all the time, guys are going to get to their level. He kept his hands in and got the barrel on it and he is so strong.”
On Sunday, the Reds hit the game’s first two home runs, then the Tigers counter punched with three.
For the series, the Reds hit 10 homers and the Tigers ripped nine.
“I do think the ballparj played drastically smaller,” said Francona. “It was noticebale. I see why D.J (pitching coach Derek Johnson) gets nervous. When the ball goes out to right, you hold your breath.”
As usual, Lowder encountered first-inning difficulty. He gave up two runs and used up 30 pitches. He had tw outs and a runner on first, but he gave up a single to Riley Greene, walked Torkelson on a full count to fill the bases and Kerry Carpenter drove a two-run double up the right-center gap.
Lowder put two on with two outs in the second but coaxed an inning-ending ground ball from Colt Keith to leave it at 2-0.
From there he was efficient. He struck out the side in the third, gave up a two-out single in the fourth and pitched a one-two-three fifth with two strikeouts.
But the 30-pitch first inning and the career-best seven strikeouts drove his pitch-count to 94 after five and Francona had to go to the bullpen.
“The first inning felt a little bit different,” said Lowder. “I was getting two strikes, but they’re a team that doesn’t chase pitches that much. I kept trying to get them to chase and that kinda came back to bite me.”
Trying to get the Tigers to chase built-up Lowder’s pitch count and he changed tactics too late.
“I flipped it there (after the first inning) and gave them only one pitch to chase, then I said after that, ‘Let’s just try to get them out.’”
The Reds’ comeback began in the second when Nathaniel Lowe turned Detroit starter Keider Montero’s eighth pitch into Lowe’s fourth home run in the last three games.
The Reds tied it in the fourth when JJ Bleday, just called up from triple-A Louisville, drove a home run over the right field wall. In his first at bat, he drew a walk.
The Reds took a 3-2 lead in the fifth when Ke’Bryan Hayes continued his reclamation project by lead the inning with a triple into the right field corner and scored on Matt McLain’s double.
That was it. Detroit’s bullpen did what the Reds’ bullpen couldn’t. Four Tigers relief pitchers held the Reds to no runs, two hits, no walks and a pair of strikeouts over the final four innings.
Francona’s assessment of Lowder was, “He kinda yanked everything in the first inning. D.J. settled him down. To his credit, it was a high pitch count after a couple of innings but he gave us five and looked way more like Lowder after that.”
Lowe is the stand-in designated hitter for Eugenio Suarez, on the injured list with an oblique injury.
“I left him in against a left-hander and even then he hit a lineout,” said Francona. “He just feels good about himself. He knows he is getting an opportunity and he is trying to make the most of it. He is seeing the ball pretty well.”
What he is seeing is the ball disappearingj into the stands after his swings.
And about Bleday’s home run, Francona said, “That was good, that was real good. We feel like he can help us.”
Bleday was highly efficient during spring training, but was left behind and dispatched to Louisville.
“We just didn’t want him to have our last bench spot at the start of the year,” said Francona. “We wanted him to play.”
After taking Monday off, the Reds open a three-game series in GABP Tuesday against the Colorado Rockies, the occupant of the cellar in the National League West.