By Hal McCoy
Put a road gray Philadelphia Phillies uniform on Jesus Luzardo and they should add a cape.
The man is baseball’s versopm of Superman when he is in enemy territory.
The Cincinnati Reds discovered that the hard way Thursday night in Great American Ball Park, a 1-0 loss to the Phillies.
Luzardo, the only Peruvian-born MLB player in history, held the Reds scoreless for seven innings, gave up two singles, two walks and struck out 11.
On the road this season, Luzardo is 6-0 with a 1.38 earned run average.
After scoring 11 runs with eight extra base hits that included five homers on Wednesday, the Reds were held to no runs and three singles, one of them an infield hit.
It was only the 37th 1-0 game in the 23-year history of Great American Ball Park, usually a hitter’s paradise that has earned the nickname of Great American Small Park. The Reds are 22-15 in 1-0 games in GABP.
It was the eighth time this season the Reds have been shut out and the 11th shutout for Philadelphia pitchers.
And the Phillies are an amazing 19-6 in one-run games this season to Cincinnati’s 12-11.
It was unfortunate for Reds starter Brady Singer that he had to go up against Luzardo. Singer was just as strong and efficient as Luzardo.
Singer pitched seven scoreless innings and didn’t give up a run and gave up only three hits.
Through six innings he gave up only one hit, a two-out double to Bryson Stott in the second. From there he retired 13 in a row.
He weakened a bit in the seventh when he gave up a leadoff single to Kyle Schwarber. But Bryce Harper hit into a first-pitch double play.
Brandon Marsh singled and Singer hit Alec Bohm with a pitch to put two on with two outs. But he retired Stott on a fly to center to keep it 0-0.
Singer had only 77 pitches after seven, so Reds manager Tito Francona sent him out for the eighth.
Gabriel Rincones, a .211 hitter, was behind 0-and-2, but Singer hit him with a pitch to open the eighth.
Speedster Derek Hill ran for Rincones. On an 0-2 pitch to J.T. Realmuto, Hill broke for second on a hit-and-run. Realmuto grounded to shortstop Elly De La Cruz, but there was no play on Hill.
Junior Crawford singled to right, scoring Hill for the only run the Phillies needed.
“He sure was efficient,” Francona said about Singer’s stellar performance. “From the very git-go he was establishing strike one. His breaking ball was as good as we’ve seen.
“They started to try to swing early and he got a lot of early outs,” he added. “I thought he pitched his heart out.”
And about Luzardo, Francona said, “He has that upper 90s fastball and any time you look at a guy who has given up 30 less hits than innings pitched and way more strikeouts, that’s a tough recipe.”
The way he fed the Reds, it looked as if what he served them was cooked by a coroner.
The Reds were afforded a legitimate opportunity to win the game, or at least tie it, in the bottom of the ninth against All-Star closer Jhoan Duran.
JJ Bleday began the inning with a single and stole second. Spencer Steer was hit by a pitch, putting runners on second and first with no outs.
That brought up Eugenio Suarez, the man the Reds signed just for these moments. He struck out on three pitches.
When asked about Suarez’s ineffectiveness in the clutch most of the time this season, Francona said, “You don’t want Geno to reach out and hit a ground ball to short. That’s not gonna work. He’s up there to try to drive the ball. Strikeouts are part of it, just part of the game.
“That’s easy for me to say that sitting 90 feet away, not having to face guys we’re facing,” he added. “I still think that he is a guy that when he gets hot, he’ll carry us for a while. We just gotta get him there.”
After Saurez whiffed, Tyler Stephenson was next and he struck out on four pitches. Noelvi Marte swung at the first pitch and grounded out to end it.
That gave Duran his 23rd save and he has blown only one after his escape act in this one.
“Leday had a real good at bat,” said Francona. “Then did a good job of getting a jump (for the steal). Our thinking was that it was going to be difficult to string hits against (Duran). That’s kinda saying the obvious.
“Once we got into that situation, we were one bad pitch away from not just tying it, but winning it,” he added. “He didn’t make that bad pitch.”
Luzardo, a 6-foot left-hander, bedazzled the Reds with a befuddling sweeper and a 98 miles per hour fastball. Eight of his 11 strikeouts came on sweepers.
He struck out the side in the third (Edwin Arroyo, TJ Friedl, Elly De La Cruz) and struck out the side in the sixth (Sal Stewart), Bleday, Spencer Steer).
He struck out De La Cruz three times and struck out every occupant of the Reds lineup at least once except Tyler Stephenson.
Stephenson’s two-out single in the second and an infield hit by Friedl in the fifth were the only hits off Luzardo.
The Reds did threaten in the fifth. Marte took a full-count one-out walk and with two outs Friedl beat an infield hit to second base, putting two on.
But Arroyo bounced into an inning-ending forceout.
On the other side, the Phillies never threatened the unfortunate Singer (3-9) until their run-scoring eighth inning.
Philadelphia had a chance to score more than one run in the eighth. After they scored the run, they had two on with one out.
That’s when Singer departed and Sam Moll arrived to strike out both Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. The big sluggers in the Phillies lineup, Schwarber and Harper, struck out five times.
But the Philllies won two of the three games.