By Hal McCoy
The name of American rapper Ludacris is either a take off on his real name, Christopher Brian Bridges, or somebody doesn’t know how to spell ludicrous.
Ludacris put on a post-game show Friday night in Great American Ball Park, but what happened on the field during the game was ludicrous.
The Milwaukee Brewers put a 10-7 beatdown on the Cincinnati Reds and it is almost ludicrous how the team with MLB’s best record goes about its business
Ten runs. No home runs. Four doubles and two triples, but no homers. They’ve hit 127 homers, fewest in MLB, yet they are 88-54.
They’ve scored in double digits 11 times and did it four times without hititng a home run.
And the Reds scored five of their seven runs the way they do it the most. Home runs. They hit two, a two-run rip by Matt McLain and a three-run blast by baseball’s newst American citizen, Eugenio Suarez.
Suarez became a U.S. citizen in Miami this week and when he arrived to his locker before the game it was draped with a large American flag.
And his walk-up music was Lee Greenwood’s ‘Proud To Be An American.’
For five innings, the game was a you-take-it, no-you-take it affair.
The Reds led, 1-0 after one. The Brewers led 2-1 in the top of the second. The Reds led 3-2 after two innings. The Brewers led, 4-3 in the top of the third. The Reds led, 6-4 after three, accomplished with Suarez’s home run.
It all came apart for the Reds in the fifth inning, a five-run Brewers eruption attained when Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz botched a double play grounder.
Jackson Chourio opened the inning with a single off Reds starter Rhett Lowder. Lowder had Christian Yelich 0-and-2 but walked him.
That put runners on second and first with no outs. William Contreras rolled a routine double play ground ball directly to De La Cruz.
The ball glanced off his glove and rolled away. Instead of two outs and a runner on third, the Brewers had the bases loaded with no outs
Sam Moll replaced Lowder and things got totally out of hand. He had Brice Turang 0-and-2, fell behind 3-and-2 and hit him, forcing in a run to make it 6-5.
Cooper Pratt then drilled a three-run triple into the right field corner and then Moll threw a wild pitch permitting Pratt to score and the Reds were down 9-6 and beyond help.
Of the five-run inning, manager Tito Francona said, “Yeah, the big play. . .we get a grounder to short (De La Cruz) and have a chance to have two outs and a runner on third.
“It went right between (baserunner) Jackson Chourio’s legs and I don’t know if it snuck up on Elly after that, but it was unfortunate.”
The Brewers practically hold the deed to Great American Ball Park. Since 2018, they are 48-18 against the Reds in GABP..
They have won seven of eight against the Reds this season and if they win Saturday’s game the Reds will be officially eliminated from winning the National League Central — they’ll be 21 1/2 games behind the Brewers with 20 games left.
Of course it is ludicrous to believe the Reds had any chance to win the division, not with a 14-29 record against fellow National League Central members.
Given leads of 1-0, 3-2 and 6-4 didn’t help Lowder (6-9). In four-plus innings he gave up seven runs (six earned), six hits and four walks.
Of the four walks, Lowder said, “That stemmed from two-strike execution that led to some walks and to some hits and some runs. I left some balls over the plate.”
And not being able to hold those leads?
“Yeah, the offense was doing their job and I just gave it right back,” he said. “I tried to get myself into a position, felt like I got myself in position, to do it. I was one pitch away and didn’t execute and they capitalized on it. Back-to-back innings, actually (second and third).”
Francona was more succinct and direct on Lowder’s outing.
“Four walks and six or seven hits?” he said. “For four innings that’s a lot of traffic. And Sammy (Moll) came in and didn’t walk anybody, but he just wasn’t throwing it where he wanted to.”
Francona was optimistic in the early going. . .until the five-run fifth.
“Early on, it looked good,” he said. “They’d score and we’d come back.Their bullpen stopped us and ours didn’t stop them.”
The Reds scored six of their seven runs against Milwaukee starter Shane Dashan and five of their eight hits.
But four Brewers bullpenners stopped the Reds over the final five innings to one run and three hits. Closer Trevor Megill finished it by striking out the side for his 26th save.
The Brewers have come back from being behind to win 38 times. The Reds have blown leads and lost 29 times.
On the positive side, the Reds’ final run came on Sal Stewart’s single in the seventh that scored De La Cruz, who had three singles. Stewart’s RBI pushed his league-leading total to 106.
And center fielder Dane Myers concocted another one of his acrobatic catches. Milwaukee had taken a 2-1 lead in the second and had a runner on third with two outs.
Sal Frelick lofted one to deep center and Myers sprinted 90 feet to the wall and made a leaping catch, his glove above the yellow line to rob Frelick of a two-run homer that would have given the Brewers a 4-1 lead.
Great catch, but in the long run it didn’t matter.