By Hal McCoy
If it had been a heavyweight boxing match, it would have been stopped in the first round. And they would have carried off the Cincinnati Reds on a stretcher.
This, though, was baseball and they had to play nine innings, altough an eight-run run rule would have been apropos after three innings.
The Milwaukee Brewers, leaders of the National League Central, scored three in the first, three in the second and two in the third and one could amost hear the Reds cry, “Uncle.”
Reds manager David Bell could stare a hole in the screen of his dugout iPad and not find any analytics or metrics to stop the Brewers.
Final score: Milwaukee 8, Cincinnati 3 and it ain’t funny to the Reds how time is slipping away.
It was the first game of a three-game series Friday night in raucous American Family Field, a series that probably has a do or go home feeling to it for the Reds.
With only 46 games left, the Reds are 10 1/2 games behind the Brewers, probably a deficit far too wide for the Reds.
And the wild card spot also is fading into the sunset and it is looking more and more as if the Reds will watch the playoffs from the bleachers or a recliner in their dens.
Cincinnati starter Carson Spiers was cannon fodder for the Brewers. He walked the second and third batters he faced in the game and clean-up hitter Willy Adames cleaned up.
Spiers had him 1-and-2 with two outs but Adames drove one the opposite way, drove it deep into the upper deck in right field, a three-run home run.
The Brewers pushed their lead to 6-0 in the second with three more runs, a run-scoring double by number nine hitter Joey Ortiz and another oppositie field home run, this to left field by leadoff hitter Brice Turang.
And the Brew Crew made it 8-0 in the third with two more runs on a single by William Contreras, a triple by Sal Frelick when center fielder TJ Friedl missed the ball attempting a diving catch and a single by Rhys Hoskins.
Spiers staggered through five innings, giving up eight runs, seven hits, four walks, struck out seven gave up the two decisive home runs.
Meanwhile, the Reds were facing Milwaukee pitcher Aaron Civale, 2-8 with a 5.14 earned run average when the night began. He was 2-6 with Tampa Bay before he was traded to the Brewers.
With Milwaukee, he had made four starts and the Brewers lost three.
The Reds, though, couldn’t solve him for six innings before scoring all their runs in the seventh.
Ty France singled with two outs in the second and Noelvi Marte led the third with a double, but was doubled off second on Luke Maile’s line drive.
That’s all they had until the seventh when Spencer Steer hits Civale’s first pitch over the left field wall, erasing Civale’s shutout.
Jeiner Candelario singled and Friedl doubled, but down seven runs, Candelario was thrown out at home trying to score from first.
And that was the end of Civale, replaced by Nick Mears with one out and Friedl on second.
It quickly became 8-3 when Stuart Fairchild homered. He entered the game in the fifth inning after Jake Fraley came up lame running out a ground ball.
Marte doubled, the fifth straight Cincinnati hitter to reach, bringing thoughts of what the Reds did Thursday night in Miami — eight straight Reds reaching base during a seven-run 10th-inning for a 10-3 win.
But Maile grounded to second and Will Benson struck out leaving it at 8-3 and making Candelario’s ill-advised dash for home a bigger play than it looked at the time.
The Reds put two on with two outs in the eighth, a single by Steer and a double by Candelario, but France lined to right.
After Spier left, former Brewer Jakob Junis pitched a 1-2-3 sixth, Yosver Zulueta pitched a 1-2-3 seventh with two strikeouts and Fernando Cruz pitched a 1-2-3 eighth with two strikeouts.
But eight runs in the first three innings by the Brewers was too much to overcome, especially when Cincinnati’s first three hitters in the order — Jonathan India, Elly De La Cruz and TJ Friedl went 0 for 11,
De La Cruz struck out three times and the last one went 11 pitches with seven foul balls.