Despite getting the longest outing of the season from Ross Stripling, the Giants weren’t able to capitalize in key spots, dealing them their first loss since the All-Star break and spelling the end of their seven-game winning streak.
San Francisco put the would-be tying and go-ahead runs on first and second in the eighth inning but, rather than the late-game magic that has been so prevelant of late, it only went down in a string of missed opportunities. The Giants’ 26 come-from-behind wins are the fifth-most in the majors, but it wasn’t in the cards Wednesday night.
Luis Matos flew out to end the eighth-inning opportunity, and Reds All-Star closer Alexis Diaz mowed down Blake Sabol, David Villar and Brett Wisely in order to close out the 3-2 win, handing the Giants their first loss since the All-Star break.
Stripling went six innings, his longest outing of the season and first time going five innings since May 7, but was done in by a third inning in which he surrendered all four of the Reds’ four hits, capped off by a three-run homer from No. 9 hitter Will Benson that accounted for all of Cincinnati’s runs. Cincinnati didn’t put a runner on base in any other inning.
TJ Friedl was the only Reds batter to reach base after the three-run homer in the third. He was initially called out trying to stretch a single into a double in the third but the Reds challenged and video replay showed that Friedl’s swim move with his right arm was able to avert Brett Wisely’s tag. It proved inconsequential as Stripling retired the final 11 batters he faced, relying heavily on the junk from his kitchen-sink repertoire — going offspeed on 55 of his 76 pitches — before handing off to Ryan Walker, who went six-up, six-down through the seventh and the eighth.
It was a misplaced slider that Benson took the other way for all three of the Reds’ runs.
Blake Sabol launched an opposite-field solo home run to pull the Giants within one, 3-2, to begin the seventh inning.
But the Giants were able to scratch across only one other run, though it wasn’t for a lack of opportunities.
Without getting a hit, they pushed across their first run in the fifth. But they’ll look back on the bases-loaded, no-outs situation as a missed chance. Facing the bottom three batters in the Giants’ lineup, Ashcraft hit David Villar and threw eight straight balls to Brett Wisely and Casey Schmitt to load the bases for the top of the lineup. The rally amounted to only one run, as Joc Pederson grounded into a double play, allowing Wisely to score, and Mike Yastrzemski popped up to second.
San Francisco similarly wasn’t able to capitalize in the second, putting runners on the corners with no outs and getting no runs out of it. Luis Matos led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a single by Blake Sabol — a 102.7 mph comebacker that struck Ashcraft — but Villar and Wisely struck out swinging, and Sabol was thrown out at second in a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play to end the inning.
