CINCINNATI — Nicholas Castellanos got the last word.
The Cardinals are left with only their explanations.
A day after the Reds outfielder drew the ire of the entire Cardinals team for how he stood over a rookie pitcher and taunted him, Castellanos backed such bravado with force. With a base open and a chance to avoid Castellanos, the Cardinals instead challenged him. He responded with a tiebreaking, three-run homer that sent the Cardinals reeling into an ugly, stinging 12-1 loss Sunday at Great American Ball Park.
Castellanos’ three-run homer was the start of 11 consecutive unanswered runs for the Reds that turned a tidy, neat pitching duel into a Reds romp.
If the Cardinals felt that they had poise and composure following the fracas that broke out between the teams on Saturday, then Sunday was how they look unraveling. The first three relievers into the game allowed the first batter they faced to reach base, including two leadoff walks. All three came around to score. A run scored on a wild pitch. Another run was set up by a wild pitch. The Cardinals had two groundballs go off gloves, one of which was tagged for an error on shortstop Paul DeJong. What could go wrong did go wrong, and it all traced back to the epicenter of so much of this series: Castellanos.
By the time he came up in the fifth inning to face Martinez, Castellanos had already tripled. He brought a .571 average into Sunday’s game. There were two outs and two on, and first base was unoccupied.
Before Sunday, Castellanos had struggled vs. the Cardinals’ righthander, going one-for-six in his career with four strikeouts against Martinez. On deck was former MVP Joey Votto, who had success getting on base against Martinez but not always hitting against him. Votto entered Sunday four-for-29 in his career vs. Martinez, but that was sweetened with 15 walks and only five strikeouts. Martinez struck out Votto on a slider in the first inning.
Rather than pitch around Castellanos or just raise the four fingers and put him on first base, the Cardinals opted to pitch to him and not Votto.
Martinez fell behind in the count, 2-1.
The next pitch was a cutter — that dangerous pitch that either veers in on the hitter or right to the fat of the bat. Castellanos launched the pitch at 108.8-mph and flipped the game, upended the Cardinals, and essentially cinched the series.
The Reds added on later with a three-run homer from Tyler Naquin off reliever Tyler Webb. The lefty was appearing for the third time in as many games this season, and he had warmed up earlier in the game as well. The strain on the bullpen was significant in the first weekend of the regular season. The Cardinals’ starters handled 12 innings of the first three games. That left the bullpen to throw 15 of them. They were saved the trouble of throwing two more innings because the Reds didn’t bat in the bottom of the ninth on Saturday or Sunday.
Home team prerogative.
Jeff Hoffman (1-0) made his Reds debut and pitched five runs. He allowed only the RBI to Molina before yielding the final four innings to the bullpen.
Martinez (0-1) became the first Cardinals starter of the season to complete the fifth inning, though he didn’t throw another pitch after it. He allowed four runs on four hits through five innings and he struck out four.
Building off his assertive and reassuring finish to spring training against the Mets, the righthander retired the first 10 Reds he faced Sunday. They did not get the ball out of the infield. He struck out four of those first 10 batters, and five others skipped groundouts.
His trouble began predictably.
Castellanos.
After grounding out in the first inning against Martinez, the Reds’ thundering right fielder drilled a soaring ball deep to center field, not too far from the spot Jim Edmonds reached over to steal a homer all those years ago. Rookie center fielder Dylan Carlson sprinted back to the wall, jumped, and was unable to catch the ball at the wall. The ricochet came back into center field and allowed Castellanos to reach third base.
The fireworks at Great American Ball Park went off as if Castellanos had hit a home run.
That was in the forecast.
Castellanos trotted home for the first run of the game on Joey Votto’s RBI single, and what had been a breezy, easy start for Martinez began to come undone.
The Cardinals tied the game on the most likely swing of them all. Yadier Molina’s RBI single in the fifth scored Tyler O’Neill for a 1-1 game. Greeted by boos every time he comes to the plate in Cincinnati — even in an All-Star Game — Molina lined a single to center after O’Neill’s double to answer the Reds.
The Cardinals went silent from there.
A messy ending said it all.
