On the first day of the rest of their lives after buying at the trade deadline, the Cincinnati Reds played their craziest game of the season.
As in crazy eights.
The Reds eventually lost 12-11 in 10 innings to the Atlanta Braves but not before earning a line in the record books and nearly another with a massive eighth-inning comeback that followed a massive eighth-inning meltdown.
Marcell Ozuna’s one-out sacrifice fly that drove in the free runner in the 10th inning was the eventual difference in the game — along with free runner Elly De La Cruz running into an out at third on a grounder to the left side to open the bottom of the 10th.
“It hurts,” Reds first baseman Spencer Steer said. “This one stings. But we’ve got to flush it.”
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Much of the game looked like a flush for the Reds, who played like they’d spent the trade-deadline day acquiring a mulligan.
Outcome aside, the eighth inning stole the show in this one. Both eighth innings — when the Braves battered four Reds pitchers for eight runs on eight hits in the top half to take an 11-3 lead and the Reds followed with eight on eight hits in the bottom, including three-run home runs by newly acquired Ke’Bryan Hayes and Steer.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Steer said.
For good reason.
It marked just the third time in MLB history that both teams scored eight runs in the same inning in a game (also the Tigers and Rangers in 2007 and White Sox-Yankees in 2004).
“There’s a lot of fight in this team,” Steer said. “That was awesome to see.”
Had the Reds come back all the way to win, it would have marked the biggest deficit overcome for a win by the Reds in 49 years (a 13-10 win over the Cubs in 10 innings in August 1976 after trailing by nine).
Until the comeback, this game was remarkable only for the fact the new Gold Glove third baseman, Hayes, made a costly two-run, two-base error that erased an early Reds lead, and the bullpen that didn’t get any additions from the outside melted down in that long, ugly eighth at the hands of Graham Ashcraft, Sam Moll, Lyon Richardson and Brent Suter before Suter eventually retired the final two batters.
In the same sixth inning as Hayes’ error, second baseman Matt McLain also made an error on a routine grounder he dropped twice.
Manager Terry Francona mentioned the mistakes postgame, and so did players.
“Some sloppy plays, some things we’ll clean up,” Steer said. “It was just a weird game.”
