On Tuesday night, after the Cincinnati Reds game against the Arizona Diamondbacks had been delayed, relief pitcher Lucas Sims walked into manager David Bell’s office.
Whenever the game resumed, Sims wanted to be on the mound with the bases loaded. He wanted to make up for the run he allowed the night before in the pouring rain.
“He was going to sleep on it, but I was pretty emphatic,” Sims said. “I wanted a shot at redemption, I guess. Last night, that’s not me.”
One day later, Sims returned with the bases loaded and the Reds trailing by one run. Sims got out of the inning, but the Reds lost 5-4 to the Diamondbacks in a game that was decided during Tuesday night’s mid-game rainstorm.
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The last time he took the mound, on Tuesday night against the Diamondbacks, it was sleeting and raining at Great American Ball Park. He walked in the go-ahead run as the weather turned worse, and that was the last batter he faced before the game was suspended to Wednesday.
“There were a lot of safety issues,” Sims said. “I was concerned about me slipping or something going wrong with the ball. And also my competitors too. If I have no clue where the freaking ball is going, I don’t know the last time I hit a right-hander with a slider.”
For the first time since September, 2015, a Reds home game was suspended and completed the next day. On Tuesday night, the Diamondbacks took a 5-4 lead against Sims with one out in the eighth inning. The umpires suspended the game as rain and sleet fell at Great American Ball Park, but the weather had already made an impact on the game.
Right before the game was delayed on Tuesday, Sims threw every ball the umpire gave him to use back to the dugout.
“Every single one of them was soaking wet,” Sims said. “There was no reason we should have been playing. I thought for safety reasons there was no way I was going to throw any of those baseballs.”
On Tuesday, starting pitcher Luis Castillo allowed three runs in the first inning. After that, Castillo and the Reds bullpen combined for six shutout innings. With three RBI by third baseman Kyle Farmer, including a two-run homer, the Reds took a 4-3 lead into the eighth.
As the rain became faster, relief pitcher Tejay Antone allowed a home run and Sims walked in a batter with the bases loaded.
“I would own up if I just (struggled), but ain’t nobody going to do their job very well in the rain and puddles and all that,” Sims said.
Initially, the game was supposed to resume at 5:30 on Wednesday, but a brief late afternoon snowstorm in Cincinnati led to a 25-minute delay.
When play resumed, Sims forced a pop up and a fly out to get out of the inning without another run scoring. But the Reds went scoreless in the eighth and the ninth innings. Alex Blandino hit a line drive to left field in the ninth that just missed the foul pole, and the Reds left outfielder Jesse Winker on first base in the bottom of the ninth.
The difference between winning and losing was what happened on Tuesday night in the rain.
“It felt like a lot of external factors played into that,” Sims said. “I felt like I had two guys yesterday that I felt very confident in getting out.”
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