ST. LOUIS –– With a runner on third base in the top of the fifth inning on Sunday, Cincinnati Reds center fielder Nick Senzel fouled a ball off his foot and fell to the ground.
For a few seconds, Senzel stayed down on the field. Reds manager David Bell went to the top step of the dugout, about to check on whether Senzel was alright. But Senzel bounced back up and settled in at the plate.
Then he hit a game-tying sacrifice fly to right field, which put the Reds on their way to a comeback 7-6 win over the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.
"To come back and win against any team – but we know this is a good team over there – to me it says what I already know about our players," Reds manager David Bell said. "They don’t really get fazed by too much and they just keep playing and continue to compete. It sure is nice when it’s rewarded with success."
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As the Reds broke a four-game losing streak, they got a few crucial contributions from players who have been facing adversity.
With a runner on second base and no outs in the top of the seventh inning, Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado was waiting for Reds right fielder TJ Friedl to lay down a bunt.
Arenado had several good reasons to line up on the infield grass. Friedl is the Reds’ best bunter. A successful sacrifice bunt would have put the go-ahead run at third base. And Friedl entered the game with a .188 batting average.
Instead, Friedl crushed a triple over the right fielder’s head and gave the Reds the lead. While the Cardinals were expecting a bunt, Friedl took his best swing of the season and recorded his second triple of the year.
"That’s part of my game," Friedl said. "It’s part of what moves the defense around. Making guys move, that can open up holes. Once you put a swing on the ball, something that might not drop normally could drop because they’re playing you shallow."
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Friedl was the Reds’ leadoff hitter for a week in May, but he wasn’t consistent enough at the plate to keep a spot in the Reds’ starting lineup. Friedl has been optioned back to Triple-A twice over the last month because he hadn’t done enough to get consistent at-bats.
On Sunday, Friedl was in the starting lineup because Albert Almora Jr. was still recovering from a shoulder injury. Friedl led the Reds’ offense with an RBI single in the fourth and his go-ahead triple in the seventh.
"When the hits start coming, the confidence starts to grow," Bell said. "He went down to Triple-A (from June 3 to June 6) and had a really nice weekend. That seemed to really kind of get him going. Fortunately, we’ve been able to get him some playing time, and that’s usually the key."
Reds relief pitcher Jeff Hoffman delivered in a similar way. The Reds entered the game on Sunday with multiple fatigued relievers in the bullpen due to several recent short starts by the Reds rotation.
Between Thursday and Sunday, the Reds’ bullpen needed to cover nearly 11 innings, and the workload was even greater because multiple Reds relievers had innings they weren’t able to complete on their own. The Reds added relief pitcher Reiver Sanmartin to the taxi squad to add depth for the upcoming series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, but he wasn’t activated to pitch on Sunday.
Since Alexis Díaz, Hunter Strickland and Luis Cessa have pitched a lot recently, Hoffman got the most high-leverage relief opportunity of his season. He entered a tie game in the sixth inning, and the Reds needed multiple innings from him against the middle of St. Louis' order.
Hoffman didn’t allow a run in 1 ⅓ innings as he struck out two hitters, and Reds reliever Tony Santillan picked up Hoffman in the seventh and got two outs to strand two runners on base.
"Our starters have been doing such a great job getting us deeper," Hoffman said. "We had the run at the beginning of the year with the starters maybe not going as deep as they’d like to and the bullpen was picking up the rest of the way. Lately, they’ve been great. Any time we can step in for meaningful innings and close games, that’s what we’re paid to do."
Friedl and Hoffman picked up the team on a day where rookie starting pitcher Graham Ashcraft made the first rough start of his career. Ashcraft entered the game with a 1.14 ERA through four starts, but he allowed four runs and nine hits in 4 ⅔ innings versus the Cardinals.
Ashcraft still forced a lot of ground balls, but the Cardinals squared them up for hits in the outfield. Ashcraft left a slider right over the middle of the plate in the third inning, and Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado gave the team a 3-0 lead with a home run.
“(Ashcraft) had to grind it out," Bell said. "He still had good stuff. He still, I thought, had really good movement on his pitches. Really hot day. I think he changed his jersey every inning. He was sweating a lot. And he got it done."
The Reds bounced back with small ball and situational hitting. The Reds tied the score in a three-run fourth inning where they loaded the bases with a single, two walks and a hit by pitch. The Reds added another run on a double play by second baseman Matt Reynolds, and Friedl tied the game with a single to right field.
In the seventh inning, Friedl got the big hit again, and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Almora Jr., who entered the game off the bench when Aristides Aquino left with an injury. Reds left fielder Tommy Pham added a solo home run in the eighth. Despite a two-run home run by the Cardinals in the bottom of the ninth, the Reds won the final game of the series.
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