PITTSBURGH – It was one of those moments that wakes up an entire baseball stadium. A moment that pauses conversations as everyone digests what they witnessed.
As soon as Jake Fraley connected on a hanging slider in the fourth inning, there was a collective groan from the PNC Park crowd of 31,761. Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Tyler Heineman turned his head to look away. Pitcher Tyler Beede put two fingers to the bridge of his nose as he stared at the ground.
Fraley hammered a two-run homer that bounced into the Allegheny River beyond the right-field seats in the Cincinnati Reds’ 10-1 win over the Pirates, a 437-foot blast. He became the 44th player to hit a homer into the Allegheny since the ballpark opened in 2001, and the first since Juan Soto did it on April 16.
"It feels," Fraley said, "as good as you think it feels."
For a Reds team navigating the final six weeks of a rebuilding season, Fraley has been a bright spot. He’s homered three times in his last five games and shown enough plate discipline to warrant a move to the leadoff spot.
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When the Reds acquired Fraley in March, one of the four players they received from Seattle for Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez, they viewed him as a solid bat against right-handed pitching and an above-average defender. A knee injury clearly affected his performance in April and a broken bone in his toe sidelined him for a couple of more months, but the Reds are finally seeing a glimpse of the player they sought.
"Rake Fraley," said starting pitcher Justin Dunn, who has been teammates with Fraley since they were in Double-A together. "I gave him a big hug after the game and told him he was my favorite player. I’m extremely excited for him. This is just the start. This kid hits and this is what he does. He’s a great baseball player. You guys are in store for a show and it’s going to be a lot of fun."
It was the 65th time a homer has landed in the Allegheny River in the last 22 seasons. Winker was the last Red to accomplish the feat on May 11, 2001. Derek Dietrich memorably did it in April 2019 and the way he admired the homer started a season-long feud between the Reds and Pirates that featured a couple of brawls.
Beede was one strike from pitching a clean fourth inning in a one-run game when Austin Romine hit a two-run, two-out double off the right-field wall. Three pitches later, Fraley made it a four-run inning with his moon shot that cleared a 21-foot-high wall and 11 rows of seats before it dropped into the water. The ball left Fraley's bat at 110 mph, his hardest-hit ball of the season.
Dunn may be the least surprised by Fraley's power. They've played against each other since they were 9 years old, both kids from the Northeast, matching up in a tournament in Aberdeen, Maryland.
"Jake Fraley is actually the reason I probably decided to stop hitting," Dunn said. "My first time facing him was the first time I heard the ball come to the plate. I told my dad, 'I don’t want to do this anymore.' He’s always been a good player, man. He’s always been a name I’ve had circled every time we faced each other coming up in Low-A and High-A. Finally nice to have him on my side and reap the benefits of what he does."
Dunn, who earned his first win in a Reds uniform, allowed one run across five innings. He didn’t make things easy on himself, issuing four walks and throwing a first-pitch strike to only eight of his 21 batters, but it was the first time he’s completed five innings in a start this season.
Even the run Dunn gave up came in a unique way. Rodolfo Castro hit a solo homer on a ball that hit the 10-foot-high wall by the left-center bullpens, and it bounced sideways into the left-field seats, which has a six-foot-high wall. It was hit to the deepest part of the ballpark, so it wasn’t a lucky bounce, but more of a ballpark quirk.
"When he’s on," Fraley said of Dunn, "nobody hits him."
Dunn, included in the same trade as Fraley, pitched his way out of a couple of jams. He gave up a leadoff double to his first batter, Tucupita Marcano, but he picked him off second base and struck out the next two hitters. He stranded the bases loaded in the second inning.
"It’s a big weight off your shoulders there," Dunn said of the successful pickoff move. "It was more just a reset. Get back to what I do well and it gave me a chance to calm myself down."
The Reds reached their first double-digit run total since July 25 after they produced seven consecutive singles in the ninth inning. The crowd cheered when a fan ran across the outfield following Mike Moustakas' RBI single and then offered a sarcastic cheer when Pirates pitching finally recorded an out after the barrage of singles. Fraley, who had the loudest hit of the game, was responsible for two of the three outs in the ninth inning.
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