By William S. Hupp - MLB.com Staff
CINCINNATI -- The faces in the Reds bullpen have changed, but the results, at least for one night, were alarmingly similar.
Three relievers allowed five unearned runs on two hits and three walks as the Reds lost to the Dodgers on Tuesday night, 10-4, before 25,127 at Great American Ball Park.
Cincinnati tied the game at 4 in the bottom of the sixth on a 466-foot blast from Adam Dunn to the smoke stacks in right-center field.
Reds reliever Bill Bray came in to replace starter Bronson Arroyo to begin the seventh, and put the first two runners on. After Bray recorded an out, Ryan Freel dropped a fly ball near the line in right field to load the bases.
Todd Coffey took the mound, and induced a potentially inning-ending ground ball. Shortstop Royce Clayton stepped on second for one out, but his throw pulled first baseman Scott Hatteberg off the bag. Though replays appeared to show that Hatteberg had come back onto the base in time, Russell Martin was ruled safe and a run scored.
"No, I had to get to the bag, and make a perfect throw," Clayton said, when asked if the ball slipped. "I'm not perfect. The call went against us."
The ruling proved to be pivotal. Had the double play been completed, the Reds would have been out of the inning unscathed.
"It was hard for me to tell," Hatteberg said of the bang-bang play. "I felt like I got back on before the runner hit the bag. The replay guy said it was pretty definitive that he was out, and that [stinks], 'cause that was a huge play."
Instead, things worsened. Newly acquired Rheal Cormier walked in a run with the bases loaded, then surrendered a bases-clearing double to Rafael Furcal to stretch the Dodgers' lead to 9-4.
"Just seems like every time we give a club an extra out, it comes back to bite us," Reds manager Jerry Narron said. "That's something we need to take care of, and make the routine plays when we have outs."
Another newcomer, Kyle Lohse, allowed a run on four hits in the ninth for the final Los Angeles tally.
The Dodgers pounded out 17 hits on the night against Reds pitching, including 10 off Reds starter Bronson Arroyo.
Arroyo, who received a no-decision, is still searching for his 10th win of the season. He allowed four runs and struck out six batters in six innings. He has not earned a win since June 19, a span of eight consecutive starts.
"Felt like I was throwing the ball decently," said Arroyo. "Just let an inning get away from me. To go out there time after time and not get a win in eight starts is definitely frustrating."
The inning that got away was Arroyo's only poor frame of the night. With two outs in the third, the Reds right-hander allowed four runs on five straight hits. The big blow came on Wilson Betemit's two-run homer to right field. He left after the sixth inning with the game tied at 4.
Narron has stressed the importance of not allowing "tack-on" runs, or runs allowed after the starter has left the game. But on Tuesday, tack-on runs ultimately cost Cincinnati the game.
"It's disappointing," Narron said. "Not as bad as Opening Day [when the bullpen allowed seven runs], but feels pretty similar."
Tuesday night's results conjured up images of a Reds bullpen that had an ERA over 5.00 in the first half of the season. With the recent remodeling of the bullpen done by Reds general manager Wayne Krivsky, however, things had begun to turn around. Entering Tuesday night, the Reds relief corps had gone 5-1 with a 3.50 ERA in 16 games since the All-Star Break.
"When you start series, it's to win [them]," Cormier said. "Tomorrow, we just have to come out and play hard."
The tough loss certainly wasn't the way the Reds had envisioned starting the 10-game homestand. After Tuesday night, the Reds remain 3 1/2 games behind the Cardinals in the National League Central, and one game up on Arizona for the Wild Card lead.
"You got to put it behind you," Hatteberg said. "It's not something you can dwell on. ... [The Dodgers] are in the hunt for the Wild Card standings, [and] we need to play well against these guys."
