CINCINNATI — Tyler Boyd lit a match and threw it on the combustible Steelers-Bengals rivalry Monday afternoon about an hour before first pitch at Great American Ball Park.
The Bengals' receiver accused the Steelers of quitting in the final moments of Cincinnati’s 24-10 win on Sunday. “The last plays of the game for them, they gave up,” Boyd said.
If you didn’t know the history of the Pirates-Reds series this season — especially in this park — you might be tempted to draw the same conclusion from Pittsburgh’s embarrassing 13-1 loss before 11,005 fans. But the Reds have been knocking baseballs and Pirates’ pitching lopsided since walloping them 14-1 on April 6.
It’s like Cincinnati’s lineup turns into nine Vontaze Burficts when they face Pittsburgh in 2021.
The Pirates surrendered five more home runs Monday to bring their total number yielded here to 26 — tying a 65-year-old franchise record for most dingers allowed in a visiting ballpark in one season, according to Paul Casella of MLB.com. The New York Giants also tallied 26 homers against the Pirates in 1956 at the Polo Grounds.
Joey Votto’s second home run of the day — his fourth-inning blast measured 466 feet off reliever Cody Ponce — highlighted a 17-hit attack.
“Coming down to the end of the season, we ran into a very hot ball club,” Ponce said. “Everybody’s swinging it very well from their aspect, and (they) just keep competing and I'll do the same. Try to keep making those competitive pitches. That's what happens when you face a hot ball club. You get unlucky. They make some great swings on great pitches. It's the name of the game.”
The Pirates are lousy and their pitching staff is beat up, having lost four starters in September. But the Reds’ dominance has been season long. The Pirates have allowed 10-plus runs 19 times — six coming against Cincinnati. No other opponent has done it even three times.
Cincinnati has a potent lineup, entering the day it ranked ninth in runs (757), but what it's done versus the Pirates is ridiculous. The Reds outscored Pittsburgh, 85-29, in 10 games in Cincinnati with the Pirates managing to win only once.
“I think it’s a combination of both,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said when asked whether the patchwork pitching staff or the Reds’ hitters was responsible for the latest mauling. “I wouldn’t take anything away from Cincinnati because they swing the bats and they have good hitters. I do think maybe it caught up with us a little bit. That’s no excuse. We didn’t execute pitches and they hit (them).”
The Pirates (58-98) should have been done with their road schedule Sunday in Philadelphia, but a rainout here last week forced Shelton’s team to hop back on a plane and fly to Cincinnati for one game. You can only imagine the motivation level given the circumstance and the season.
The franchise hadn't traveled for a one-game, regular-season makeup since June 9, 2015. In that season, the Pirates had to break up a nine-game homestand to fly to Denver for a contest with the Rockies.
Just like on Monday, they gave up four runs in the first inning. Votto made it 3-0 with a two-run homer that just cleared the left-field wall.
“Yeah, I didn’t think that ball was gone at all,” said starter Connor Overton, torched for four runs and six hits in only one inning’s work. “Honestly, when he hit it, I turned back and I thought it was going to be 20 or 30 feet from the warning track, and it happened to make its way over. But you know, we knew coming in that this park plays short and balls in the air are dangerous here.”
Just not for the Pirates, who registered six hits and needed a wild pitch to score their lone run in the fifth. The Reds led 8-0 after four innings, enabling Reiver Sanmartin to cruise in his Major League debut. Pittsburgh cobbled just five hits over 5-2/3 innings against Sanmartin, who struck out five and walked one.
The Pirates were so feeble at the plate they didn’t make one of their hitters available on the post-game Zoom conferences.
The Reds clinched a winning record with their 82nd victory. They remain mathematically alive for a wild-card berth, but are likely to fall short despite the best efforts of Pirates’ pitching. The teams conclude the season with a three-game set in Pittsburgh over the weekend.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Shelton was pleased with Ponce, who gave the team three decent innings after Overton could only make it out of the first. A Colin Moran error made all four runs in the fourth inning unearned.
“Cody’s done a nice job for us,” the manager said. “He’s covered two innings and three innings. Just to go out and continue to throw strikes. Today, he ran into a little bit of bad luck with the fact that we misplayed a ball, then he gave up a soft base hit, then it ended up being a homer after that. That’s a little bit of a challenge but I thought Cody threw the ball well today.”
• The Pirates placed pitcher Luis Oviedo on the 10-Day lnjured List and recalled Kyle Keller from Indianapolis.
Shelton said Oviedo experienced shoulder pain on Saturday during his throwing program. “He was doing long toss and felt something in his shoulder and tried to do flat ground and felt it again,” the manager said. “We didn’t know if he slept on it wrong or what because he’d been fine. He had been touching the mound every three days, then he came back in yesterday and didn’t feel well.”
• The Pirates finished 24-57 away from PNC Park. It’s their worst away record since 2010 when they went 17-64. That’s coincidentally the last time they lost more than 100 games, going 57-105 for manager John Russell.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE HIGHLIGHTS
Video to come.
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Cole Tucker, 2B
2. Yoshi Tsutsugo, RF
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Colin Moran, 1B
5. Ben Gamel, LF
6. Kevin Newman, SS
7. Michael Perez, C
8. Hoy Park, 3B
9. Connor Overton, RHP
And for David Bell's Reds:
1. Jonathan India, 2B
2. Max Schrock, LF
3. Nick Castellanos, RF
4. Joey Votto, 1B
5. Eugenio Suarez, 3B
6. Kyle Farmer, SS
7. Delino DeShields, CF
8. Tucker Barnhart, C
9. Reiver Sanmartin, LHP
THE SYSTEM
• Indianapolis
• Altoona
• Greensboro
• Bradenton
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates will return to Pittsburgh to finish out the regular season with three games against the Cubs and three more against the Reds. DK will be there Tuesday while Alex returns to PNC Park on Wednesday.
THE CONTENT
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