Not only did the Reds go quietly on Tuesday night against the Brewers, they seemed to be consumed by the fog of misfortune that has rolled in of late.
Cincinnati was dealt a three-hit shutout by Wily Peralta in a 2-0 loss. That doesn’t happen often in these parts. For the Brewers, it snapped the Major League’s longest active regular-season streak of 407 games without a complete game. It marked the seventh time the Reds were shut out this season, and the fourth in the last 23 games, and it was the fourth time in the last nine games they’ve been held to two runs or less.
“We just didn’t do our job. We haven’t been doing our job in a while,” Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips said.
The only two runs in the game came from Logan Schafer, who hit his first Major League home run off Tony Cingrani in the fifth inning. Schafer wasn’t even in the original lineup, but was a last-minute substitute when right fielder Norichika Aoki was scratched with an injury.
And the only Reds hitter seemingly with momentum, Chris Heisey, was knocked out in the second inning when hit on the left elbow by a 95-mph Peralta fastball. X-rays were negative.
What is really negative are the four losses in the Reds’ last five games — with the opponents being an unheralded Mariners club and a last-place Brewers team that has a 37-52 record. Losing back-to-back games to Milwaukee also means the Reds have now dropped five of their last six series. Before this week, the Reds had taken five of six in the season series.
“A lot of guys in our lineup are banged up,” Phillips said. “We have a lot of people playing with injuries. Once everybody is on the same page and gets it going, and everybody is healthy, we’ll be all right. We’re not panicking. We’ll be all right. That’s how I see it. I’m not really trippin’. I know we’re not winning. Nobody is really hitting the ball. Nobody is really standing out. Something has to turn up.”
Cingrani gave up two runs on just three hits over seven innings with two walks and 10 strikeouts. Still, it wasn’t enough.
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