Reds manager Bryan Price is tired of talking about tremendous pitching performances from opposing starters, and a tremendous start from one of the best pitchers in baseball was the story of the night as Cincinnati fell, 4-0, to the Cardinals at Great American Ball Park Sunday.
Mike Leake was good again for the Reds, tossing six innings and allowing two runs on seven hits while walking two and tying a career high with eight strikeouts. But it was his counterpart and fellow right-hander Adam Wainwright that stole the show, leading to a frustrated Cincinnati skipper.
“He’s really good,” Price said of Wainwright. “But I’m really tired of talking about the other team’s pitching and how good they are, to be honest with you. I’m just to the point where I’m tired of talking about how well these other guys are pitching against us. We’ve got a really good pitching staff, too, and there’s no reason that we’re not more competitive.”
Wainwright shut down Reds hitters, who struck out a season-high 13 times and left seven men on base en route to Cincinnati’s fifth shutout defeat of the season. And while much of that offensive futility had to do with the man Cincinnati faced on the mound, Price said his team needs to do more to get the job done at the plate, especially now that some of its injured hitters have returned to the lineup.
“We can’t talk about the injuries anymore,” Price said. “We’re almost completely healthy. We can’t talk about injuries and what that’s done to our lineup and so on and so forth. But I do know that these guys hit and produce runs, and can hit situationally and can challenge more than we have to this point.”
Leake notched his fifth consecutive quality start and seventh quality start in 10 outings this season, but took his fourth loss. Over his last five starts, he is 0-2 despite posting a 2.02 ERA.
“I had good stuff,” Leake said. “There were a couple of balls, as far as pitch selection, that maybe I would’ve done different, but that’s hindsight. So it’s over and done with, and I’ll move on to the Diamondbacks now.”
The Cardinals got to Leake in the third inning, when Kolten Wong grounded an RBI single up the middle to score Tony Cruz and give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.
St. Louis scored another run against Leake in the sixth, on a two-out RBI single by Cruz, and two more in the seventh on singles by Matt Holliday and Allen Craig against relievers Manny Parra and Sam LeCure.
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