Those around Johnny Cueto on the Reds have long run out of superlatives to describe his performances after each start this season.
Here’s a suggestion for Thursday: historic.
In a 5-0 Reds win over the Padres in Game 1 of a day-night doubleheader at Great American Ball Park, Cueto faced two batters over the minimum for a three-hit shutout while walking two and striking out eight. It was his third complete game.
“That guy, he needs to start getting some national attention,” said Reds shortstop Zack Cozart, who had three hits, including a two-run single. “I was watching TV the other day and they were still talking about [Zack] Greinke and [Clayton] Kershaw and [Jose] Fernandez. I’m like, ‘What about Johnny C.?'”
For the first time this season, Cueto did not allow an extra-base hit. No Padres batters reached second base in the game until Will Venable did so in the ninth. After his two-out walk, Venable advanced on defensive indifference. On Cueto’s 116th and final pitch of the game, he got Everth Cabrera to ground routinely back towards the mound to end the game.
“I think there have been games where he’s been sharper, but he just kept making pitches,” Reds manager Bryan Price said. “I don’t know what else I can say about Johnny.”
Cueto now has six straight starts of eight innings or more. No one has done that in the big leagues since Cliff Lee ran off a streak of 10 in a row in 2010, and no Reds pitcher has achieved that since Tom Browning in 1989.
“I think it’s a continuation of what he’s done all season,” Padres manager Bud Black said of Cueto. “A good mix of pitches. He pitched a very good game.”
Over his last 55 innings, Cueto has allowed only five runs to lower his Major League-leading ERA to 1.25 over a league-most 72 innings pitched. He has yet to give up more than five hits in a game this season.
As far as Cueto was concerned, he’s the best starting pitcher in the game right now.
“I will say yes, because the numbers talk,” Cueto said via translator Tomas Vera. “My numbers are going to talk for me. Everybody else has to do and worry about their own numbers. When I go on the mound, I do my job. I have to do my job to get the best numbers.”
To find the last Major League pitcher to start a season with at least seven innings pitched and two runs or fewer allowed over his first nine starts, one has to look back to the dead-ball era. Harry Krause of the 1909 Philadelphia Athletics did it over 10 straight starts, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“I didn’t know that was something that was there,” Cueto said. “Now that I know, I will say, ‘Thank god that I’m the guy doing it after 100 years.'”
No Reds pitcher has worked at least seven innings in their first nine starts since Bucky Walters began the 1944 season with 20 in a row.
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