Obviously, the Reds want to win every game they can, but Tuesday’s effort vs. the first-place Brewers qualified as one of the rare times this season they needed to win a game.
Both the want and the need went unfulfilled, however. The Brewers slugged four solo home runs, including two from Jonathan Lucroy, sending the Reds to a 4-3 defeat. Lucroy’s second long ball was a walk-off shot off reliever Sam LeCure.
“Let’s forget the silver lining tonight,” manager Bryan Price said. “We gave up four home runs and lost, 4-3. We just haven’t played terribly well coming out of the break. Not a whole lot else to say other than that. We haven’t really done enough to go out there and win. We have to step it up.”
Coming out of the All-Star break, the Reds have dropped a season-high five straight games and also suffered their eighth consecutive road loss. Now 4 1/2 games behind first-place Milwaukee in the National League Central, Cincinnati needs a victory on Wednesday to avoid going home with a winless six-game road trip.
And to think, this is the same club that had won eight of its last 11 games before the break and was 1 1/2 games out.
“It’s weird,” shortstop Zack Cozart said. “[We] finished up on such a high note before the break. And we come back, and we haven’t played like we wanted to. We’re going to keep fighting, and we’ll turn it around. We want to start getting hot here pretty soon.”
Ending a season-high stretch of four games without a quality outing from Reds starters, Homer Bailey gave up three earned runs and four hits over six innings. All three runs, and three of the hits, came on two-out solo homers.
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