The Reds already had six wins on their 10-game road trip before reaching San Diego for the final three-game series. Drawing an offense-starved Padres club, a strong trip certainly had the potential of becoming an exceptional one.
Now there’s the scope of a lackluster finish looming as the Padres handed the Reds back-to-back defeats following an 8-2 loss on Tuesday night. Cincinnati is 6-3 on the road trip with Wednesday afternoon’s finale still to come.
“We haven’t played a good two games, they haven’t been our best by any means,” Reds manager Bryan Price said. “[Monday] was a competitive game, today things got out of hand later in the game.”
There was plenty not to like about Tuesday for the Reds.
• On Monday, the Reds gave up a season-low one hit and lost by a 1-0 score. On Tuesday, they tied the season high with 16 hits allowed — which previously happened on May 10 vs. the Rockies and June 20 vs. the Blue Jays.
• Cincinnati’s five series win streak, and seven series unbeaten streak, is kaput.
• San Diego, which batted .171 for the month of June, had its season high of hits in the game. After it had scored five runs combined in the previous five games, the club had surpassed that total by the seventh inning.
“It’s crazy, but a win is still a win,” Padres third baseman Chase Headley said. “If you look at last night, we probably could have just as easily had five hits. But that happens in baseball. We swung the bats better today.”
• The Reds, which scored 20 runs during the five-game win streak that was snapped on Monday, have been held to one run in two games vs. the Padres.
• For only the second time in the Majors, the game ended on the outcome of a managerial replay challenge. The Reds’ two-out bases-loaded rally was killed when a safe call at second base was overturned for the final out.
Mike Leake pitched 5 2/3 innings and gave up three earned runs and a season-high 11 hits — the most by a Reds pitcher this season. Leake, who struck out 12 Giants over eight innings in his previous outing, did not walk a batter and struck out four this time.
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