Road-warrior Reds shoot for sweep in Washington

July 6 – The red-hot Cincinnati Reds will aim for a four-game sweep when they face the Washington Nationals on Thursday.

The Reds beat the Nationals 9-2 on Wednesday for their fourth straight win and their seventh in the past eight games. Cincinnati has won 19 of 23 dating back to June 10.

Cincinnati is 13-1 over its past 14 road games, while the Nationals are 1-13 in their past 14 home games.

On Thursday afternoon, rookie Brandon Williamson (1-2, 5.56 ERA) will make his 10th major league start for the Reds. The left-hander was solid his last time out, allowing two runs on three hits in five innings during a loss to the San Diego Padres on Saturday. He struck out five and walked one while throwing 86 pitches.

“I looked up and saw (63) pitches after the third and was like, ‘I got to try to get some ground balls early,’” Williamson said. “Throwing some quality pitches to the heart of that lineup in the fourth for some early ground balls was really what we were after.”

Washington will counter with left-hander MacKenzie Gore (4-7, 4.48 ERA), who will be looking to rebound from his worst outing of the season.

Gore, who revealed that he was dealing with a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand, allowed seven runs on six hits and three walks, lasting just 2 2/3 innings in what ended up as a 19-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday.

Gore, who said his finger was fine, was coming off a win against San Diego on June 25 in which he allowed one run in five innings and struck out the first six batters he faced.

“He got behind a few times and his location wasn’t what it was five days ago,” manager Dave Martinez said following the Saturday game. “We talk about this all the time, when things start speeding up on him, he starts working a lot quicker. He’s got to learn how to keep his tempo.”

Gore will have his hands full with a Reds lineup that banged out 16 hits on Wednesday night. Elly De La Cruz had a home run and two doubles, Joey Votto had a homer and two singles, and every starter had at least one base hit.

De La Cruz had an empty sensor cover removed from his bat by the umpires before he batted in the second inning. After the umpires checked with the league office regarding the legality of the sensor cover, De La Cruz was able to use it on the bat when he came up in the third inning.

He flied out in that at-bat but homered in the fifth.

“It’s just a sensor that we use, but it’s just the plastic that covers the bat,” De La Cruz said through a translator. “There’s nothing else besides that. I started using it back in 2021 (in the minors).”

The Reds have homered in 19 consecutive games, the second-longest streak in franchise history behind a 21-game run in 1956.

The victory also clinched a seventh consecutive road series win for Cincinnati.

Washington squandered a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity in the second inning and wound up committing two errors and allowing four stolen bases in the loss.

“We can’t give teams those extra outs,” Martinez said. “Every time we do that, it comes back and bites us.”

–Field Level Media

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