Reds 9, Tigers 5: Offense goes quiet early in the Queen City

Matthew Boyd was unusually wild on the mound and the Detroit Tigers could not figure out Sal Romano, which led to a disappointing night for the Tigers and their fans. The Tigers fell 9-5 in the first game of a two-game series in Cincinnati.

Boyd struggled to find the zone all night, throwing only 47 of his 80 total pitches for strikes. He ran into big trouble in the third inning when he walked the .197-hitting Billy Hamilton and then gave up a single and another walk to load the bases for Joey Votto. Votto did what Votto does, and deposited a low slider into the right field seats, just off and over the glove of a leaping Nicholas Castellanos. Just like that, the Reds had a 4-0 lead which would set the tone for the night. Warwick Saupold took over in the fifth and gave up a home run to the weak hitting Hamilton. Saupold lost all control in the sixth inning — we don’t want to go into more detail either — and Drew VerHagen came in only to add more fuel to the fire. When it was all said and done, the Tigers went into the ninth inning down 9-0.

The Tigers managed to mount a rally in the ninth off Wandy Peralta, loading the bases on three consecutive hits to start the inning. Peralta then walked pinch hitter JaCoby Jones to score a run and put the Tigers on the board. Leonys Martin hit a flare into right field to score two more, and advanced to second on the throw. Reds manager Jim Riggleman was forced to pull Peralta in favor of the much more consistent Dylan Floro. He gave up a sacrifice fly to Jeimer Candelario and then walked Ronny Rodriguez, who subbed in for Castellanos earlier with the score out of reach. Another sacrifice fly made it 9-5 before Floro finally got John Hicks to fly out to end the game.

Not so fun facts:

• The Tigers could not take advantage of the small confines of Great American Ballpark and a struggling Sal Romano, who was giving up 1.6 home runs per nine innings coming into the game. In fact, the Tigers could not make much hard contact all night in the air. They only managed four hits off Romano, all singles, while walking four times but striking out six times.
• The loss dropped the Tigers to 7-21 in all locations not named Comerica Park or Guaranteed Rate Field.

Up next:

The Tigers will look to carry their ninth inning momentum into the early afternoon on Wednesday as they wrap up the mini series at 12:35 p.m. Michael Fulmer will take on Cincinnati’s Tyler Mahle.