Cincinnati Reds: Tyler Mahle struggles, Tanner Rainey dreadful and more

Good morning and welcome to a Wednesday edition of Blog Red Machine’s news and notes. The Cincinnati Reds were embarrassed on Wednesday night in Cleveland. Tyler Mahle had his worst outing of the season and Tanner Rainey was no better.

The Cincinnati Reds may have won the Battle of Ohio over the Cleveland Indians, but they were blown out of the water last night. The Reds were torched by the hot-hitting Indians and fell 4-19. Cincinnati has to lick their wounds before heading to St. Louis for a 3-game set with the Cardinals before the All-Star Break.

Tyler Mahle was bad. Tyler Mahle got a wake-up call on Wednesday versus Cleveland. The Reds’ rookie hadn’t lost a game since May 20th against the Cubs. He went into the game against the Indians with a 2.62 ERA over his last 8 starts.

Wednesday night was a game that Mahle would like to forget. He had his shortest outing of the season, going only 2.1 innings and allowed 7 runs, 5 earned, on 6 hits. After allowing Cleveland to go up 5-0 in the 3rd inning, Mahle was pulled by interim manager Jim Riggleman in favor of fellow rookie right-hander Tanner Rainey.

Mahle will get a chance to redeem himself, but he’ll have to wait until after the All-Star Game. The Reds will start a 3-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 20th. Mahle will surely get the ball in Game 1 or Game 2 of that series.

Tanner Rainey was worse. As bad as Mahle’s outing was, Tanner Rainey’s was worse. The rookie came in relief of Mahle with one out and runners on first and third base. The first batter Rainey faced singled to the right side of the infield, scoring the runner from third base and increasing the Indians’ lead to 6-0.

With two outs and runners on second and third, a single by Michael Brantley scored two more runs to make the score 8-0 in favor of the Indians. Jose Ramirez then cleared the bases with a three-run shot to give Cleveland am 11-0 lead.

Mercifully the 3rd inning came to a close, but Riggleman stuck with Rainey into the 4th inning. That turned out to be an unwise decision by the interim manager. Rainey walked Yonder Alonso on four pitchers and after a mound visit by Danny Darwin, watched Jason Kipnis send his ninth homer over the wall in right center.

After another walk, Rainey surrendered an RBI double to Tyler Naquin. Finally, Riggleman lifted Rainey in favor of Jackson Stephens. Rainey’s stat line is atrocious. He pitched 0.2 innings, allowed 8 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks. He didn’t strike out a single batter and surrender two deep flies. Ouch. In 7 innings pitched this season, Rainey’s ERA is 24.43. Again, ouch.

Blandino pitches the ninth. The only bright spot to Cincinnati’s pitching performance was that of utility infielder Alex Blandino. He pitched the eighth inning and recorded two strikeouts.

Blandino had Twitter ablaze with a 67-MPH knuckleball that struck out Brandon Guyer. His 90-MPH fastball struck out Roberto Perez to end the inning. Blandino retired three of the four batters he faced.

Winker goes yard. In addition to Blandino’s flawless pitching performance, Jesse Winker might have provided the only other bright spot for the Reds during Wednesday night’s debacle. Winker hit a two-run homer in the top of the eighth.

Next: Putting Homer Bailey back in the rotation is insane

The homer to right field was Winker’s 7th of the season and his first since June 28th. Winker’s OPS on the season is .822. Not too shabby for the rookie.