Reds 7 – Mets 4
CINCINNATI – In the sixth and seventh innings last night, Aaron Heilman didn’t give up a hit to the Reds, and the game stayed tied.
In the eighth, Duaner Sanchez took the hill, and the game was tied no more.
Sanchez allowed three runs in the bottom of the eighth to seal a 7-4 Mets defeat to the Reds last night.
After blowing a 4-0 lead, the Reds fought back to knot the game 4-4 in the fifth. Heilman did his part for two innings before handing off to Sanchez.
The Mets’ set-up man allowed Scott Hatteberg’s leadoff single. After he retired Brandon Phillips on a groundout (advancing Hatteberg to second), Royce Clayton hit a grounder to Jose Reyes. The shortstop’s throw to third was high and to the left of the bag, and Hatteberg was safe.
“It is the winning run, so you can’t fault him for going after him, but just the throw was a little bit high, that’s all,” Willie Randolph said. “And, another way of looking at it is that you get the second out by just getting the out at first base, but I don’t have a problem with my guys making aggressive mistakes.”
With runners at first and third, Sanchez had a 3-0 count on Jason LaRue, and the Mets reliever later said it wasn’t as if he didn’t believe LaRue could swing at the next pitch.
“In that situation, the game is tied. So I’m not guessing for him,” Sanchez said. “I just threw the pitch. It was up and he hit it.”
LaRue lined it to the wall in left, bringing in Hatteberg and Clayton to put the Reds up 6-4. Pinch hitter Javier Valentin, brother of Mets second baseman Jose Valentin, hit an RBI single to make it 7-4.
David Wright provided the Mets a 2-0 lead in the first inning with a two-run single. Two more came in the next inning, as Reyes hit a two-run single for a 4-0 bulge. But in the bottom of the second with one out and one on, the rain forced a 2-hour, 23-minute delay. The Met bats must have gotten water-logged, as they mustered only one hit over the next five innings.
Steve Trachsel, who came into the game with seven wins in his last seven outings, has now had five of his games affected by rain delays this year. But after the long break last night, Trachsel came back to the mound having tossed just 21 pitches.
“He stayed loose during the break,” Randolph said, “and if he had been somewhere over 30 or 40 pitches, it would have been totally different.”
The righty finished the second and third innings with zeroes. But he didn’t finish the fourth, period.
The Reds began the inning with a run on three straight hits, a Hatteberg double and singles from Phillips and Clayton. One out later, pinch hitter Edwin Encarnacion’s two-run single.
Suddenly, a four-run Mets cushion was cut to 4-3. After Trachsel walked Ryan Freel, he was finished.
Randolph brought in Darren Oliver with runners on first and second and one out. The lefty long man got Adam Dunn on a foul pop-up and Ken Griffey Jr. on a liner to right.
Oliver, however, had trouble at the start of the fifth, as Rich Aurilia drilled a leadoff homer to center to tie the game, 4-4.