Reds bat around in 4th inning, hammer Pirates

In a game where the Pittsburgh Pirates endured a death by doubles, Elly De La Cruz crushed a home run that landed on the deck of the riverboat behind center field at Great American Ball Park in the sixth inning.

The Cincinnati Reds chased left-hander Bailey Falter after four innings and pounded the Pittsburgh Pirates for a dozen hits, including five doubles, before their star shortstop hit a towering two-run shot to put an exclamation point on an emphatic victory.

The Reds rolled to an 11-5 win Monday night, marking the sixth time this season – and fifth time this month – an opponent has scored 10 or more runs against the Pirates.

After rallying from a nine-run deficit for a 13-12 win at Cincinnati last Sept. 23, the Pirates weren’t able to pull off a record comeback this time.

The NL Central rivals now have identical 37-41 records and were tied for third place in division standings with the Chicago Cubs, who played a late game at San Francisco.

Falter threw 57 of his 79 pitches for strikes and was perfect through the first three innings before allowing five runs (four earned) on five hits and a walk in a disastrous 31-pitch fourth inning that saw the Reds bat around the order. It was the third time in the past four starts that Falter has lasted only four innings.

“The first three innings were good. I’ve got to find ways to limit damage with the big innings. That’s it,” Falter said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “I just got a little tired. I wasn’t executing a lot of pitches, a lot of first-pitch balls compared to the first three innings. They just capitalized on it.”

The Pirates took a 1-0 lead in the third inning. Edward Olivares, who went 3 for 3 with a walk, led off the third by reaching second after Reds third baseman Santiago Espinal made a diving backhand stop on a sharp grounder followed by an errant throw to first. Andrew McCutchen hit a two-out single to put runners on first and third for Bryan Reynolds, who lined a full-count changeup to right field for an RBI single to extend his MLB-leading hitting streak to 21 games — the longest by a Pirates player since 2003.

Jonathan India and De La Cruz, who both had three hits, opened the fourth with back-to-back singles to center and Jeimer Candelario, who worked a 12-pitch at-bat before striking out in the first inning, grounded out to first to advance both runners. Spencer Steer followed with a two-run double to left to give the Reds a 2-1 lead.

Tyler Stephenson reached on a slow roller to put runners on the corners, and Stuart Fairchild drove another two-run double to the left-center gap as the Reds stretched their lead to 4-1. Santiago Espinal drew a full-count walk and Levi Jordan – in his major league debut – hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Fairchild to give the Reds a four-run advantage.

“I think the first time through he did a really good job executing the fastball at the top of the zone, inner half of the plate,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “It looked like in the fourth inning, the ball just leaked back to the middle. Because of that, we saw the hard contact.”

The Pirates answered in the fifth with successive singles to center by Olivares, Jack Suwinski and Yasmani Grandal, who drove in Olivares to make it 5-2. After Reynolds drew a full-count walk to load the bases, Oneil Cruz grounded into a forceout at second base but beat De La Cruz’s throw to allow Suwinski to score and cut it to 5-3.

Lefty Justin Bruihl relieved Falter in the fifth, but India hit a leadoff double to center, then scored when De La Cruz doubled on a sharp grounder up the middle to give the Reds a 6-3 lead. Dennis Santana replaced Bruihl, only to give up an RBI single to Steer that drove in De La Cruz to extend the lead back to four runs.

Jordan recorded his first major league hit against Daulton Jefferies in the sixth with a double off the right field wall and scored on Luke Maile’s single as the Reds extended their lead to 8-3. India followed with an RBI double and De La Cruz crushed his 14th home run on a towering 440-foot, two-run shot that landed on the deck of the riverboat behind center.

“We left some balls in the middle of the plate,” Shelton said. “When you leave balls in the middle of the plate, they’re going to get hit. I think the Reds showed us that tonight.”

After McCutchen walked, Oneil Cruz answered with a 458-foot blast to right off Fernando Cruz in the seventh for his 11th homer.

The Pirates loaded the bases in the ninth after two-out singles by Reynolds and Cruz and pinch hitter Connor Joe drew a full-count walk, but Justin Wilson struck out Nick Gonzales to end it.

“I was proud of the fact that they kept playing,” Shelton said. “We kept playing and we gave ourselves a chance. We just didn’t get a big hit at the end.”