Reds keep rolling as Cardinals' lose 11th on road

CINCINNATI — New city, new ballpark, new opponent.

Same road riddle for the Cardinals.

After a first-inning pulse to take an early and short-lived lead, the Cardinals’ offense flat-lined into a of series double plays and ultimately a 3-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on Monday night at Great American Ball Park. The Cardinals lost for the 11th time in their first 13 road games. Their past eight consecutive road losses have been by three runs or less. Close but not closer. The Cardinals scored a lone run for the second consecutive road game.

Reds outfielder Gavin Lux had three hits including a single to help snap a tie game in the fourth inning and a double to widen the lead for the Reds in the sixth.

Cincinnati has won five consecutive games.

Closer Emilio Pagan retired all three batters he faced in the ninth to avoid the tying run coming to the plate and collect his eighth save of the season.

Andre Pallante brought a 2.03 ERA in his five previous starts against the Reds, and he was steady enough to win with some semblance of support. Include his time as a reliever and Pallante had a 1.83 ERA in 39 1/3 innings against the Reds in his career. They peppered Pallante (2-2) with six hits — three of them by Lux — and scored three runs on the right-hander through his six innings.

Dodger import is Red hot

Lux, whose work you may remember from such blockbuster productions as the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers or 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers, continued what’s been his first torrid stretch for his new team.

Acquired by the Reds this past offseason for a minimal price as the Dodgers realized their overabundance of infielders, Lux brought an 11-game hitting streak into Monday’s game and promptly extended it to a dozen with three hits in his first three at-bats. Two doubles sandwiched around a single off Pallante upped Lux’s hitting during his streak to 22 for 42, or .524. As the late innings approached Monday night, Lux was among the league leaders with a .356 batting average.

His leadoff double in the second inning fizzled when Pallante struck out to Reds to maintain the Cardinals’ slim lead through two.

Jose Trevino tied the game with a solo homer in the third, and in the fourth, it was Lux that sparked another rally. A single put Lux on first to score easily when Noelvi Marte split the Cardinals’ left and center fielders for a tie-breaking triple. Two innings later, Austin Hays walked ahead of Lux, and the former Dodger delivered with an RBI double.

Double-double, then toil and trouble

One of Cardinals hitting coaches Brant Brown’s favorite ways to quickly generate runs is the “double-double,” as he sometimes calls it. That is a double followed by a double so that the runners just swap places and at least a run is created. The Cardinals had a series of double-doubles in their win Saturday against the Brewers, and with three of them in the third inning, Brown called it a “3 by 3.”

The Cardinals had the classic 2 by 2 in the first inning Monday to take a 1-0 lead.

After thinking he had another leadoff walk on the fifth pitch of his at-bat, Lars Nootbaar instead drilled a full-count pitch for a double. He got to third on a groundout, and that was how he came home on Nolan Arenado’s RBI double that Lux lost briefly in the sun.

From there, however, the Cardinals’ offense stalled.

The second, fifth, and sixth innings all tripped on a double play. Reds starter Nick Anderson erased a leadoff single in the second with a double play turned by Elly De La Cruz at second. The Cardinals got a leadoff double and a walk to put their fifth inning in motion when they trailed by only one run. They had three chances to bring that runner around from second and tie the score. The inning crumbled on two grounders, the second of which was spun into an inning-ending double play.

In Anderson’s sixth and final inning, he gave a walk and then took it away with a double play, fittingly, on his 76th and final pitch.

Walker turns double play — from RF

Trapped within the Cardinals’ evening-long search for offense was some slick defense that at least kept the Reds within reach for most of the game.

In the first inning, Arenado dashed to his left, gloved a low grounder and completed a spin-around to deliver the strike to first base that beat Hays by a step.

In the seventh, a bunt single welcomed reliever Riley O’Brien into the game and got the Reds’ leadoff hitter on base. There would be another walk and a single in the inning off the right-handed O’Brien, but wedged between the Reds on base was a line drive to right that Jordan Walker turned, aggressively and opportunistically, into a double play. Trevino tagged the liner that Walker caught running in toward first base.

He spied Blake Dunn straying from the base and lasered a throw.

Catcher Willson Contreras caught it at first ahead of Dunn sliding back in for the double play that gave O’Brien an exit. It took lefty John King to complete it, stranding two runners on base for a scoreless seventh.

Contreras runs streak to 10

Thawing steadily from that chilly start to his season, Contreras ran his hitting streak to 10 games with a single in the third inning. Contreras lifted a ball to right field for an opposite-field base hit and 14th hit of the stretch. He’s raised his batting average from .139 to around .220 during the streak.

With the single he improved to 14 for 37 (.378) during the streak.

Contreras joins Brendan Donovan as the Cardinals to already have 10-game hitting streaks in the opening weeks of this season. Arenado also had a nine-game hitting streak to open the year.