In a truly dazzling display of the Cincinnati Reds’ season potential, the home team swept their series against the Los Angeles Angels, winning all three games on April 19, 20 and 21.
Keep scrolling for everything we saw during the Reds’ third game in the series on Sunday.
No one faulted him for his lapse in memory. It has been a while. After pitching seven innings of two-hit ball against the Reds in a 7-0 win on Monday, Suárez now has a streak of 25 straight scoreless innings. It’s the longest scoreless streak by a Phillies pitcher since Cliff Lee, when he threw 30⅔ scoreless innings from Aug. 17-Sept. 10, 2011.
It is fitting that Suárez and Lee are now intertwined in franchise lore. Although Lee used his arsenal differently, Suárez shows a similar blend of command and unflappability on the mound. He takes pride in pitching deep into games and he does it without a high-90s fastball. And in Lee-like fashion, Suárez worked quickly on Monday night. The game lasted only two hours and two minutes.
Suárez has become adept at mixing his five pitches to keep hitters off-balance. This leads to a lot of weak contact, which isn’t a problem for the calm-and-collected lefty. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Jeimer Candelario hit a liner right back to the mound, just above Suárez’s head. Suárez jumped up, reached out his glove, and snatched it in mid air. He grinned at his teammates as he walked off the field.
He was not grinning because it was a savvy defensive play. He was grinning because he didn’t think he had to jump all that high.
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