Chase Burns kept rolling Sunday afternoon, and the Pirates never found a way to slow him down.
The Reds right-hander worked six innings, allowed one run on two singles, walked two and struck out nine in Cincinnati’s 10-2 win over Pittsburgh at Great American Ball Park. The victory gave the Reds the series, three games to one, and marked their fourth series win in five tries since the All-Star break.
The game was never really in doubt once Cincinnati piled up a seven-run cushion by the third inning. Burns, who is now 13-1 and has won 12 decisions in a row, got the kind of early support that lets a starter attack instead of survive. He also finished the day by striking out the final five Pirates he faced, and he did it after a 26-minute rain delay that didn’t slow him down.
Pittsburgh starter Mitch Keller, meanwhile, had another rough day at Great American Ball Park. The Reds chased him after he failed to record an out in the third inning, with 10 of the 16 Cincinnati hitters he faced reaching base and seven scoring.
Cincinnati opened the scoring in the first when Sal Stewart crushed a 420-foot home run into the left field upper deck, his 24th of the season. JJ Bleday followed with a single and scored on Tyler Stephenson’s double, then Stephenson came home on Nathaniel Lowe’s single to make it 3-0.
The second inning only deepened Keller’s misery. Ke’Bryan Hayes, who entered with a .145 average, hit a 429-foot home run, his fourth, to extend the lead.
Then came the third, and Keller was done. Lowe doubled, Dane Myers and Noelvi Marte walked to load the bases, and Noah Murdock came on in relief. Matt McLain lifted a sacrifice fly, Elly De La Cruz singled in two more runs, and the Reds had blown it open at 7-0.
Burns had some early traffic of his own. Jake Mangum led off the game with a walk but was caught stealing, and Burns retired the next eight batters. In the third, Mangum was hit by a pitch - his first hit batsman of the season - and later scored on Bryan Reynolds’ single for Pittsburgh’s first hit.
The weather soon became part of the story. Heavy rain swept in, the grounds crew worked the field, and Pirates manager Don Kelly went onto the field to push for the tarp. He was ejected after telling umpire/crew chief Dan Bellino, “If somebody gets hurt on this field, it’s on you,”
The stoppage lasted 26 minutes, with water sitting on the edges of the warning track and the foul lines washed out. Once play resumed, Burns came back sharp.
He walked the first batter he saw, then struck out Spencer Horwitz to end the fourth. In the fifth, he allowed a one-out single and then punched out the last five hitters he faced.
Afterward, Burns said the delay left him irritated, and that helped him refocus.
“It sucked,” he told reporters about the conditions. “Raining constantly and not knowing if they were going to put the tarp on or not.
I know both teams wanted to get the game in. I’ve never pitched in conditions like that.
Usually they stop the game.”
He added, “I definitely didn’t feel good sitting in the dugout. I just locked back in, I was pumped up to go back out there. I was just pissed off kinda, so I wanted to go out there and get through it.”
Burns also said the Pirates seemed to be looking for his high fastballs, which led Cincinnati to adjust.
“So we concentrated today on keeping my fastballs down and that made my sliders even better.”
He summed up his job simply: “Every time you take the ball your job is to put up as many zeros as possible, try to get the team in its best position to win,”
The only other emotional moment of the day came after the final out. Stephenson, whose first at-bat with the Reds was a home run, homered again in the eighth inning - in what could have been his last at-bat in a Cincinnati uniform with Monday’s trade deadline looming. During an on-field interview with Jim Day, he broke down in tears as he talked about the moment and the uncertainty around his future.
“Oh, man. I’m going to be emotional,” he said, his voice breaking as his chin dropped to his chest.
“The home run was pretty special. Yeah.”
He paused, then continued: “Yeah, I don’t know. There is a lot going on. . .yeah.”
Then the interview ended.
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