The Chicago White Sox treated the Cincinnati Reds like they were a bunch of disco records and it was disco demolition night. The American League Central team punished Reds pitching early and often, scoring 11 runs in the 2nd inning and never looking back in a 17-4 win to pick up the series win.
| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago White Sox (12-23) | 17 | 18 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Reds (14-20) | 4 | 10 | 1 |
| W: Kopech (1-3) L: Ashcraft (2-1) | |||
| Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread | |||
The Reds wasted no time in getting on the board as Jonathan India homered to lead off the bottom of the 1st inning to put the home team up 1-0. That lead didn’t last all that long. Graham Ashcraft walked Luis Robert Jr. to begin the 2nd inning and then Hanser Alberto, who had one home run entering the series, hit his second home run against the Reds in the last 24 hours to put the White Sox up 2-1.
Things didn’t get much better from there as Chicago put together another rally with Andrew Benintendi hitting a 2-run single that made it 4-1 and then Andrew Vaughn followed up with a 2-run triple to extend it to a 6-1 lead. To add insult to injury, Luis Robert Jr. then hit a comebacker off of Ashcraft to bring in another run and that would be the final play of the day for Ashcraft (who appeared fine after the ball hit him) as he was replaced by Casey Legumina.
The pitching change didn’t seem to make things any better. Legumina walked the first batter he saw, gave up an RBI single to Grandal, and then a 3-run home run to Gavin Sheets as the White Sox capped off an 11-run 2nd inning.
Chicago added three more runs on back-to-back-to-back doubles that followed an error by Spencer Steer that would have ended the inning. Trailing 14-1, the Reds offense got things going in the bottom of the 3rd. Spencer Steer made up for his error a little bit, hitting his team leading 4th home run of the year. Tyler Stephenson followed up with a solo home run of his own – his 1st of the season – to make it 14-3. Wil Myers got in on the Reds solo home run parade in the bottom of the 4th inning to make it a 10-run deficit.
The White Sox didn’t seem to appreciate the comeback efforts from the Reds and went to work again in the top of the 5th inning. Tim Anderson singled to lead off against Reiver Sanmartin and Andrew Benintendi followed up with a double to put two men in scoring position. A sacrifice fly made it 15-4. After a walk, Hanser Alberto picked up another extra-base hit and another run batted in with a double to make it 16.4 During the next at-bat something happened during a pitch and the trainer along with manager David Bell headed out to the mound and after a very short conversation, Sanmartin exited the game with an injury and Alex Young came out of the bullpen. He would get a ground out, but it plated the 17th run of the day.
Chicago made an attempt at an 18th run in the top of the 6th inning when Seby Zavala hit one that would have landed in the first row of season in right field, but Wil Myers reached over the wall and pulled it back in for the second out of the inning. Neither team scored from that point forward, and Luke Maile pitched a shutout top of the 9th for the Reds.
Key Moment of the Game
Whatever the 2nd inning was.
Notes Worth Noting
Spencer Steer fell a triple shy of the cycle, going 3-5 on the day.
The 2nd inning today was the most runs allowed by the Reds in an inning since 4/13/2003 vs the Phillies (13 runs).
— Joel Luckhaupt (@jluckhaupt) May 7, 2023
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
New York Mets vs Cincinnati Reds
Tuesday May 9th, 6:40pm ET
Max Scherzer (2-2, 5.56 ERA) vs Luke Weaver (0-2, 7.88 ERA)
