Bizarre Game At Great American Ball Park Is Suspended , 7-7

Ryan Ludwick has been playing baseball since he was five, that's three decades and had never seen this many baseballs hit this hard.

As his two-run, fourth inning, home run lofted high and deep off the batter's eye in centerfield, some press box commentator quipped, "That'll bring rain."

Guess what?

It did.  What could have been a rain-shotened official game win for the Reds, if Homer Bailey could have shut the Pirates down in the fifth.  It didn't happen.

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The Starling Marte and Travis Snider hit massive home runs, back-to-back, off Bailey to put Pittsburgh in front 5-4.

Now Wandy Rodriguez had to put up a donut in the Reds' half of the fifth to make the Pirates a winner if the game was washed out.

That didn't happen either.

With one out Neftali Soto got his first major league hit a double down the thirdbase line as a pinch hitter for Bailey.  Billy Hamilton, all 145 pounds of him, flirted with a home run, sending a ball deep enough to centerfield to allow Soto to tag up and advance to third.

Joey Votto drilled his third home run of the season to put the Reds up again, 6-5.

The rain came down harder.

Now J.J. Hoover had a chance to finish off the Pirates.

Forget that, Neil Walker and Gaby Sanchez went back-to-back leading off the sixth inning, just as they did leading off the second inning off Bailey.  It was the Pirates third set of back-to-back home runs.  That has only been done two other times in major league history.  The Reds of 1956 were one of the teams that did it.

Bryan Morris relieved Rodriguez.

With two outs, Devin Mesoraco hit his third home run of the season to tie the game at seven.

"If Mesoraco doesn't hit that home run, we're going home with a loss right now," Price said.

The Reds scored first when Todd Frazier homered with Votto on via a walk in the first inning.

There was a light rain at the time and it just got heavier.

"You'd think because it is heavy air: it's raining, it's cooler, you wouldn't think the ball would carry the way it did," Price said. "Some of them were hit really well but some of them weren't.  It made for a fascinating evening."

There were chances to stop the game that the umpiring crew led by Brian Knight had to consider.  They used drying compound over the last four, half innings.

"The umpiring was trying to do the best for both teams in the sense that both teams had the same opportunity," Price said.  "They thought the grounds crew had the ability to keep the field playable.  We talked about it between innings. They felt like the game was playable and there shouldn't be an advantage to either club.  But it started to get ugly out there, that's when Jerry said, 'enough is enough.' "

There was a lot of bad weather is coming in.

The Reds know will resume pitching when the game is resumed at 5:30 on Tuesday but wouldn't make it public.

This is Bailey's third start of the season and none of them have been exactly pretty.

Although he struck out nine, he gave up eight hits and set a career-high with four home runs allowed.

"If I had the answer to what was wrong, I'd have fixed it," Bailey said. "I have to go back to the drawing board.  I am making some good pitches but every time I make a bad one, I end up paying for it."

"There was an inordinate amount of bad pitches by both teams," Price said.  "They have a good pitching staff too.  The Pirates weren't missing any and neither were we."

The combined 10 home runs, six by Pittsburgh and four by Cincinnati is a Great American Ball Park record.  It is the most since Detroit hit eight at Wrigley Field on June 18, 2006 and the Cubs belted three.