Dateline: 318 Kilometers from the Gulf of Mexico
March 13 was a cloudy day, with light rain in the Valley of the Sun but it was nice and bright for Nick Lodolo.
The Athletics abused Evan Kravetz and Randy Wynn 11 runs in the ninth inning to post a 12-1 win but Lodolo was long gone by then.
The Reds’ lefty battling two years of freak leg injuries is past the tune up stage of syncing his motion and stuff. He is ready to compete and did just that against the Oakland Athletics.
Lodolo pitched four scoreless innings on three hits and a walk, one of the hits was an infield single in which Santiago Espinal made a diving stop behind second base off of Luis Urias’ bat.
Stuart Fairchild teamed with Espinal and Austin Wynns to erase Urias at the plate. Fairchild played Max Schuemann’s poke off the center field fence. He threw quickly to Espinal, who made a perfect relay to Wynns.
“I was running to back up home plate,” said Lodolo, the beneficiary of the play. “The ball was right on.”
“That play was fun to watch,” Francona said. .“At the time of the game, it’s zero, zero, there wasn’t much offense. We had just done that the day before (work on outfield relays). That was really well done.”
Lodolo went to the bullpen to throw more.
“I honestly don’t know how many pitches I threw. Maybe he wanted to get a five up down for next time,” Lodolo said.
At this point of the spring, his game has transitioned from the “getting ready” stage to the “competitive” stage.
“By this point, you get the feeling that things are moving in the right direction, it becomes more external and about attacking guys,” Lodolo said. “Early in the spring I was just trying to sync up.”
Francona had some observations of Lodolo.
“I thought he threw some really good breaking balls,” Francona said. “And you see his fastball creeping up as we get deeper into spring.”
Taylor Rogers, Ian Gibaut and Zach Maxwell turned in scoreless innings. Lenny Torres gave up a run on two hits and a walk to allow Oakland to tie the game in the seventh inning.
Hitting:
It was a light day for the Reds on offense with just five hits. Jake Fraley singled and stole second in the sixth. Jeimer Candelario singled him home. Santiago Espinal had a single and boosted his spring average to .321. Blake Dunn had an infield hit, beating out a ground ball to short. Dunn is hitting .296. Will Benson singled in the ninth inning.
Defense:
Aside from the really cool relay between Fairchild and Espinal to save Lodolo a run, Edwin Arroyo showed why the Reds are so high on his play at shortstop.
In the sixth inning Tyler Soderstrom hit a ground ball up the middle. As Arroyo reached for it, the ball took a bad hop. Arroyo quickly retrieved it in the air, wheeled and threw Soderstrom out by plenty.
“He can do some things,” Francona marveled.
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