Dateline: Cincinnati
Finally with good weather while he was on the mound, Andrew Abbott pitched as well as he ever has. The problem was the Reds' anemic offense mounted no threat at all as the Reds fell to the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0.
Abbott handled every other batter in the Cardinals' lineup but Masyn Winn, who had two doubles (although one was truly a foul ball) and a home run.
The home run would be enough as the Reds have scored one or fewer runs in six of their last 10 games.
In his last three starts, Abbott had to deal with oppressive heat, and heavy rain. He handled each but couldn't survive the lack of run support.
Abbott threw strikes on his first 17 pitches.
"That was the mission tonight to be in the zone," Abbott said. "Get ahead of guys and make them swing at what I want to throw, when I want to throw it. Me and (acting pitching coach Matt) Tracy talked about that this week. I was behind in the count a lot this year and got hurt with the ball in the zone. They can't take a pitch off. They have to be ready to hit."
The Cardinals' Kyle Leahy and the Reds' Abbott traded zeroes until Masyn Winn hit his fifth home run of the season in the fifth inning.
"It was a cutter in. It was a pretty good pitch. You have to tip your hat," Abbott said.
Winn had the first two Cardinals' hits. He hit a double in the second inning.
Leahy gave up singles to Sal Stewart, Ke'Bryan Hayes and Dane Myers in his five innings. He didn't walk a better and struck out six before turning the game over to Ryan Stanek. Leahy won for the 10th time this season.
"We did a good job of getting his pitch count up but didn't have anything to show for it," Terry Francona said. "It was frustrating."
Winn doubled with one out in the seventh inning and scored on a double by Jose Fermin. Abbott was relieved by Zach Maxwell after Fermin's double.
"The ball was foul. I came in and looked at it. I'm not sure if you can challenge it or not," Abbott said.
He pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on four hits with two walks and six strikeouts.
"I thought Abbott was really good," Francona said. "He gave up a solo home run to win but he was in the strike zone with all his pitches. We've got to find a way to score some runs for him."
Maxwell gave up a bloop single to Pedro Pages but retired the last two batters to strand the runners.
Jordan Walker led off the eighth with an infield single. Alec Burleson belted a double to the gap in left center to put runners on second and third with no outs. Joshua Baez drove in the Cardinals' third run with a fly out to center. Maxwell finally got Winn out on a routine fly to right to end the inning.
The Cardinals bullpen pitched four innings of hitless baseball.
Riley O'Brien pitched a perfect ninth for his 32nd save.
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