Steer, De La Cruz Power Cincinnati Past Colorado 7-2

Spencer Steer went 2-for-4 with two home runs and three RBI, and Elly De La Cruz went 4-for-5 with a home run as Cincinnati dismantled Colorado 7-2 on July 18. Brady Singer made it look easy behind them, throwing seven innings of four-hit, two-earned-run ball without issuing a single walk.

The Reds grabbed the lead in the first inning when Sal Stewart doubled to left, scoring De La Cruz. Colorado answered in the fifth on a Johnston sacrifice fly that plated Karros to tie it at one. That's when the game was still a contest — and it wouldn't stay that way for long. In the sixth, Steer unloaded a 404-foot shot to left that also scored Bleday, pushing Cincinnati to a 3-1 lead. That swing knocked Colorado's win probability from 52% to 27%, a 25-point collapse in a single at-bat. Eugenio Suarez followed immediately with a 415-foot solo shot to left, and just like that it was 4-1 Cincinnati and the Rockies were staring down a deficit they had no answer for.

The seventh inning piled on. Stewart added a sacrifice fly to center that scored Hayes, extending the lead to 5-1. Colorado got one back when Willi Castro hit a 382-foot homer to left — the lone bright spot in an otherwise bleak night for the home side — but that was as close as it would get. Steer came back up in the eighth and hit his second home run of the night, a 421-foot shot to center, making it 6-2. De La Cruz put the exclamation point on the evening in the ninth with a 434-foot blast to center, the longest of the night, capping the scoring at 7-2. Four different Reds hit home runs. The ball was leaving the yard in bunches, and Colorado had no mechanism to keep up.

The story of the night was the one-two punch of Steer and De La Cruz, who combined for six hits, three home runs, four RBI, and four runs scored. Singer's line — seven innings, four hits, two earned runs, zero walks, six strikeouts — looks like the performance of a pitcher who was in complete control from the first pitch. Brock Burke and Tejay Antone each threw a clean inning in relief, each allowing one hit and striking out one, to close it out. Gabriel Hughes gave Colorado 5.1 innings and matched Singer's six strikeouts, but the two-run, two-walk line tells the real story: Cincinnati's lineup found the gaps and then found the seats. This appears to be a Cincinnati offense operating at a high level, and Colorado's pitching staff had no answer once the Reds got rolling in the sixth.