Bleday Bombs One, Williams Implodes: Reds Blank Cleveland 2-0
Gavin Williams struck out 12 batters in 7 innings and still lost. Two runs — one earned off a homer, one gifted by his own wild pitch — were all Cincinnati needed.
The story of the night was a pitcher doing almost everything right and walking away with nothing. Williams went 7.0 innings, allowed just 3 hits and 1 walk, and punched out 12 Cleveland hitters. That is a performance that wins most baseball games. It did not win this one, because the two times Cincinnati actually scored, Williams was directly responsible for both.
The first damage came in the first inning, when JJ Bleday turned on a pitch and drove it 381 feet to right for a solo home run. That swing moved Cincinnati's win probability from 53% to 64% — an 11-point lurch that, in a game this tight, looks like it was the whole ballgame in one cut. Bleday finished 1-for-3 with the homer, the RBI, and the run — accounting for half of Cincinnati's entire offensive output. The second run arrived in the fifth inning without a bat doing any of the work: Dane Myers scored on a Williams wild pitch, with Ivan Johnson advancing to third on the same errant delivery. Cincinnati did not need to manufacture anything. Williams handed it over.
On the other side of the ledger, Cincinnati's pitching staff was a patchwork that held. Jose Franco started and went 3.2 innings, allowing just 1 hit with 0 earned runs. Tejay Antone followed with 1.1 innings of hitless, walkless work, adding 2 strikeouts. Cleveland's offense — which managed hits from Travis Bazzana, Gabriel Arias, and Austin Hedges — could not string anything together against that rotation of arms. The Guardians went 0-for-the-night when it mattered, finishing with a goose egg despite putting the ball in play. Daniel Espino, who came on in relief for Cleveland, was sharp — 1.0 inning, no hits, no earned runs, 3 strikeouts — but by then the deficit was already set and the offense gave him nothing to work with. Cincinnati wins 2-0, and it appears the Reds needed exactly as many runs as they scored to get the job done. Not one more.