MILWAUKEE – As if the Cincinnati Reds didn’t have enough trouble with the world-champion Dodgers this week, their late-night charter out of Los Angeles was forced to divert to Las Vegas because of engine trouble, which led to an unexpected layover at the Bellagio before resuming their travels on their scheduled off day.
Could have been worse, manager Terry Francona said.
“Can you imagine if we’d landed in, like, Pocatello, Idaho?” he said.
Or Milwaukee?
Yikes.
By the time the Reds eventually got out of Vegas and to their appointed destination, they rolled craps.
With a capital Crap.
In a game that looked like another unwatchable sequel to The Hangover, the Brewers cleaned out the visitors from Cincinnati in two innings flat on the way to a 20-0 blowout
over the Reds that clinched an eighth playoff berth in nine seasons for the Brewers – who are in position to clinch a fourth consecutive National League Central title as soon as Monday (Sept. 14).
This one went sideways so fast that Reds starter Andrew Abbott’s worst career start was over before the Reds had an eighth at-bat in the game.
The lefty faced 15 batters, nine of whom reached on hits and eight of whom scored – three on Brice Turang’s second-inning home run and two more on Jake Bauers’ homer three batters later.
Consider it a straight flush for Abbott.
By the end of the fifth inning, the Brewers had batted around twice and led 17-0.
Which might as well have been a well timed ad for the start of Bengals season.
How big was this outburst for this Brewers team this year?
The team that entered the day with the fewest home runs in the majors hit four of them in this game, including a first Milwaukee grand slam of the year, by Garrett Mitchell off Luis Mey in the fifth.
For the Reds it represented a second straight blowout loss to the two best teams in the league (including 14-1 to the Dodgers before the oil pressure dropped on the flight out of town).
The Reds fell to 0-4 during the six-game trip and to nine game under .500 this season, matching their low-water mark. With 15 games to play.
It left a team that entered with the season with some of the city’s highest playoff expectations in decades needing an 11-4 finish just to avoid a losing season.
It’s gotten so bad for this team since their free-fall from first place in early May that when Jose Trevino took the mound for the second straight game, the Reds’ catcher suddenly had two more pitching appearances this season than Hunter Greene.
And it got so bad on this night that the red-hot Elly De La Cruz didn’t even hit a home run.
That ended the franchise’s second-longest streak of games with a home run at five.
Joey Votto owns the Reds’ record with a seven-game streak in 2021 that just missed tying the MLB record of eight by a matter of inches on a drive to the top of the wall in New York.
De La Cruz struck out twice and walked in four trips to the plate on this night. On the ball he put in play, he hit a can of corn to left for the final out of the eighth inning.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Reds roll craps after detour through Las Vegas, routed by Brewers
