LOS ANGELES – Maybe they can’t help themselves, these cockroaches from Cincinnati.
Because here they go again, backing themselves to the edge of the abyss, facing all-but-certain elimination in next day or two.
If the Cincinnati Reds are as resilient as they say they are, they have two days to prove it after their latest, season-crushing loss in the opener of their first full-season playoff appearance in more than a decade.
Twelve days after he twirled a one-hitter, Reds ace Hunter Greene couldn’t make it to the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 10-5 loss in Game 1 of the best-of-three Wild-Card Series.
The Reds, who adopted a cockroach-survival theme the final two weeks of the season before squeaking in on the final day, trailed four pitches into Greene’s outing when Shohei Ohtani belted a home run that left a vapor trail in the skies over right field.
Back-to-back one-out walks in the third were followed by a wild pitch and back-to-back home runs by Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman, making the rest of the game against Blake Snell and the Dodger bullpen a formality.
Reliever Scott Barlow took over for Greene to start the fourth.
Hernandez and Ohtani each added second homers off rookie reliever Connor Phillips in the fifth and sixth inning, turning this one into a laugher – as in the $350 million Dodgers laughing all the way to banking the first postseason win of their World Series title defense.
The Dodgers stretched it to 10-2 before the Reds batted around on the Dodgers bullpen, thanks to four walks, and scored three.
The Reds try to pull their season out of the fire one more time as the calendar flips to Oct. 1 with Zack Littell – the trade-deadline acquisition from Tampa Bay – starting against $300 million right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (9:08 p.m., ESPN).
At least Snell didn’t have no-hit stuff, right?
In his first start against the Reds since his no-hitter in Cincinnati as a Giant last season, Snell took his no-hit streak against them two outs deep into the third before Matt McLain doubled into the third.
It was the Reds’ first hit against Snell since Nick Senzel singled with two outs in the sixth on May 1, 2023, in Snell’s win over the Reds as a San Diego Padre.
He didn’t give up another hit until the seventh, his final inning. Back-to-back one-out singles by Austin Hays and Spencer Steer put runners at the corners and led to a pair of runs when Elly De La Cruz beat out the relay throw on a would-be double play, followed by Tyler Stephenson’s run-scoring double.
The Reds fell to 2-14 in playoff games since the last time they won a postseason series – a three-game sweep over the Dodgers in the first round in 1995.
The Dodgers’ five home runs tied their franchise postseason record (also Game 5s of both the 2020 and 2021 National League championship series).
Ohtani, who hit 55 home runs this season and heard chants of “MVP, MVP” each time he stepped to the plate, had a full house of three strikeouts and the two home runs – a reversal of season-long fortunes against the Reds.
No National League pitching staff contained Ohtani as effectively as the Reds staff, which in six games during the season held him to 3-for-25 (.120) production without a home run, along with four walks and seven strikeouts. He had a .160 slugging percentage and .401 OPS against the Reds in the six games.
