As Reds' skid hits 4, Francona implores team to 'run the bases with your pants on fire'

ST. LOUIS – The Reds knew leaning on their bullpen was going to be the only way they were going to escape from Busch Stadium with a victory and avoid being swept on Sunday afternoon. They had a shot late with the game tied, but when Sam Moll fielded a bunt and sailed a throw up the third-base line, their hopes for the day followed in its wake.

Moll took the loss for a second consecutive game as the Reds fell 5-3, surrendering a sweep to the Cardinals and continuing a difficult stretch that has been made more challenging by an inability to hold games in the late innings. As a unit, Cincinnati’s bullpen allowed 13 runs (11 earned) in 12 innings this weekend, proving too tall an order to overcome.

“Today was the exact opposite for me [from Saturday] when it came to executing pitches,” Moll said. “I didn’t execute many at all, didn’t really have a good feel for anything. Kind of the opposite yesterday where it was just one pitch [to Lars Nootbaar], and then today was a bunch of pitches just not executed.”

En route to failing to record an out in Sunday’s eighth inning, Moll allowed two hits and a walk in addition to the aforementioned throwing error. Victor Scott II bunted the ball back to him firmly, and with a desire to cut off the lead run (and in deference to Scott’s impressive speed), the Reds opted to field the play aggressively. A good throw likely would have forced St. Louis shortstop José Fermín at third; instead, he trotted home with the go-ahead run.

“We were ultra aggressive,” manager Terry Francona explained. “We needed to be, and he knew it. He just didn’t throw it where he needed to.”

Rhett Lowder had to grind through three innings in his return from the injured list, starting for the first time in the Majors since May 7. He took 70 pitches to record nine outs and pitched around five walks and a hit-by-pitch, stranding the bases loaded in the first and leaving two men on in the second and third. He managed to turn over a clean sheet to Caleb Ferguson, who handled the fourth without incident.

“Gotta get ahead and throw strikes, but battled through it,” Lowder acknowledged. “I gotta keep them off the board, but I gotta get ahead.”

Chris Paddack made his first appearance from the Reds’ bullpen and surrendered three runs in his first inning of work. Francona acknowledged that it was a challenging assignment for Paddack, who has largely been a starter in his career and who hadn’t pitched since May 29. He was bumped from the rotation as a result of Lowder’s return.

“I don’t usually plan through it pregame,” Francona said of his pitching deployment, having acknowledged before the game that the club would not likely push Lowder to his limit. “You don’t know how the games are going to go. If the game would’ve gone according to plan, we would’ve used all three of our lefties [Ferguson, Moll, seventh-inning reliever Brock Burke] and finished the game. That wasn’t going to work, obviously.”

Matt McLain belted his seventh and eighth career homers against the Cardinals – twice as many as he has against any other team – which was small comfort given the deflating sweep.

For McLain, the multi-homer game was the second of his career and his second this season, having also put up two on April 24 against the Tigers. His 15 RBIs against St. Louis are also his largest total against any opponent. McLain is doing his best to stake claim to an earned reputation as a tough out for a division rival, though he dismissed the weighted distribution as the result of, “baseball, just baseball.”

The sweep continues a stretch of losing which has dropped the Reds two games below .500 for the first time in 2026. They’ve now dropped four straight, five of six and eight of ten, tumbling to last place in the NL Central. Francona spoke briefly to his team after the game, encouraging them to keep their heads and energy high as they depart for a series in San Diego, rather than walking around the clubhouse “like a morgue.”

“When it’s the hardest to believe, you have to,” Francona exhorted. “When there’s doubt, you’ve got to believe in each other and pick each other up. I told them, man, run the bases with your pants on fire and don’t leave anything on the field. I believe that’s not just the best way – it’s the only way we’re going to get where we want to go.”