MIAMI -- It’s no secret the Reds are tenacious. Jake Fraley has talked about it before -- that next-man-up mentality. Starter Graham Ashcraft described that grittiness, an attitude that comes from the group of players and coaches Cincinnati has assembled.
On Friday night, it was that ability to grind late in games that shined as Fraley hit a go-ahead three-run ninth-inning homer to secure a 7-4 win in the series opener vs. the Marlins at loanDepot park. It was Fraley’s second homer of the game, mere innings after he went all-out for a fly ball in foul territory in the fifth and slammed into the left-field-corner wall.
“That looked ugly, when he dove, went all out for the ball and rammed something into the wall,” manager David Bell said. “He still hasn't really told us -- he didn't want to let us know what hit the wall.
“But … that’s just it's what it's all about, you know? Watching players giving everything they have and competing to win a baseball game. ... [Fraley] probably could have come out of the game right there ... [but] he stayed with it and ended up winning the game.”
With runners on the corners and one out, Fraley roped a 92.8 mph four-seam fastball a Statcast-projected 392 feet. The pitch was a perfectly placed mistake from Marlins reliever Dylan Floro, right down the middle. It was exactly what he had been looking for. And instead of letting the gravity of the moment get to him, Fraley settled in.
“[There’s] a statement that I actually reiterate to myself whenever I'm in situations like that,” Fraley said. “Obviously, I know it's a big situation in the game, in tonight's game, and I did it in the on-deck circle there. Everybody likes to think that you rise to the occasion; I remind myself that, you know, I don't rise to the occasion. I stick to my habits and my training. And, for me, that kind of brings me to a place of comfort and peace, because I know I put in the work.
“It just allows me to kind of be in that moment. … I don't have control of the outcomes. This game is tough. It's the big leagues [and] we're facing some really good pitchers. And I just think little things like that, I just reiterate to myself and make sure that my mindset’s in that place. It kind of keeps it from spiraling out and trying to do too much in those moments.”
Fraley likes to describe the Reds’ next-man-up mentality as an “X-factor,” but for him, that self-talk is an X-factor in itself. Of late, Fraley has proven clutch in key moments. There was Friday’s game-winning blast. There was his go-ahead two-run double on April 29. And there was his bases-clearing three-run double on April 9.
Fraley started the season hot, then cooled off in the middle of April; his average dipped to .197 on April 23. Since then it’s steadily climbed to .260, while Fraley is already hitting .348 (8-for-23) in the month of May.
“He's having great at-bats, and he's not afraid of any situation,” Bell said. “He wants to be up. [The] at-bat before [his ninth-inning homer], facing a tough lefty, he puts it in play, beats it out. He just wants to be in the game and it's so much fun watching him play that way. He's putting absolutely everything he has into it. He's talented, good things continue to happen for him.”
Part of grinding through games also has to do with rebounding from miscues and misplays, though. Fraley is no stranger to that, either. In the fourth inning, he missed the cutoff man on a double from Bryan De La Cruz and allowed a run to score that tied the game 1-1.
But neither that play nor crashing into the wall in the bottom of next inning stopped him. In the top of the fifth, Fraley hit his first homer of the night, a leadoff blast to right-center that gave Cincinnati the lead again. Then, that ninth-inning jack. It marked his first career multi-homer game and tied his career-high single-game RBIs with four.
“The guys we have, they're doing it. They're recognizing it. They're celebrating it, talking about it,” Bell said of the team’s grit. “It's a great identity to have, but it all comes from who they are, who each and every coach and player is. They're going out and -- you have to do it on the field. It very easily can become talk. So you have to go out and do it, and that's that's what I'm seeing.”