LOS ANGELES -- It's difficult to find a stat more disheartening than nine straight losses, but a total of six errors in a two-game span might just do it for the Reds.
The Reds' defense extended rallies and ultimately allowed the Dodgers to register their highest run total at Dodger Stadium for the season in an 8-2 loss Tuesday night.
"I'm at a loss for words at the moment. It's a rough stretch, it's been rough," manager Bryan Price said. "Nobody feels sorry for us, so we got to go out there and find a way to put something together and do something productive. Our job everyday is to try to play the game perfectly, which is impossible to do. But that's what we need to strive to do, and we're not remotely close at the moment."
Catcher Tucker Barnhart committed the first error of the night when he tried to throw out Joc Pederson stealing third, only for the throw to sail into the outfield and allow Pederson to score. That gave the Dodgers a 3-2 lead, and Price said there was no reason to throw because Pederson had a sizable jump.
Barnhart said after the game that aggressively throwing at stealing baserunners was part of his game, but he admitted that this time it had cost the team.
"To be honest, the last thing I'm worried about in my game is throwing," Barnhart said. "For me, throwing behind runners like last night and trying to throw guys out maybe when I shouldn't, that's my game. Tonight I should have ate that ball, but I can't not play my game. I've always tried to throw behind runners, throw guys out even when they get really good jumps and I probably should have held on to the ball."
In 73 games last season, Barnhart committed only two errors.
Fielding errors from Jay Bruce and Joey Votto, two normally strong defensive players, also allowed the Dodgers to tack on two more runs in the fifth. Price attributed the struggles to a team trying to do much in the face of its nine-game losing streak.
"I think everyone is pressing to do more than is necessary is what I see," Price said. "These types of environments create completely different sense of what we need to do to win a game, and it's not elevating ourselves above our ability. It's playing within our ability, playing the game the right way."