Cincinnati's walk-off loss in San Diego capped off a 1-5 road trip.
The Cincinnati Reds left San Diego with another late lead gone, another series loss and another reminder of how difficult the past month has become. Terry Francona, however, wasn't interested in assigning blame.
The Reds watched a two-run lead disappear in the eighth inning before Fernando Tatis Jr. ended the game with a walk-off home run against Chase Petty in the ninth. It was another painful finish for a bullpen that has spent much of the season searching for answers, but Francona's postgame comments sounded far more focused on the people involved than the outcome itself.
"We're going to struggle. We're going to struggle together," said Francona via MLB.com. "We're going to figure it out together."
The Reds have now lost 10 of their last 13 games and have watched their bullpen become one of the biggest storylines behind the slide. Cincinnati entered Thursday with a 5.13 bullpen ERA, the second-highest mark in Major League Baseball. Wednesday only added to those frustrations.
JJ Bleday's seventh-inning home run and Eugenio Suárez's eighth-inning blast had positioned the Reds six outs away from a series victory. Instead, San Diego rallied against Caleb Ferguson and Tony Santillan before Tatis delivered the final blow against Petty.
Francona told reporters postgame that Petty knew before the game he would likely pitch the ninth inning and that the club specifically avoided bringing him into the middle of an inning, per MLB.com. The rookie starter-turned-emergency reliever was placed in a high-leverage spot largely because of circumstance.
To Francona, the result wasn't necessarily reflective of a terrible pitch.
"I actually didn't think he made a real bad pitch," Francona said, via MLB.com. "When the ball was hit, I was kind of looking at my lineup card like, okay, we're going to have an open base."
Instead, Tatis' line drive carried just over the left-field wall and turned another competitive game into another frustrating loss.
Francona acknowledged the results have not been good enough. He never tried to argue otherwise. What he pushed back against was the idea that a difficult stretch should suddenly change how the organization views the players involved.
"I'm not going to sit here and say a month ago I loved these guys, and now we've lost some games, I hate them," said Francona via MLB.com.
He pointed to Santillan as an example, noting the reliever had pitched three times in four days and still wanted the ball again Wednesday.
The standings reflect a team struggling to stay afloat. The bullpen numbers tell the same story. But after another late collapse, the Reds manager sounded far more concerned with preserving belief inside the clubhouse than dwelling on the latest loss.
The Reds will take an off day Thursday and look to take the belief from their manager into a three-game weekend series against the Diamondbacks. Nick Lodolo takes the mound for the Reds, while Arizona counters with Eduardo Rodriguez.
