Reds Suffer Power Shortage At GABP, Nationals Sweep 7-1

For those of you who either witnessed the Cincinnati Reds game in person at Great American Ball Park or watched the game on MASN (Reds were not on TV), then you probably found out first hand that starting pitcher Edinson Volquez is not Superman – although you wouldn’t have known that based on his last start.

A nemisis of the Reds – and former player on the team – known by the name of Adam Dunn was, prior to the Nationals-Reds game Thursday, not getting many hits during this series.

Suffice it to say, he made up for it a little bit.

Dunn’s exclamation point would be a two-run home run – his only hit in the series. But the hit allowed Washington to make easy work of Cincinnati by the score of 7-1.

It was all Nationals in the early going as they drew first blood in the first inning via Ryan Zimmerman’s RBI groundout, giving Washington an early 1-0 lead.

The Nats would tack on two more in the second as their starting pitcher, Livan Hernandez, singled to shallow left, scoring Willie Harris; later on, Nyler Morgan would ground out, scoring Adam Kennedy and putting Washington up 3-0.

Washington would pile on in the third when Dunn homered, scoring Zimmerman while Kennedy singled to shallow center, scoring Harris and giving the Nationals all the runs they would need, taking a 6-0 into the fourth. Cincinnati’s only run was by way of a RBI fielders choice by Ramon Hernandez, scoring Orlando Cabrera.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, today wasn’t Volquez’s day as he went just 2 1/3 innings, giving up six runs on five hits, walking and striking out four while giving up a homer to Dunn.

Meanwhile, the Reds’ bats were churchmouse-quiet as they scraped up only seven hits – three by Cabrera and two by Jay Bruce.

Cincinnati now takes the trip to Texas and Minute Maid Park when they face the Houston Astros on Friday night. Travis Wood (0-1, 2,03 ERA) goes up against the Astros’ Bud Norris (2-7, 6.09 ERA).