Philadelphia 4, Cincinnati 3
When: 4:10 PM ET, Monday, April 3, 2017
Where: Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati, Ohio
Temperature:
68°
Umpires:
Home -
Tom Hallion, 1B -
Phil Cuzzi, 2B -
Victor Carapazza, 3B -
Mark Ripperger
Attendance:
43804
By The Sports Xchange
CINCINNATI -- The Philadelphia Phillies got power from a couple of unlikely sources -- shortstop Freddy Galvis and second baseman Cesar Hernandez -- to help spark an Opening Day win on Monday afternoon.
"The two littlest guys on the field," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. "We don't need power from the corners, we get our power from the middle infielders. It was good to see."
Hernandez led off the game with a homer, and Galvis added a solo shot in the second inning, lifting the Phillies to a 4-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds before 43,804 fans at Great American Ball Park.
Howie Kendrick went 3-for-5 with a double as Philadelphia roughed up Reds pitching with four doubles, a triple and the two home runs.
"We swung the bats real good," Mackanin said. "We said we wanted to grind out at-bats and not waste at-bats."
Right-hander Jeremy Hellickson (1-0) made his second straight Opening Day start for the Phillies at Cincinnati and allowed only one run and six hits in five innings.
Scooter Gennett, making his Reds debut, hit a two-run, opposite-field home run off Jeanmar Gomez in the ninth. Gomez picked up the save by retiring Billy Hamilton.
Monday's game featured rebuilding clubs with two of the youngest rosters in baseball.
Because of injuries in the rotation, 34-year-old right-hander Scott Feldman made his third career Opening Day start for Cincinnati. In 4 2/3 innings, Feldman (0-1) gave up three runs on seven hits with six strikeouts.
"He had a rough start with the home run(s) and they ended up scoring a couple in the first," Reds manager Bryan Price said. "One of the reasons we felt like Scott could handle that was that was one that could've gotten away from us and it didn't."
Adam Duvall went 2-for-4 with a double, and Jose Peraza also had two hits for the Reds.
Hellickson helped his cause with the bat in the sixth when his sinking liner skipped past right fielder Scott Schebler driving home Galvis. It was Hellickson's first career triple, but it also finished his outing.
"I'm never doing that again," Hellickson joked. "I'm stopping at second no matter what. Took me 30 minutes to get my wind."
Cincinnati couldn't break through despite loading the bases twice and left seven on base. The Reds were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
"Hellickson's a good pitcher," Price said. "He knows how to get pitches to the lower part of the zone. He knows how to get ground balls when he needs it."
Feldman labored through a 27-pitch first inning in which he allowed two runs and four hits.
Hernandez started things for the Phillies with his first homer since Aug. 20, 2016, a solo shot to right field. He hit just six homers in 547 at-bats last season.
"In December, I worked out," Hernandez said of his power. "They threw a couple pitches inside, so I was looking inside. I felt great."
Michael Saunders narrowly missed a home run to left-center, but settled for a RBI double to make the score 2-0.
"Anytime you don't make it through five, it's tough to pull any positives from it," Feldman said. "I just need to execute my pitches better."
Galvis, looking to build off a 20-homer season in 2016, gave Philadelphia a three-run lead with a solo home run with one out in the second.
Feldman was visited by trainers in the third after Kendrick's single struck one of his fingers, causing it to go numb briefly. Feldman later had a two-strike sacrifice bunt to set up Hamilton's sacrifice fly that produced the Reds' first run.
The lone concern for Philadelphia was Gomez's outing. He entered the game in the ninth with a 4-1 lead before allowing Gennett's homer.
Mackanin had left-hander Joely Rodriguez and right-hander Pat Neshek warming just in case.
"Just because he's the closer doesn't mean he can't be taken out if he's getting the ball up," Mackanin said. "He's not getting the ball down the way he did when he was successful. He's earned the right to have the opportunity to be the closer. I want to make sure he gets opportunities, but I don't want games to slip away."
NOTES: Reds LHP Bronson Arroyo threw a 90-pitch simulated game on Sunday and remains on track to start Saturday's game in St. Louis. He hasn't pitched in the big leagues since 2014. ... The Reds and Phillies met on Opening Day for the second straight year, the seventh time overall. Cincinnati is 4-3 in those games. ... RHP Jeremy Hellickson's triple was the first by a major league pitcher in an opener since the Giants' Jack Sanford in 1963.
Top Game Performances
Team Stats Summary
Team |
Hits |
HR |
TB |
Avg |
LOB |
K |
RBI |
BB |
SB |
Errors |
Philadelphia
|
10 |
2 |
22 |
.286 |
15 |
8 |
4 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
Cincinnati
|
9 |
1 |
15 |
.281 |
17 |
6 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |