It may be a little disingenuous to say that the defense struggled on Friday night, but an error did compound the problems for right hander Raisel Iglesias in the Cincinnati Reds spring training game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night.
Iglesias ran into trouble in the first inning as he allowed two home runs, a solo shot to Scooter Gennett and a 2-run show to Jonathan Lucroy. He settled down after that, getting two infield pop ups and a strikeout to end the inning. The second inning went smoothly as well, recording two strikeouts and a ground out in a quick 1-2-3 inning.
The third inning was another struggle though. Scooter Gennett led off the inning with a grounder to Brandon Phillips that he couldn’t handle. The error was followed up with a pop up, but Iglesias then balked the runner to second and a passed ball on Devin Mesoraco pushed the runner over to third. Jonathan Lucroy walked and Carlos Gomez followed with a double. Another walk and single brought in three runs on the inning, all unearned.
Iglesias returned for the fourth inning and it went rather smoothly as he got three ground outs in a row to make an easy inning, but with the long third inning that was the final inning that he threw on the night. His final line: 4.0 IP, 5 hits, 6 runs (3 earned), 2 walks, 2 home runs and 4 strikeouts. All of his outs were recorded by the strikeout or the groundout.
With the struggles on Friday and a strong outing by Michael Lorenzen on Thursday, things may come down to the next start for each to see who sticks around in the rotation as it seems that Jason Marquis is still locked in for a spot in the rotation to start the season, leaving one spot left for one of the rookies to take on.