Reds Erase Six-Run Ninth-Inning Deficit to Stun Giants 10-9

Teams that carry a six-run lead into the ninth inning win the overwhelming majority of the time in Major League Baseball — often cited as well above 99 percent. On Wednesday night at Oracle Park, the San Francisco Giants fell into the rare exception. The Cincinnati Reds scored seven runs in the top of the ninth, capped by a game-tying grand slam from Eugenio Suárez and a go-ahead pinch-hit single from Tyler Stephenson, to stun the Giants 10-9 and avoid a three-game sweep.

A six-run deficit erased in twelve minutes

Cincinnati trailed 9-3 heading into the ninth after San Francisco starter Logan Webb cruised through six innings and the Giants tacked on three more runs against Reds reliever Tony Santillan in the eighth. The inning began quietly enough — Héctor Rodríguez led off against reliever Spencer Bivens and drove a 115.2 mph missile 423 feet into McCovey Cove, his second home run of the game and the third splash hit by a Red at the ballpark. Elly De La Cruz singled, two walks loaded the bases, and San Francisco turned to Dylan Smith. Suárez met Smith's first offering and sent it 401 feet to left-center for a grand slam, pulling Cincinnati to 9-8 and emptying the bases in one swing, according to the box score and play log posted by ESPN.

The rally kept building. Dane Myers reached on an infield single that turned into a throwing error, Matt McLain beat out a bunt single and stole second, and Jose Trevino's sacrifice fly tied the score at 9-9. Stephenson, sent up to pinch hit for Austin Hayes, lined a single to left that scored McLain with what proved to be the winning run. Emilio Pagán worked around a leadoff single in the bottom of the ninth, striking out the final two Giants batters to close it out. The game took 3 hours, 15 minutes in front of 24,130 fans at Oracle Park, per MLB.com's game account.

Two clubs playing out the string

Neither team is chasing a playoff spot. The Reds improved to 63-71, sitting 20 games behind the National League Central lead and effectively eliminated from postseason contention, while the Giants fell to 55-79 and are 28 games back in the West. That backdrop made the ninth-inning theatrics more novelty than pennant drama, but it did little to dull the moment for the players involved. Adding an odd wrinkle to the night, Suárez and outfielder TJ Friedl had been placed on outright waivers by Cincinnati earlier in the week — a routine late-August roster move, not a designation for assignment — with both players clearing the 48-hour waiver period and remaining with the club, as first reported by MLB Trade Rumors. Suárez, who signed a one-year, $15 million deal to return to Cincinnati over the winter, has posted a modest .705 OPS this season, making his grand slam a rare highlight in an otherwise difficult year at the plate.

"He's got such good hitter's hands. If he can just relax and swing at strikes, he'll do some damage."

— Reds manager Terry Francona, on Héctor Rodríguez

Francona, whose club had trailed for nearly the entire game, was candid about how the game felt before it turned. "I'm just glad that they kept playing, because that was kind of not a fun day," he said afterward. Suárez described the dugout mood shifting the moment Rodríguez connected in the ninth: "That big homer by Héctor woke us up in the dugout. We've never seen a big homer like that." Rodríguez, a 24-year-old outfielder who tied the game earlier with a third-inning homer before his leadoff blast in the ninth, said he simply tried to stay within himself in the moment: "I just put in my mind that this is an opportunity I have and I have to take advantage of that."

The win keeps Cincinnati from finishing August with a sweep at the hands of a last-place team, a small measure of pride for a roster that has increasingly shifted its focus toward evaluating younger players like Rodríguez, De La Cruz and McLain down the stretch. The schedule does not get easier: the Reds move on to face the Chicago Cubs beginning Saturday, the first of a stretch that includes roughly 25 consecutive games against teams currently holding a playoff position, according to MLB.com's season outlook. San Francisco, meanwhile, will look to regroup under first-year manager Tony Vitello, who inherits a bullpen that has now blown a rare six-run, ninth-inning lead in his debut season on the job.

For a season with diminishing stakes on both sides, Wednesday's ninth inning offered a reminder of why box scores get checked to the final out. Six runs down with three outs left is a deficit teams overcome only a handful of times across a full major league season — and for one night in San Francisco, the Reds' bottom of the order turned a laugher into a leadoff story for the next 24 hours of sports radio.