Improbable rally falls short in Guardians' series-opening loss to Reds

CLEVELAND — It's tough to walk your way to a victory, but the Guardians nearly pulled it off Friday night at Progressive Field. Cleveland drew five free passes against two relievers to storm back in the eighth inning before the rally ran out of steam in a 7-6 loss to former manager Terry Francona and the Reds. Trailing 6-1 through seven innings, the Guardians pulled within a run on a sacrifice fly from Jose Ramirez in the eighth, but Chase DeLauter flied to left with two on to end the threat. The first three batters of the inning walked for Cleveland, which had four four-pitch walks during the rally. "Credit our guys, we fought until the end," manager Stephen Vogt said. "That could have easily been a game that we sit back (and accept the loss), but (we had) great at-bats in the eighth." Travis Bazzana had an RBI single during the eighth-inning uprising for his second hit and he worked double-digit pitch counts in two other at-bats. But as the potential tying run in the ninth, Bazzana grounded out sharply to second to end the game. Kyle Manzardo had scored after a one-out triple. The Reds made it 7-5 with a run in the top of the ninth. "I had a couple good at-bats," Bazzana said. "Missed a couple of pitches my first two, but it was nice to hit a couple balls at good angles on the button my last couple at-bats. But obviously, didn't come through in the last one, which was unfortunate, but it was overall a solid day at the plate." "Obviously, two hits, hit the ball hard there at the end," Vogt said. "I thought we had a number of guys that had really good at-bats tonight, but Travis, the at-bats have been very, very good versus left, versus right." Guardians starter Tanner Bibee deserved a better fate after allowing three runs — two in the second — on seven hits over a season-high 6 2/3 innings. "I thought they really made him work there with the second inning. He threw 30 pitches, but seven pitches in the first and he had so many efficient innings," Vogt said. "I thought they strung some hits together, but he limited damage there, kept us in the game. I thought Tanner threw outstanding, 6 2/3, three runs, that's enough to help us win. He did his job." "I think we were in a rhythm the entire time except for the second inning, which is just me not getting the ball in the zone, honestly," Bibee said. "I thought we kind of knew what we wanted to do." Bibee, who has received two or fewer runs of support in nine straight outings and one or fewer in eight of his 10 starts, remained winless with a 4.15 ERA. Outside of one bad outing in Atlanta on April 12 — eight earned runs on 11 hits over 4 2/3 innings — he has been effective enough to win each time out. "It's been good," Bibee said of his last month-plus. "I feel like there's obviously some stuff that I want to work on. There's some stuff that I feel like I need to know that I'm doing well and kind of own that, too. But, yeah, it's been good to go deep into games to get the quality starts. That's always solid." Rhys Hoskins' leadoff homer in the sixth accounted for the Guardians' only run through seven innings and snapped a 21 2/3-inning scoreless streak for left-hander Andrew Abbott. He allowed a run on four hits over five innings. "I thought we made Abbott work. We couldn't square him up necessarily," Vogt said. "It was good to see (Hoskins) turn around a fastball for a homer, but we made him work. I felt like we had really good at-bats." Batting second for the second straight game after hitting third all season, Ramirez had three of his team's eight hits. He entered the day with a .207 average. Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.