Reds lose lead in seventh, Padres spoil Andrew Abbott’s strong outing

The Reds carried a one-run lead into the seventh inning on Monday night, leaning on Andrew Abbott to close things out. Abbott had already cleared the 90-pitch threshold with 93 through six, and he had been efficient enough to retire 12 of the last 13 batters he faced, including a stretch of 10 straight outs. When manager Terry Francona decided to keep his starter in for the seventh, it was an aggressively sensible call, grounded in Abbott’s command and Cincinnati’s need to end a longer losing stretch.

Francona, speaking after the game, said he believed Abbott “definitely deserved to go back out” and that he “pitched really well.” The seventh inning answered that praise with a reminder that baseball can turn on consecutive hitters and a couple of routine plays. According to MLB’s account, the Padres scored two runs after back-to-back doubles off Abbott to start the bottom of the inning, and the inning worsened with a defensive breakdown on three straight bunts.

Abbott’s afternoon ended after the damage swelled. Over his six-plus innings, he gave up three earned runs and four hits while issuing two walks and striking out six. Cincinnati ultimately lost 6-2, handing the Reds their fifth straight defeat. For Abbott, it was a quality-start performance on the surface that did not survive the seventh-inning volatility.

Part of the story starts earlier, when Abbott surrendered the game’s first clear swing. In the third inning, MLB reported that Abbott left a 1-1 curveball up to Freddy Fermin, and the No. 9 hitter launched it into left-center for a leadoff homer. After that mistake, Abbott settled, allowing only one more baserunner until the seventh arrived.

Abbott described the homer as an execution issue. He said he “misexecuted a pitch to Fermin for the homer,” but also argued that he threw a lot of strikes and “kind of limited the ability for them to produce runs, kept them off the basepaths.” That framing mattered because, even as the Reds offense carried some of the responsibility for turning the game, San Diego’s run production has been among the weakest in MLB, which made Cincinnati’s failure to break through all the way more notable.

Cincinnati did manage to keep the Padres starter, Walker Buehler, working. MLB’s report noted that the Reds lineup continued to pressure Buehler, including a two-out ground-rule double by JJ Bleday in the fifth inning. Still, once the seventh inning began swinging against Cincinnati, the combination of extra bases and a messy sequence of bunts shifted leverage away from the Reds bullpen.

For the Reds, the immediate takeaway is less about Abbott’s workload and more about the razor-thin margin at this stage of the season. When a team is already dealing with a run-scoring and run-prevention gap, late-inning collapses do not stay isolated. For Abbott, the focus now turns to how quickly he can put this one on the tape, because MLB also reported that he has posted a 2.48 ERA over his last seven starts, suggesting this outing, while costly, fits within a broader recent pattern of strong starting pitching.

What to watch next is whether Cincinnati can stabilize the late innings after this kind of seventh-inning swing. With games at Petco highlighting how quickly defensive and baserunning details can compound, the Reds will likely have to look at how they protect leads once starters hit the third time-through point and leverage shifts toward setup and closer roles.