Pirates fall flat to Reds in front of sellout crowd; Hunter Stratton injured in freak collision

A sellout crowd of 38,137 packed PNC Park Saturday to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates take on the Cincinnati Reds after the club inducted Barry Bonds, Jim Leyland and Manny Sanguillen into their Hall of Fame.

In what ended as a 10-2 beatdown by the Reds, the pregame Hall of Fame festivities undoubtedly proved to be highlight of the day for the Pirates and their fans.

Saturday’s game certainly contained its wacky moments.

With things well out of reach, first baseman Rowdy Tellez was inserted on the mound to pitch the top of the ninth.

There were also scarier scenes, namely reliever Hunter Stratton getting carted off the field in the fourth inning following a violent collision into an unpadded, stone section of the backstop.

Following the game, the Pirates (61-68) announced Stratton suffered a left knee patella tendon rupture and was being examined by team doctors to determine the severity of the injury.

“He’s getting an MRI right now, but it did not look good,” manager Derek Shelton said after the loss. “I would say this is going to be significant time (out).”

Jake Woodford started for the Pirates and for the fourth straight game took a loss, allowing eight runs (seven earned) on seven hits, walking and striking out three before Stratton replaced him with an out in the top of the fourth.

Woodford (0-6, 8.01 ERA) walked Elly De La Cruz and Tyler Stephenson, both of whom came around to score, as the Reds put up four runs in the first inning.

Woodford let up an RBI single, RBI double and sacrifice fly before finally escaping the inning.

Tellez produced the only offense on the night for the Pirates, hitting his 11th homer of the year, a two-run shot in the second that made the score 4-2.

Tellez’s homer bounced into the Allegheny River, the 80th such occurrence in PNC Park history.

In the fourth, Woodford gave up four hits, with Will Benson and De La Cruz collecting RBIs.

At that point, Shelton yanked Woodford in favor of Stratton with Cincinnati up 6-2.

“Pretty bad,” Woodford said of his start. “Just wasn’t getting ahead, making adjustments quick enough. Just one of those days where it was bad, all the way around.

“Walks aren’t really a part of my game. Gave up three free passes tonight. A team like this likes to run, take the extra base. It was just one of those where stuff got sped up.”

That led into Stratton’s brutal injury.

With runners on second and third, on the fourth pitch against Stephenson, the first batter he faced, Stratton made a wild pitch.

Breaking for home was Jonathan India, who slid in safe, beating a throw from catcher Joey Bart to Stratton.

Stratton did not catch the toss, however, with the ball instead rolling all the way into the dirt section of the backstop.

Reading the play, De La Cruz, who began on second base, accelerated for home, at which point Stratton awkwardly fell into the wall while trying to retrieve the ball.

He immediately went down in visible pain and remained on the ground, attended by Pirates medical officials before a cart arrived to take him off the field.

Jalen Beeks finished the frame, with the Pirates trailing 8-2.

The Reds added a pair of runs in the sixth off Ben Heller, partially thanks to a fielding error by Bryan De La Cruz in right field.

Bryan De La Cruz suffered a miscue on an India single and made several other ill-advised throws back into the infield in the game that allowed Reds runners to advance.

The Pirates, who managed just three hits, committed two errors.

“We didn’t play good baseball tonight,” Shelton said. “We made baserunning mistakes, we made defensive mistakes — we didn’t play well.”

Reds starter Julian Aguiar (1-0, 3.60) was effective over six innings, picking up the win.

Shelton praised Tellez for stepping in and pitching the ninth, giving the bullpen a break in the blowout.

He threw five of his nine pitches for strikes and got Luke Maile to hit into a double play.

“It’s challenging because you’re talking about major-league hitters, and you’re talking about a position player (pitching),” Shelton said.

“It’s kind of a crapshoot, but he did a good job. He threw strikes. … The fact that he saved our bullpen an inning was important.”