Following an injury list stint with a mild teres major muscle strain, DeSclafani has pitched 11 scoreless innings over his two starts. Over his final eight starts of 2019, he had a 2.39 ERA.\n\n“He’s always been very, very nasty,” rotation mate
Reds pitchers lead the Majors with 176 strikeouts, including 12 from
DeSclafani smoothly moved through Milwaukee’s lineup following a one-out walk to Keston Hiura in the first inning and struck out the side in the second inning. After a leadoff single by Brock Holt for the Brewers’ first hit in the third inning, DeSclafani retired the next 10 batters in a row and had faced just one batter over the minimum overall.\n\nA two-out single by Eric Sogard in the sixth inning was the only other hit allowed by DeSclafani among his 88 pitches. One key to his success was a pitch he used the least -- the slider. But it got him four of his strikeouts.
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After Sogard’s hit, DeSclafani threw a 2-2 slider to Hiura to get a swinging strike three on the 87 mph pitch to end his night.\n\n“Heaters in, sliders away. It’s the same game plan with righties,” DeSclafani said. “It’s just trying to really make a good pitch and get out of that inning. I think that the pitch he swung and missed on was a cement-mixer slider. He was not looking for that at all, absolutely. I know hitters hate the cement mixer.”
The Reds’ rotation has a 2.30 ERA and has allowed a league-low five home runs in 15 games this season, but the club is still below .500 with a 7-8 record.\n\n“It's amazing to have a group of starters, really, that have consistently given us a chance to win every game,” Reds manager David Bell said. “You know they've done more than that. But even to have a chance to win each and every game based on the performance of your starters, any team dreams of that.
“The fact that they've done even more than that and stepped up and thrown shutdown innings and gone deep into the game, really, and in some cases have dominated, that really sets the rest of the team up for a lot of success.”\n\nCincinnati’s rotation -- led by Gray, Bauer and