Gordon WittenmyerCincinnati Enquirer
SEATTLE – After a three-day bye in Chicago over the weekend, the Cincinnati Reds resumed the major-league portion of their season Monday only to watch their Opening Day starter labor through one of the shortest starts of his career.
Three batters into Frankie Montas’ start, the Reds trailed by three in a game they eventually lost 9-3 to open a three-game series against the Mariners in Seattle.
Montas, who missed nearly all of last season because of shoulder surgery, said nothing was wrong physically on a night he matched his 2019 career-high with five walks in a start that lasted only two-plus innings and 13 batters.
“My arm is good,” he said. “It’s one of those days you don’t have your best stuff working for you, and I was trying to go as long as I could.”
Montas, who looked great through two starts for the Reds, needed a whopping 45 pitches to get through a four-walk first inning, with Nick Martinez warming in the bullpen by the end of the inning.
“Today wasn’t my day,” he said. “Just got to put that in the past and flip the page, and continue working and get ready for the next time they give me the ball.”
Two of the three hits he allowed were home runs, including one to Mariners’ No. 3 hitter Jorge Polanco in the first, after issuing a pair of walks to start his outing.
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“Frankie from the very beginning wasn’t able to find the strike zone, which is very uncharacteristic,” manager David Bell said. “Frankie’s a strike thrower. You could tell right form the beginning it wasn’t going to be his night.”
The last time Montas had a start as short as Monday’s was July 3, 2022, with the Oakland A’s, also in Seattle, where he went just one inning and exited with tightness in the back of his shoulder. He spent the next 17 days on the injured list.
The shoulder sidelined him the final two weeks of that season, too, and Montas missed all of last season except for a brief relief appearance on the final weekend after recovering from February surgery on it.
“He feels great. His arm feels great,” Bell said. “There’s things that pop up in the season, whether (adverse) travel or you don’t feel great or whatever. But overall he feels good, his arm feels great, and after a game like that, for me, that’s all I care about — make sure he’s healthy and feeling good at the end of the night.”
Said Martinez: “Frankie’s a vet. No worries there. Just one of those games.”
Martinez, the starter-turned-reliever-for-a-week, provided a rare highlight for the Reds when he took over for Montas and retired the first nine swing-loving Mariners he faced before giving up a run in the sixth. This after having eight days off since he started April 6, including a couple of days sidelined by illness over the weekend in Chicago.
“Nick just two days ago was really sick. He wasn’t even at the ballpark,” Bell said. “So he came out tonight and did exactly what we needed in that situation and pitched really good like he has (since) spring.”
The 56-pitch effort over four innings keeps Martinez stretched out for a possible return to the rotation, something the Reds have tried to keep available as an option as they look ahead at relievers Ian Gibaut and Sam Moll nearing returns from the injured list.
“I’ve talked about this before: I just view myself as a pitcher,” Martinez said, “and take it one pitch at a time, whether relieving or starting. I don’t really change my mindset.”
After sweeping a two-win White Sox team with statistically the worst lineup in the majors, the Reds looked to ride that wave into Seattle against a team that also has been struggling despite high expectations coming in.
The Mariners haven’t won a series this year and had lost their previous two straight and eight of 11 entering the Reds series — then scored more Monday than they had in their previous three games combined (seven).
“With a team like that, they were kind of scuffling, and you know they weren’t going to be scuffling the whole year,” Martinez said.
A pair of RBIs by Jake Fraley on a fourth-inning double and seventh-inning homer helped keep the Reds within an extended rally of catching the Mariners — until Buck Farmer gave up three in the Mariners seventh.
The Reds fell to 2-8 all-time in Seattle, 5-17 overall against the Mariners.
They’ve won only one of seven series against the M’s — last September in Cincinnati.
