Soler’s grand slam splurge

Jorge Soler turned a 3-1 game into a 10-1 game with one swing on Friday night, drilling a grand slam 417 feet at 110.4 miles per hour off a 98.0 mile per hour fastball in the eighth inning at Great American Ball Park. The Angels beat the Cincinnati Reds 10-2 after scoring five runs in that inning. (mlb.com) (espn.com) That blast came with two outs, which is what made it feel like a trapdoor opening under Cincinnati. A close game stayed close for seven innings, then disappeared in about 20 seconds. (mlb.com) (espn.com) The Angels had already done damage before Soler came up. Zach Neto and Josh Lowe both homered, and Los Angeles finished with 10 runs on 10 hits to snap a seven-game losing streak at the Reds’ park. (espn.com) Soler is not a table-setter type hitter. He is a 6-foot-3, 235-pound right-handed slugger whose job is to cash in the traffic other hitters create, and a bases-loaded fastball is exactly the kind of mistake that turns his night into the whole game. (baseball-reference.com) (mlb.com) The other half of the story was Jack Kochanowicz, the Angels starter, who gave up 1 run and 2 hits over 7 innings. When one team gets length from its starter and the other team is forced to watch the bullpen wear a crooked number, the scoreboard starts to look lopsided fast. (mlb.com) (espn.com) For Cincinnati, the ugly part was not just the final score. The Reds were down only 3-1 before that eighth inning, which means one bullpen collapse hid the fact that the game was still there to be taken deep into the night. (espn.com) For the Angels, a game like this can reset the feel of a series in one night. A club that had just been fighting through losses suddenly leaves with three home runs, a seven-inning start, and a grand slam clip that will replay far longer than the first seven innings lasted. (espn.com) (mlb.com)