Christian Encarnacion-Strand stepped into the batter’s box in the Bottom of the 9th having yet to record a hit so far in the nascent 2024 Major League Baseball season. That became a footnote in a millisecond, though, as that was just about the amount of time it took for the meatball hurled his way by Washington Nationals reliever Kyle Finnegan to hit the seats beyond the left field wall for a Cincinnati Reds walk-off victory.
It was the kind of resilient day from the Reds in Great American Ball Park that was almost exactly the inverse of the energy in their bullpen implosion on Saturday.