Kevin Newman hits 1 of Reds' 3 home runs to defeat Pirates

Rich Hill has stepped on and off too many pitching rubbers throughout his 19-season career to think about anything other than winning and losing.

Sure, he recorded his 1,300th career strikeout Saturday (1,301 by the time he left Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati).

Good for him, he retired 13 of the last 15 batters he faced, recording seven strikeouts and 4¹⁄₃ hitless innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But he walked away a 6-2 loser to the Reds, and that was all that mattered to the 43-year-old pitcher, now working for his 12th team.

His concern were the two homers and three runs he allowed in the first inning that turned out to be all the Reds (1-1) needed to give the Pirates their first loss of the season.

“This falls on me,” he said after the game on AT&T SportsNet. “I didn’t go out and execute in that first inning, and they did a good job of jumping all over my stuff. Unfortunately, that was the difference maker in the game. I have to be better moving forward. That first inning can’t happen. I can’t come out there and give up three runs.”

Relief pitcher Chase De Jong surrendered the Reds’ third home run of the day, a three-run shot by pinch-hitter Jake Fraley in the sixth inning that set the final score. Fraley struck out against David Bednar to end the Pirates’ victory in the opener Thursday.

Hill barely acknowledged his milestone strikeout.

“Winning is more important,” he said. “That’s an individual goal, and that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for this group and this team and for Pittsburgh, and I want to us to win.”

Hill has survived since his rookie season of 2005 using an effective mix of fastballs and curveballs. That carried him through most of the game, but he needed to get closer to perfection with the Pirates limited to two runs.

In the first inning, Jonathan India led off with a home run off an 85 mph 4-seam fastball, and former Pirates infielder Kevin Newman followed with a two-run homer — after Tyler Stephenson’s double — on a similar pitch clocked at 87 mph. Those homers erased an early 1-0 Pirates lead.

Newman’s home run in his first at-bat with the Reds was half of the two he hit for the Pirates in 78 games and 309 plate appearances last season. India’s blast was his eighth career leadoff homer, fourth all-time in Reds history behind Pete Rose (18), Kal Daniels (10) and Barry Larkin (9).

Pirates manager Derek Shelton, who will send Hill back to the mound Friday in the home opener against the Chicago White Sox at PNC Park, largely was pleased with his No. 2 starter’s outing.

“He was really effective. He bounced back, and he kept us in the game,” Shelton said. “He did a really good job of mixing and matching against a predominately right-handed lineup.

“He made two bad pitches early, but I thought other than that, he threw the ball pretty well. He uses his fastball and his curveball off each other, and the fact that he can change angles is really important. He can have a really lengthy career just because he knows how to execute pitches.”

Shelton was displeased, however, with his hitters’ approach at the plate after the fourth inning. Five Reds pitcher, including starter Nick Lodolo (nine strikeouts in five innings), retired the final 16 Pirates batters in a row. Of the game’s 27 outs, 12 were strikeouts.

“We had a couple opportunities to break the game open and didn’t capitalize on them,” Shelton said. “I thought we did a really good job for the first four innings with our approach, and we ran (Lodolo) up over 105 pitches in a shorter outing. After that, we got away from our approach and there were too many quick outs.”

The Pirates scored one run in the first on Connor Joe’s RBI single, but Rodolfo Castro struck out with the bases loaded.

In the third, Oneil Cruz drove in the Pirates’ final run with a single. Cruz is the first Pirates player since 2019 (Corey Dickerson) to record an RBI in each of the team’s first two games (total three).

Shelton was encouraged by Cruz’s two hits against Lodolo, a left-hander, even though the first was an infield dribbler clocked at 47.8 mph. Cruz has three hits in his first two games and six at-bats.

Cruz hopes to improve upon his left-on-left at-bats after hitting .158 in those situations last season.

“That’s something he’s going to continue to work on,” the manager said.