Reds have their own lineup screwup against Dodgers

Tom Gatto

Reds have their own lineup screwup against Dodgers image

The Reds must have felt inspired enough by the Mets batting out of order against them this week to have their own lineup snafu Friday night — and on the night Matt Harvey made his Reds debut, no less.

Cincinnati lost two starting outfielders on a double switch after Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pointed out a mistake to the umpiring crew.

Roberts raised the issue one pitch after Reds manager Jim Riggleman brought in reliever Amir Garrett and outfielder Adam Duvall at the same time with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. 

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Duvall was supposed to replace left fielder Jesse Winker, but he instead replaced right fielder Scott Schebler. Winker remained in the game, at least for that one pitch, after moving from left to right (Duvall stayed in left).

Roberts showed his lineup card to plate umpire Alan Porter, who called over fellow ump Angel Hernandez, and the two spoke with Riggleman. A minute or so later, after all four umpires had convened, a confused Winker came out of the game when Hernandez motioned to him to come in. The Reds then replaced Winker with infielder Alex Blandino, who had never played the outfield in the majors before.

Riggleman didn't keep Blandino out there for the eighth inning; he flopped him and shortstop Jose Peraza, who does have outfield experience. (Um, why not do that at the time Blandino entered? We digress.) 

The double-switch mistake may have been caused by a miscommunication between Riggleman and bench coach Pat Kelly. Fox Sports Ohio's Jim Day reported from the Reds' dugout that as the umpires were meeting with Riggleman, the manager told Kelly, "I wanted Winker out of the game."

UPDATE: Schebler played a role in the miscommunication, too, according to C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic:

UPDATE 2: Riggleman said in a postgame interview with Fox Sports Ohio that he didn't realize Schebler had mistakenly come off the field until Roberts alerted the umpires (go to 1:49 of the video below for the explanation). 

"I don't think I've ever seen that happen, to tell you the truth," Riggleman said with a slight laugh.

"It was a mess," he added.

The good news for the Reds: They didn't lose any outs on offense, as the Mets did after the wrong lineup was posted in their dugout.

Better news for the Reds: Harvey allowed one hit (a triple that two Reds outfielders lost in the evening twilight) and no walks over four shutout innings in his first start for them.

"Unfortunately, I was only able to go out there for four innings because I haven't started in a while (his last Mets start was April 26 in Atlanta), but you know, it was good to get my feet wet and help this team win," Harvey told reporters, per MLB.com.

The best news for the Reds: They won the game 6-2 and extended their winning streak to four games. They're 4-0 in the Matt Harvey Era.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.