Up, up and 2-way: Reds’ Lorenzen does it all

PITTSBURGH -- Michael Lorenzen was in position to accomplish another unique feat for the Reds Friday as a relief pitcher and starting center fielder against the Pirates.

With three strikeouts in his first three plate appearances, Lorenzen wasn’t having a good night at the plate as the center fielder. But as Cincinnati’s reliever, he had a fantastic night. After taking over on the mound in the seventh, Lorenzen pitched two scoreless innings and was in line for a win after his RBI single in the eighth inning scored the go-ahead run.

But closer Raisel Iglesias blew the save and lost the game, 6-5, on Kevin Newman’s two-out, two-run walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth at PNC Park. It extended Iglesias’ club record for relievers with his 12th loss of 2019.

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“Obviously, 12 losses this season, I feel really responsible for that,” Iglesias said through translator Julio Morillo. “I think if we would’ve won those games, we’re probably playing for a Wild Card or something right now.”

Reds manager David Bell has utilized Lorenzen in both pitching and outfield roles throughout the season but didn’t give him any starts in center field until this month. Friday marked his sixth start at the position, but it was the first time he started in the outfield and came into the same game to pitch.

“Just felt like, honestly, college again,” said Lorenzen, who was once an All-American center fielder and closer at Cal State Fullerton. “I feel fine, which is promising for the last series of the season. … It’s a dream come true, for sure. Disappointed with the loss, so it’s hard for me. To be honest, it really is hard for me to take it in and think about it in a good way right now. I had a blast while I was doing it.”

Lorenzen struck out in the second, fourth and sixth innings. At the end of the bottom of the sixth, he didn’t go to the dugout and instead turned and went into the bullpen to warm up to pitch the bottom of the seventh.

“It worked out where we were in our order, he could go straight to the bullpen,” Bell said. “If we had gotten another runner or two on, he would have had to run in from the bullpen to hit. It was good to see. He handled it really well.”

Lorenzen replaced Robert Stephenson for the seventh and recorded two routine outs before Adam Frazier was hit by a pitch. While José Osuna batted, catcher Curt Casali threw out Frazier trying to steal second base to end the inning. In the bottom of the eighth, Lorenzen retired the side in order with one strikeout on a 98-mph fastball to Kevin Kramer.

One plus of being a two-way player for Lorenzen: there are multiple ways he can contribute, even when things aren’t going well in one dimension of his game.

“I had some adrenaline, too, because of my first three at-bats. In college, my college coach always brought that up,” Lorenzen said. “Whenever I made an out before I pitched, my best stuff came out. I had that adrenaline going while I was warming up, so I warmed up pretty quickly. I felt good. I felt normal on the mound.”

Against Pirates lefty reliever Francisco Liriano, José Iglesias opened the eighth inning with a single and Casali walked. In a 1-1 count, Lorenzen saw his third fastball of the at-bat from Liriano and bounced an RBI single through the middle past Newman at shortstop to score Iglesias.

Entering the at-bat, Lorenzen was 1-for-19 in games when he was in the starting lineup. When he got on first base, he looked immediately to the bullpen.

“You have to celebrate with the bullpen,” Lorenzen said. “At first, they’ve been getting on me for it because I’ve just been so locked in that I forget. I was interacting with them all game in center field, so that was the first thing I thought about was celebrating with them.”

With two outs and a man on third base in the bottom of the ninth, Iglesias threw two sliders to Newman for a 1-1 count. On a third-straight slider, Newman cleared the left-field fence. The homer gave Iglesias his sixth blown save in 40 chances.

“You never know when a hitter is expecting a pitch,” Iglesias said. “I just think it was a slider that caught too much of the plate, up in the zone, a really good pitch for a hitter to handle.”

Thus it was a missed win for Lorenzen, who had already changed the record book once this season. In a Sept. 4 victory over the Phillies, he joined Babe Ruth in 1921 as the only two Major League players in the Modern Era to earn the win, hit a home run and play the outfield in the same game.

In 72 games as a reliever, Lorenzen has a 2.95 ERA and his two-way skills have allowed him to appear in 103 of Cincinnati’s 160 games this season. He’s played 17 games in center field, eight in left field, four in right field, plus 13 games as a pinch-runner and six as a pinch-hitter.

“Going into next season, it helps us just to know having him do all this, get through this physical fine, it gives us a lot more confidence,” Bell said. “What a game.”